“The highest result of education is tolerance.” – Helen Keller, Optimism (1903)

It happens because you identify so completely with the composer, you’ve studied him so intently, that it’s as though you’ve written the piece yourself. You completely forget who you are or where you are and you write the piece write there. You just make it up as though you never heard it before. Because you […]

Title: Ode II Composer: Greg Smith Performer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: MP3 recording     Related products:     – Ode II (PDF score) SAMPLE:

Title: Advance Australia FairComposer: Peter Dodds McCormickArranger: Greg SmithInstrumentation: SATB and pianoProduct medium: PDF score and part Available from:Sheet Music Direct

“Creativity can solve almost any problem — the creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.” — George Lois, American art director, designer and author. G. Lois, Damn good advice (for people with talent!): how to unleash your creative potential by America’s master communicator, London: Phaidon Press, 2012.

“If we understood the world, we would realize that there is a logic of harmony underlying its manifold apparent dissonances.” Jean Sibelius, in conversation with Gustav Mahler, 1907. Cited in: Henry Thomas & Dana Lee Thomas Living Biographies of Great Composers. Garden City (NY): Blue Ribbon, [1940] 1946) p. 309.  [Cited at Wikiquote.]

“Take the oil from Provence, English mustard, vinegar from France, a little ‘lemon, pepper, salt, beat and mix together; then add a few truffles, cut into thin slices. Truffles gives this dressing a sort of halo, made especially to fascinate a glutton. The Cardinal Secretary of State, who I met in recent days, gave me […]

Ravel was always particular about his sense of fashion.  As Léon-Paul Fargue recalled: Even when he was wasted by illness, Ravel never appeared unkept even among his closest friends.  All his life he kept the perfect, discriminating taste which led him to match his braces to his blue or pink silk shirts, much to the […]

Title: The Lord is my light (Setting II) Text: Psalm 26 (27): 1, 4, 13-14. R. v.1 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:

Gershwin was often the life of a party, entertaining on the piano.  He said: “The trouble is, when I don’t play at a party I don’t have a good time.” Cited in: Greenberg, Rodney (2008) George Gershwin.  New York: Phaidon Press, p.47.