Some Music Links

Location (grandparent | parent | this page): RodMer Arts Home Page | Rod's Music | Some Music Links

Table of Contents (TOC) of this page

General music sites
A few performing companies
A few individual composers
Some composer learning resources
Some MIDI stuff
Some music hardware & software

All the music links below will open in a second window --
simply close it when you are finished

Warning

Here are a few links to other music sites on the Web. I am not going to list as many as I once did when I was new and naive at all this stuff 10 years ago -- because links go out of date so quickly. Indeed, there is some danger to pages of links pointing to other pages which inevitably provide more links to other pages of links, etc. -- but despite that warning, here is the beginning of another page of links:

General music sites

Canadian Music Centre: This is the premier site for people interested in contemporary 'classical music' (an awful term to use outside its proper 1750-to-1825 context, but I simply use it in its colloquial meaning as music other than pop, rock, jazz, folk, etc.). There you can find bios of, and music by, current Canadian composers (I mean real ones -- not late beginners like me).
The Encylcopedia of Music in Canada: A wonderful source of information for all sorts of music in Canada -- and an organization I used to be involved with at one time -- but it's now well run by Historica as part of its on-line Canadian Encyclopedia project -- EMC was begun in 1970 by Floyd Chalmers and published two editions (in 1981 and 1991) of its critically acclaimed encyclopedia (each edition in both English and French versions) but decided, quite properly, that its third edition should be a continuously updated on-line resource (which it now is)
CultureNet (at one time at http://www.culturenet.ca or at http://www.culturenet.ucalgary.ca but now apparently vanished?): This used to be (from 1994 until recently?) a wonderful source of information run by the University of Calgary's Fine Arts Department
Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN): Protecting the performing rights for many Canadian musicians
Classical Music on the Net: Run by Dr. Douglas Bell -- a great jumping off point to find classical music stuff on the Web (topics, search engines, lists of indexes, etc. etc.)
Worldwide Internet Music Resources: Run by Indiana University
McGill University Music Faculty: Containing a lot of useful information
Opera America: An important association of opera companies throughout North America -- I served on one of their panels in 1995

Back to TOC of this page

A few performing companies (a short and biased list)

Canadian Opera Company: I served on the COC board for many years (a couple of times as president) and am happy to see that they are now on the Web -- not only program, ticket, and oprganizational info but such interesting and not-well-known tidbits as the fact that the COC was the creator or the surtitle technology now widely used throughout the world -- I wrote the libretto for Peter Paul Koprowski's one-act opera Dulcitius performed by the COC Ensemble in 1988 and the libretto for Harry Somers' full-length opera Mario and the Magician (adapted from Thomas Mann's novella) performed by the full COC in 1992
Toronto Symphony Orchestra: Giving program and ticket info -- I have to include this as a former Torontonian -- but I wish they'd play a little more post-1900 music (including some Canadian, eh?) -- perhaps under their new conductor, Peter Oundjian, they will
Esprit Orchestra: A Toronto orchestra directed by Alex Pauk and focusing exclusively on new music -- a wonderful resource for the city to have
The Oriana Singers: There are many organizations with this name in the world -- but this one is based in Cobourg (where I live) and it's led by the wonderful choral director Marie Anderson (no relation) -- and I'm grateful to them for performing my choral work "The Darkened Voice" in April 2004
La Jeunesse Northumberland Youth Choirs: These choirs are again led by the amazing choral music director Marie Anderson -- and under her direction they have won two gold medals in competitions in Europe
La Jeunesse Youth Orchestra: This is a wonderful youth orchestra (based in Port Hope, ON), founded in 1999 by Michael Lyons and run by him and Laurie Mitchell (with about 35 young and enthusiastic members).

Back to TOC of this page

A few individual Composers

Harry Somers: This is a website dedicated to the music of the late Harry Somers. I had the privilege of working with Harry in 1990-1991 when I was writing the libretto for his opera "Mario and the Magician"
John Weinzweig: John Weinzweig is the dean of Canadian composers. Before him the term 'Canadian composer' was almost an oxymoron. Many of today's Canadian composers were his students.
Canadian Music Centre database of Canadian composers: Here, at this comprehensive CMC site, you can find profiles, scores, and CDs of all the professional composers in Canada
Fernando Schulmeier: A composer and guitarist living in Buenos Aires -- I heard in early 2004 from his friend, the flautist Diego Spinelli, that they had discovered my flute & guitar duet Minor Suite on the internet and were performing it -- very encouraging for a late beginner to suddenly have Argentina calling
The Living Composers Project: An amazing site for finding information on living composers around the world

Back to TOC of this page

Some composer learning resources (in addition to the many important 'printed' books)

Here are some generously provided (and extensive) on-line books by Alan Belkin, composer, and professor of composition at the Université de Montréal:

Back to TOC of this page

Some MIDI Stuff

Classical midi: A large site with information on (among other things) thousands of downloadable classical MIDI files
Classical Music Archives' Primer on "How to listen to music on the Internet": Gives a useful explanation of music file formats -- explaining that MP3 files provide an efficient (though slightly 'lossy') compression of the much larger WAV files

Back to TOC of this page

Some music hardware & software (a tiny list -- just some of the stuff I myself use)

Roland

Makers of the RD500, JV880, & XV5080 synthesizers/sound-modules I used

Emagic

Makers of "Logic" -- the sequencing software I use when composing music (years ago I also used Opcode's "Vision")

Geniesoft

Makers of "Overture" -- the notation program I use for preparing scores (years ago I also used "Finale")

Apple QuickTime Player

Widely used by both PC and Mac users (including me)

iTunes

Wonderful software. I use iTunes for:

converting my own Logic soundfiles to mp3 format for putting on the Web
converting tracks from CDs I want to study into mp3 format (it's much easier to find things in iTunes 'playlists' -- organized, say, by composer -- than in my physical CD collection -- where one is always wondering: what CD was that piece on?)