The award-winning documentary about the life and career of Reynold Philipsek, A Life Well Played, now available free on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StVG2TaKqbw. A Life Well Played was screened across the U.S. and Canada during the fall 2016 Film Festival circuit, and was awarded “Best Documentary Short” honors by the Highway 61 Film Festival. Film Synopsis What would it be like […]
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“The Juggler” (written and performed by reynold d. philipsek 2018 copyright Zino-Rephi Music BMI) In July of 2016 I stumbled upon a short video of a juggler doing his routine. The film was from the “silent era” and if I had to venture a guess it originated from some place in Western Europe in the early 1900’s. The juggler was
Milstein was a Ukrainian-born American virtuoso violinist. Being a contemporary of the great Heifetz might have seemed an undue burden to some violinists, but Milstein rose to the challenge. In his early days, he toured Russia with Horowitz, and toward the end of his life he recorded some of the best solo violin I have heard. The recordings of Bach
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Music history is replete with stories of artists meeting an early demise: Chopin, Django, Dinu Lipatti, William Kapell, and even Scriabin all passed on young. Perhaps Lipatti and Kapell are less well known, but they are very important musicians in my estimation. Lipatti (1917-1950) was a fantastic composer and pianist who thankfully left us some recordings, though precious few, and
Conditions of the Tournament Read More »
I will soon record a piece I worked on during my two month stay in Naples. It is called Persnickety. I proceeded from the title which means: “Placing emphasis on minor details, fussy. Requiring a particularly precise or careful approach.” This meant writing somewhat detailed music that also makes a lot of use of space as well as intricate patterns.
In the past month I have written two pieces. Rather, I thought I wrote two pieces of music. At best, new music comes with difficulty in recent years. This wasn’t always so, but as S. J. Perelman said, “with each piece you use up a part of yourself.” And having written about 225 pieces of music in my life so