I grew up in the NYC area surrounded by a large extended family of first- and second-generation Italian immigrants, most hailing from Sicily. I enjoyed the musical aftermath of our extended family visits where uncles and cousins would play their mandolins and guitars after sharing a traditional meal and lively conversation! 

I recently received one of my uncle’s Gibson mandolins from my cousin that was hanging on his wall and during a recent visit, it was offered and became my current musical obsession.

  First there was one. Then a few. And now many – all over the world. 

In 2010, cellist Dale Henderson played some music by JS Bach in a subway station in New York City. Plenty of people play music in the NYC subways, busking for whatever money people will toss their way.

But this time was different: Henderson declined the money people wanted to throw in his case. Instead, he offered audiences free postcards explaining that his intentions were to sow the seeds for future generations of classical music lovers.

If you listen closely to "opus," the first song from Ryuichi Sakamoto's BTTB, it's possible to come away with a clear sense of the artist's creative bedrock; to hear a quiet heart beating and a deeply sensitive mind dreaming. It opens abruptly, a loose and plaintive waltz through the afternoon rain that pivots twice into the hopeful, idyllic refrain that also, whisperingly, closes it.

The Rochester Broadway Theater League is warning those looking for Hamilton tickets to beware of fraudlent sellers. The show will be in town at the end of April.

A statement by RBTL says tickets for this engagement of Hamilton are not yet on sale, but there are numerous third-party sellers advertising tickets they do not actually have, at inflated prices. Officials say tickets for the Rochester shows will only be available via Ticketmaster and the Auditorium Theatre Box Office.

Inside the concert hall of the Violin Museum in Cremona, Italy, Antonio de Lorenzi plays the prelude from Bach's Partita No. 3 on a Stradivarius violin. Cremona is the town where master luthier Antonio Stradivari crafted his storied instruments three centuries ago.

But there's no guarantee that his instrument's inimitable sound will survive for centuries more, says Fausto Cacciatori, the museum's chief conservator.

Along Israel's border with Gaza, thousands of people from all walks of life, all political sides and all social classes, come together to SING!  Why?

It is Koolulam, a self-described “social musical initiative” that literally means to come together and sing, which encourages participants to put aside their differences, of age, ethnicity, social class or political views for a brief period and come together in song.

Rochester area native Steve Gadd, often cited as one of the most influential contemporary drummers in the world, now has his first Grammy Award.

On Sunday, Gadd, who grew up in Irondequoit, graduated from Eastridge High School and also is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, won for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album: Steve Gadd Band.