John Berg's Music Page
I like to play the recorder, both solo and as a member of
Ensemble
128: Joan Beskenis, Gony Halevi, Mark Maiden, and me. We meet every
week with our coach, Chris
Rua.
You can find out more about recorder playing from the
American Recorder Society and its local affiliate here in Boston, the
Boston
Recorder Society. For lots more information about recorders,
take a look at the Recorder
Home Page maintained by Nicholas S. Lander. There is also The
International RECORDER PAGE of Bob Redman. Moving beyond the
recorder, the Early Music Boston
page offers a central location for information about early music activities
in the Boston area; R&B:
Early Music Links - Index, maintained by the Renaissance & Baroque
Society of Pittsburgh, offers a large number of early music links.
The The Boston Early Music Festival
& Exhibition site is a tremendous source both for the concerts
the BEMF sponsors and their biennial festival and exhibition, one of the
great early music events of the world.
Here are some online resources for concerts in the Greater
Boston area:
-
Boston Early
Music News, edited by Sheila Beardslee Bosworth, sheilab@tiac.net,
is a calendar of early music performances throughout New England.
-
Handel
and Haydn Society, a superb chorus and period orchestra, provides not
only their schedule but online ordering, sound clips, and much other information
on their webpage; it is available in English, Japanese, French, and Spanish.
-
Revels, Incorporated produces a variety of performance/ritual events,
most notably the Christmas Revels. In the words of Susan
Cooper, "The Revels is an answer to that submerged yearning for ritual,
and for the marking of ancient landmarks in human life, which lies very
deep in all of us."
-
And, of course, there
is the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
-
ing's
Chapel in Boston offers free half-hour concerts every Tuesday at 12:15
(they do have a voluntary collection basket) and longer concerts on Sundays.
And here are some places to buy recorders (and other early music
instruments, music, etc.):
The closest I have ever come to making an instrument
is putting together a crumhorn from a kit--a project I have not yet completed!
But if you are serious about instrument-making, you should check out the
Musicians
and Instrument Makers Forum (MIMF) discussion forum. And if you
are really serious about music scholarship, you can start with Internet
Resources for Music Scholars, maintained by the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music
Library at Harvard University.
I like contemporary music, too. Net
new music gives you midi and/or digital audio clips from many living
composers.