the music educator blog

From Academy Award winner Howard Shore’s score for the 2012 movie “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” this piece will delight students and audiences alike.

Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987) was an important American composer and educator, remembered for his approachable modernist style as well as his famous students, who included both Philip Glass and Peter Schickele (aka P.D.Q.

Hans Zimmer, the German-born and Los Angeles-based composer, has written the soundtracks to more movies than you have ever seen, or at least that’s how it seems when you look at his IMDb credits list.

Composer Brian Balmages is well known by band and orchestra conductors for his ability to create engaging and beautiful music that fits the programming needs and skill levels of ensembles from middle school to collegiate.

Julie Lyonn Lieberman’s “Bollywood Strings” piece captures the excitement of Indian movie music, and provides opportunities for an electric violin solo and an expanded percussion section.

The piece that became our national anthem was originally written 200 years ago this year as a poem sung to the tune of an already well-known popular song.

Eric Whitacre is best known for his groundbreaking “virtual choir” projects, which have brought together thousands of singers from countries across the globe using social media and online video sharing to perform music that explores themes of connectivity and transcendence.

Richard Strauss is an important composer whose musical style bridges 19th century German romanticism and the more atonal modernist style of the early 20th century.

At SmartMusic we love to hear from composers and arrangers about the things that inspire them. Recently, composer Kris Berg shared with us the story behind his 2012 jazz band piece Talk is Cheep.

There was a time, not so long ago, when marches were America’s most popular form of pop music.