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OUR SCENE: A large suburban grocery store, where Your Humble Narrator is working to hang decorative string-lights above one of the departments. Along comes a HAPPY COWORKER WHO LIKES TO MAKE HAPPY JOKES. HAPPY COWORKER: [grinning widely] Hey! You light up my life! YOUR HUMBLE NARRATOR: [returns smile] Hey! I get that reference! HAPPY COWORKER: [still grinning, but a bit quizzically now] Reference? YOUR HUMBLE NARRATOR: [smile starts getting nervous] The song? HAPPY COWORKER: [somehow still grinning, even though she has completely no idea what YHN is talking about] Song? YOUR HUMBLE NARRATOR: [look of shell-shocked defeat] Nothing…. The HAPPY COWORKER goes off in search of more amusement, leaving YOUR HUMBLEDown the rabbit hole….

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I have many associations with this piece, and one of them is my mother. When I was a teenager and getting into classical music in a big way, I discovered the New Year’s From Vienna concerts, and she made them a part of her New Year’s traditions as well. Eventually she even undertook a river cruise on the Danube, many years later, so she saw some of the vistas that are exhibited in this video. I think of many things when I hear On the Beautiful Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II; Mom was already one of them…and so she’ll be forever,Down the rabbit hole….

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Yesterday was really busy, hence nothing but a short post about voting (by the way, nice work, America!). Today we have a piece by Aaron Copland, but the occasion is the passing of Donald Hunsberger. Hunsberger was, for many years, a professor at the Eastman School of Music, where his main post was director of the Eastman Wind Ensemble. In that position, Hunsberger did a lot of important work to advance not just that college’s Wind Ensemble, but wind ensembles in general (and their larger cousin groups, the symphonic or concert band), as ensembles for serious music. Wind ensemble music hasDown the rabbit hole….

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From The Muppet Show. This is one of my very favorite songs from that show; there’s just something about this that’s so pleasing…maybe it’s the simplicity of the song, combined with its lovely backing vocal, that gets me. The song was featured twice on The Muppet Show, once by Danny Kaye and this, by Charles Azvanour. I like this one better, with the kids in the schoolhouse singing the “two and two are four” bit in silhouette. I don’t think The Muppet Show always gets the credit it deserves for introducing sheer beauty to the world.   Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

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It’s late, I know, but it’s still Tuesday and it’s still Halloween! Here is the Original Soundtrack album presentation–on vinyl!–of one of my favorite horror film scores of all time, Dracula by John Williams. Enjoy, and don’t eat too much candy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP3Z7YjVjc0   Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….

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Netflix released a trailer for the upcoming movie Maestro today, and let me tell you…I am well-and-truly excited to see this movie. It will be on Netflix in late December, right in time for my Christmastime vacation. I’ve watched this trailer three times, and not only does it make me want to listen to Mahler’s Second, it also leaves me honestly astonished at how deeply Bradley Cooper seems to have disappeared into Leonard Bernstein. There are times in this trailer when the artifice is so convincing I can barely spot it. Leonard Bernstein is one of my musical heroes–and my writingDown the rabbit hole….

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Here’s a suite from one of the more effective horror film scores I’ve heard. I never saw the movie, which was not well-received, but the music is superb, and in an especially nice touch, the composer, Christopher Young, arranged the score into a sequence of suites for a more cohesive listening experience on the OST album back when it came out. Always a fave this time of year, here’s the suite from Bless the Child. Share This PostDown the rabbit hole….