Tomislav Baynov and His Metrorhythmia

Photo of  Tres Amigos taken by the blogger at the 2012 June Leondar Chamber Music Competition

Three of my piano students form an ensemble called Tres Amigos, and they play six-hand pieces for piano in competition.  A piece they are currently working on to be performed next year is the very modern and percussive piece, Metrorhythmia by Tomislav Baynov (born 1958), which is a piece for one piano-six hands.  Baynov is a Bulgarian composer who promotes, arranges, and composes works for multiple hands and multiple pianos.  He's won many awards, and his percussive works are quite engaging, especially for high school-age boys.

What I didn't know about Baynov is that he started studying piano at age four, won his first competition at age six, and began composing when he graduated high school.  The piece Metrorhythmia contains music that symbolizes his homeland, Bulgaria.  Click here to listen to this piece, and for more information click here.

What did you learn today?

Golden Gate Bridge's Engineer & Poet

Photo of the Joseph Strauss statue by the Golden Gate Bridge courtesy 123rf.com

On this day in 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge opened in San Francisco.  Having lived in San Francisco, I am one of the 1.5 billion people who have traversed this bridge, having done so many times on the way to and from spending a day viewing art and eating seafood in Sausalito, or going up to the wine country.

Joseph Strauss (1870-1938), the Chief Engineer of the bridge's construction, was also a poet whose mother was a pianist and father was a writer and painter.  For more information click here.  What did you learn today?