Staccato is the Italian word for “separated,” or “detached.” Staccato notes are notes that are not sustained for their full rhythmic value: they come to a short stop, which separates them from notes that follow. They also usually have a clean, sharply articulated start ...

Not long after his arrival in Vienna in late 1792, a young Ludwig van Beethoven was beginning to make an impression in the musical city. The Austrian capital had only a year prior lost one of its other famous residents—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart—and Beethoven showed promising...

Late nights are a frustrating fact of life for many musicians. Too often, the time after sundown is all that remains for performing, practicing, working against an upcoming deadline, or agonizing over an artistic quandary. But for composer Thomas Palmer, a senior studying...

South Carolina Educational Television (SCETV) hosted a songwriting workshop featuring Patrick Davis, Wyatt Durrette, Levi Lowrey, and Phillip Lammonds, in conjunction with the premiere of Ken Burns’ new PBS documentary, “Country Music." SCETV also launched a country music...

Country music has made and broken careers for close to a century now. David Ball of Spartanburg is one of the survivors, enjoying a long career in the field. In high school he joined the legendary acoustic trio Uncle Walt's Band, playing a blend of bluegrass, blues, swing...

Country music finds fans in a variety of ways, most often by either hearing the music on the radio or seeing country artists play live. That's the way Bemo Prince of Columbia became a country music fan. "My daddy took me to hear...Snuffy Jenkins and the Hired Hands, and I...

Since its first publication in 1968, Bill C. Malone’s Country Music USA has won universal acclaim as the definitive history of American country music. Starting with the music’s folk roots in the rural South, it traces country music from the early days of radio into the...

We visit Camden, SC with singer, songwriter Patrick Davis and his musical family. This story was originally published December 20, 2017. NOTE: Tuesday, Sept. 10th, at SCETV in Columbia, we are celebrating the premiere of Ken Burns’ new PBS documentary, “Country Music,” with...

They are sure signs of Spoleto in downtown Charleston; instrument toting musicians and scorching heat. Among the jostling violin cases, is Shannon Fitzhenry. She’s back for her second year with the annual Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra, one of 92 musicians chosen to play. “...

Scribbling notes on a dry erase board just won't do. So David Virelles plays them instead, on a piano. The Cuban composer and pianist is teaching a masters class at the Charleston Jazz Academy in North Charleston, as part of the Spoleto arts festival's community outreach...

Paul Wiancko started playing cello at age five. By age eight, he had composed his first piece of music. “If you can call it a piece,” Wiancko says. “I think it was maybe a thirty-two measure little tune, mostly in C major, mostly consisting of a couple of triads. And I...

For many composers, getting started on a symphony can be a serious challenge. Johannes Brahms famously spent some twenty years completing his first such work. But for South Carolina composer Meira Warshauer, inspiration was a bit easier in coming. She found it in the world...

For many years, jazz great Marian McPartland welcomed some of the biggest names in - and out of - jazz to her NPR program, Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz . March 20, on the 101st anniversary of her birth, an evening of McPartland's music inaugurated a new music series, Live...

Traditionally, a night at the symphony has entailed dressing up. For performers and audience members alike, the sight of a sharply-dressed crowd is nearly as much of a given as the sound of orchestral music. But the move toward a more casual concert experience is becoming a...

Ask Wynton Marsalis to name his favorite holiday song and he might tell you, “The Christmas Song” by Mel Torme. Then he’ll likely explain it’s personal. When Marsalis first moved to New York, he played in a show with Torme. He was 18 years-old. “The contractor thought I was...