Cultural enlightenment

The Cultural Enlightenment Association of Ifé is a collection of materials relating to the scholars of African ancestry -- both past and present. This attractive site includes a musicians' forum, and information about Haitian composers -- mostly unfamiliar names to me.

www.culturalenlightenment.com

A new site in a plain but distinctive style features Bela Bartók the naturalist, folk music collector and ethnomusicologist, more than as composer. The site consists of resources and analyses, including Bartók and the Golden Section, Tonal Axes and Hungarian Folksongs. There's also a translation of Bartók and Kodály's 'appeal to the Hungarian public' for help in collecting folksongs, and Fred Hámori's article on the origins of Hungarian folk music.

belabartok.co.uk

Argentine composer Juan María Solare (born 1966) studied piano, composition and conducting in Buenos Aires before moving to Germany, where he studied electronic music with Hans Ulrich Humpert in Koln, and currently holds a scholarship at the Künstlerhäuser in Worpswede. His site is in English, German and Spanish, and the portrait on his homepage gives very little away -- lots of long jet black hair and black glasses mask almost all his features!

www.kuenstlerkontakte.org/e/leute/solare.html

Israeli composer Byron Avior (born 1973) is concerned with the experience of the listener -- he thinks a good listener should not only be open-minded, but also active and creative whilst experiencing music. Byron studied composition with Reuven Sarussi and Dr Yuval Shaked in Tel Aviv, He recently moved to the Czech Republic, and now lives in Prague. He has built an attractive site featuring his music for flute, piano, brass and other instruments, and many fascinating links to other classical and contemporary music sites.

www.geocities.com/avior_byron

A few months ago we visited the website of Swedish composer Walter Ekelin, and invited him to translate some of his site into English, for the international audience. Walter has now done this, and here is his large page full of detailed and interesting information. Judging by the message at the top of the page, Walter's opinion of his English is worse than my opinion of his English!

w1.480.telia.com/~u48018896/introduction.html

Coventry Music is a record label ... 'dedicated to creating premiere recordings of timeless music of the Christian faith, recorded around the world -- classic hymns from England's historic Coventry Cathedral, symphonic hymn settings from the great European city of Prague, beautiful stylings of joyful Celtic worship, and the elegant simplicity of the harp recorded in the American heartland.' It also has a rather beautiful website ...

www.coventrymusic.com

Cuban born guitarist Marco Tamayo wrote to us a few months ago, asking for more information about M&V, and offering more information about himself via the link below. He has a serviceable and easy to navigate website, which includes a 'tip of the month' -- the latest reminding us of the importance of breath in music.

www.marcotamayo.com

Keystave Music is a free sheet music resource based in the UK, which takes advantage of out-of-copyright music. Music is downloaded as PDF files, for display by versions 4 and above of Adobe Acrobat reader. The database of scores seems to be rather tiny, but maybe it will grow with time?

www.keystave.com

Discover the weird world of the theremin, by visiting a site designed to 'gather and disseminate accurate theremin and theremin related information' and to 'create an electronic archive of theremin material, pictures and scores'. The theremin is believed to have been the first electronic musical instrument, and it features in many of Miklos Rosza's scores.

theremin.info