The Music Workshop Company Blog

Each month the Music Workshop Company publishes two blogs. One blog, written by the MWC team addresses a key issue in Music Education or gives information about a particular genre or period of music. The other blog is written by a guest writer, highlighting good practice or key events in Music Education. We hope you enjoy reading the blogs.

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To contribute as a guest writer please email Maria@music-workshop.co.uk

Posts tagged “COMPOSITION”

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Louise Farrenc

Posted on 14th September 2025 at 15:53

Louise Farrenc was a celebrated pianist and composer.

Writing pieces from symphonies to piano solos to choral works. She worked with her husband to publish key piano anthologies and influenced a generation of pianists through her role as Professor of piano at the Conservatoire de Paris.

She died on 15th September 1875.

On the 150th anniversary of her death, we celebrate her life and work.

Image: Portrait of Louise Farrenc (1804-1875), French composer by Luigi Rubio

BBC Young Composer 2020

Posted on 29th February 2020 at 18:23

The BBC have launched this year’s BBC Young Composer competition. Previously known as the BBC Proms Inspire Competition and the BBC Young Composer of the Year, the annual competition is open to composers aged between 12 and 18 from across the UK. Winners take part in a development programme and work with a mentor composer on a composition for the BBC Concert Orchestra, to be performed at the BBC Proms in 2021 in a special young composers concert. The closing date for entries to the competition is 5pm on Thursday 11 June 2020.

Stravinsky & Diaghilev – Anniversary of a Collaboration

Posted on 12th February 2020 at 10:17

1920 was a busy year for Stravinsky and Diaghilev with the premiere of the ballet Le Chant du Roissignol on 2nd February and the premiere of Pulcinella on 15th May.

Stravinsky first worked with Diaghilev on L’Oiseau de Feu (The Firebird) in 1910.

The work is of interest both as Stravinsky’s breakthrough piece and as the beginning of one of the most well known collaborations in the ballet world.

The National Trust at 125 – Honouring British Composers

Posted on 28th January 2020 at 10:32

The National Trust was founded on the 12th January 1895 by Octavia Hill, Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley.

As the Trust reaches its 125th birthday, we share its celebration of famous British composers and the work it does to inspire a new generation.

Leith Hill Place in Surrey was the home of Ralph Vaughan Williams from the age of two until he was 20, when he went to study at Cambridge.

He arrived at Leith Hill Place with his mother after the death of his father, when they moved to live with his mother’s parents.

Leopold Mozart: Composition and Controversy

Posted on 15th October 2019 at 11:43

November 2019 marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of Leopold Mozart (November 14, 1719 – May 28, 1787).

Perhaps often primarily known as the father of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Leopold is an almost mythical figure, equated, perhaps partly thanks to the blockbuster film Amadeus, with a stern and conflicted father/son relationship.

Another interpretation is that Leopold, who had supported his child prodigy son for many years, was concerned as Wolfgang pushed for more independence that his son was unfit to look after himself – a worry which proved to be grounded in reality.

The Female Trailblazers : Women in Electronic Music

Posted on 18th June 2019 at 14:00

Electronic music is music that employs electronic and digital musical instruments and circuitry-based music technology. Pure electronic instruments like synthesisers, computers and the theremin have no sound producing mechanisms like strings or hammers, but electronic compositions also include electro-acoustic elements.