Geoffrey Dean
The 1907 Farewell Playlist (Alwin's Gap Year, Part 1 Encore)
In the leadup to his departure from the US, Alwin Schroeder's 1907 farewell concerts started with a February 3 program at Boston’s...
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Geoffrey Dean
- May 28
- 4 min
1907-8: Alwin's Gap Year, Part 1
“His technical command of his noble instrument is infallible, his tone full and pure and his style free and genial, like his personality....
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Geoffrey Dean
- Apr 30
- 5 min
A Composition Update and Remembrance of Dimiter Christoff
It has been about a year since, on a fine spring day in 2022, after the last April snow “surprise” hereabouts, I started to compose. I...
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Geoffrey Dean
- Mar 20
- 3 min
Posthumous Dialogues: Roumen Balyozov, Bulgarian Cellist-Composer, and J. S. Bach
Listen to Balyozov's Baza i nadstroika (string duo version of Bach's first cello suite) During the month of March my thoughts often turn...
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Geoffrey Dean
- Feb 26
- 1 min
From Ballenstedt to Berlin: Life of Alwin, Part 2
Part 2 of my biographical sketch of Alwin Schroeder is titled "Ballenstedt and Berlin." It deals mainly with the years 1868-1874, when...
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Geoffrey Dean
- Jan 12
- 12 min
19th Century Cellists in the US: George Knoop (1797-1849)
“If you would hear the very soul tell all its deepest, most inner feeling, if you would listen to language as from another world and from...
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Geoffrey Dean
- Dec 25, 2022
- 1 min
Wooden Angels: Silent Night for Cello Ensemble
Looking up from the organ loft at St. Trinitatus church in the Thurginian town of Holzengel ("wooden angel"), home of Alwin Schroeder's...
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Geoffrey Dean
- Nov 13, 2022
- 2 min
Catching Up: My Most Recent Cello Performance Videos
Earlier in the year I was able to record a handful of cello pieces to add to the collection on my YouTube channel, and today I actually...
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Geoffrey Dean
- Oct 23, 2022
- 4 min
Boston Symphony First Cellists: New Random Facts
During a recent visit to the Boston Symphony Orchestra Archives, I came across documentation of some interesting facts related to the...
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Geoffrey Dean
- Sep 16, 2022
- 1 min
Introducing my new online Alwin Schroeder biography
I recently uploaded the first installment of my expanded Alwin Schroeder biography. This first part covers Alwin's ancestry and early...
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Geoffrey Dean
- Sep 5, 2022
- 7 min
Schroeder Student Spotlight: Ernest Lachmund (1865-1954)
Among the Oscar Cobb opera houses highlighted in my previous post was one that existed briefly in Duluth, Minnesota. In a surprise...
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Geoffrey Dean
- Aug 28, 2022
- 7 min
Oscar's Opera Houses: A Virtual Tour
As a follow-up to my Ashland Grand Opera House post, here are the briefest of sketches on some of the late 19th-century opera houses...
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Geoffrey Dean
- Aug 27, 2022
- 3 min
Lazar Nikolov: Bulgarian Composer Centennial (1922-2022)
Read my earlier Lazar Nikolov post here Listen to Nikolov's second cello sonata here Yesterday, on the occasion of Lazar Nikolov's 100th...
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Geoffrey Dean
- Aug 15, 2022
- 4 min
Summer Song: The Ashland (WI) Grand Opera House
I discovered the Ashland Grand Opera House on a recent trip to the Chequamegon Bay area on the southern shores of Lake Superior. A city...
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Geoffrey Dean
- Aug 10, 2022
- 4 min
Carl Schroeder's Sondershausen: Travel Log, Part 3
Read Part 1 Read Part 2 Exactly three years ago, as Petros and I circled the central streets of Sondershausen in search of a free...
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Geoffrey Dean
- Jul 25, 2022
- 4 min
Signature Suites: My Latest Creative Obsession
To those of you who know me as a sometime arranger of cello music, usually from original Bulgarian works for other instruments or...
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Geoffrey Dean
- Jun 18, 2022
- 3 min
That Fellow With the Cello: Mello-Cello Strikes Again
I’m starting out this post to the somewhat unlikely soundtrack of “Mello Cello,” a meditative instrumental piece by Steven Halpern and...
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Geoffrey Dean
- Jun 15, 2022
- 1 min
Happy 167th Birthday, Alwin!
In honor of Alwin Schroeder's 167th birthday, here are the Sarabande and Gigue from the Suite in E minor by Julius Klengel, his Leipzig...
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Geoffrey Dean
- May 28, 2022
- 10 min
Tale of Two Cellists: Alwin Schroeder and Julius Klengel
Klengel dedicated his Op. 2 cello pieces to Schroeder. Listen to the opening Berceuse. During the 1880s, two outstanding cellists...
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Geoffrey Dean
- May 15, 2022
- 5 min
Violoncello Without a Master: Alwin the Auto-Didact
Alwin Schroeder’s status as a self-taught cellist gained widespread notoriety from at least as early as 1885. That year the Leipzig...
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