March 2004
Welcome To The
New Classical Music Ballgame!
Article By Wayne Donnelly
Senior Reviewer And Classical Music Editor 
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  Since joining Enjoy the Music.com™ a couple of years ago, I have wanted to see our Review Magazine cover classical music with greater variety and depth of analysis -- reviews to engage and entertain serious music lovers, worthy of our name. I am grateful to Editor Steven R. Rochlin for encouraging me to allocate more time and energy to making this wish come true. Readers will now notice dedicated sections for classical as well as other genres of music, a new rating system for both music and equipment reviews, and commentary you can sink your teeth into!

Enjoy the Music.com™ now proudly introduces our Classical reviewing staff, most of whom have contributed to this issue. Their bios are available on the site, but let me briefly introduce them:

 

David Cates is a brilliant harpsichordist whose recent recording of the Bach French Suites received rave reviews in such prestigious publications as Gramophone and Enjoy the Music.com™. Bringing his perspective as both performer and scholar, David will concentrate principally on music of the Eighteenth Century and earlier.

 

Ray Chowkwanyun is a long-time contributor to Enjoy the Music.com™, and when the spirit moves him will share with us his enthusiasms, especially for the German tradition from Beethoven to Bruckner.

 

Phil Gold, brother of our esteemed British equipment reviewer Alvin Gold, joins the Enjoy the Music.com™ staff. A half-hour's conversation at the CES in January convinced me that Phil is just the kind of articulate and opinionated music lover we need.

 

A mutual friend describes Joe Milicia as "the cultural czar of Sheboygan, Wisconsin." In addition to his teaching duties at the local UW campus, Joe plays clarinet in the Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra.

 

Leonard Norwitz is a clinical psychologist, a professional photographer, and a perceptive commentator on cinema as well as music. Mr. Vinyl don't need no steenkng CDs.

 

Soon after I met John Shinners, my horror at seeing him give away his LP collection was mitigated only by my taking quite a few of them home. His audio may be all digital all the time, but he plays the piano, and I guess that's analogue enough.

 

Max Westler is a poet, professor, demon music lover and storyteller, He has been contributing his informative and engaging novella-length reviews for a few months now, even dipping his critical toe gingerly into the dark pond of equipment reviews in our January 2004 issue.

 

Yours truly will continue to be jack of all audio/music trades, reviewing equipment in both Superior Audio and the Review Magazine, as well as occasionally jumping over the fence to play in the fields of popular music.

 

Fair warning, all these guys have a lot to say. Their reviews may take a while to read through, but when you finish them I'll wager you'll know more than when you started! And don't worry; there are always those ratings at the end for the attention-challenged  :-)

Please check us out. Tell your friends there is a new classical ballgame at Enjoy the Music.com™. And tell us what you think; we really want to know. We know you classical music lovers are out there -- here's hoping you will put us on your must-read list!