Islamey and friends

discoveries and re-discoveries

A new facility has appeared here at M&V since our last Site Seeing -- a continuous play facility for some of the many sound samples which accompany our CD reviews which goes by the grand name of CD Review Radio. It provides a different way to browse our recent CD reviews, by using your ears instead of your eyes to make a selection. Click on the CD cover image when you hear something intriguing, and a new browser window will open to show you the CD review. If you're really brave (and trust your internet connection), listen whilst you visit the other sites linked from this page.

www.mvdaily.com/cdbrowse/mvcdrrad.cgi

British journalist and photographer Howard Smith has travelled and worked in much of the world and now lives in New Zealand, where he works 'in the global marketplace', which includes, luckily for us, the occasional M&V article. Maybe because his site combines music, journalism, travel, earth sciences and photography, or perhaps because it's stylishly designed, exploring it was like a breath of fresh air :

www.islamey.com

The name of Howard's site, Islamey, in combination with the fact that my composer-pianist friend Adrian Williams is coming to see me today, reminds me of a rather bizarre experience from my past -- sitting underneath a piano whilst Adrian played the Balakirev piece at a party! Adrian appears to be sporting a large M&V banner at the top of his main page at the moment, so let's return the link. Don't miss Funny music under 'The "other" Adrian Williams ...'.

freespace.virgin.net/adrian.williams

Another reminder that you can now add your own website or other interesting music sites to our huge links area. We'll be monitoring the new link submissions for interesting material -- both for the MV3 column, and for the next time we go Site Seeing. If your own site has been featured previously in this column, you may find that it doesn't have an entry on our links page -- if so, please complete the form via the add your site link.

At least one such site has already added its link -- Robert P Commanday's San Francisco Classical Voice -- the excellent weekly review magazine for the greater Bay Area which we visited briefly about two years ago. SFCV is published every Tuesday, and began on 1 September 1998.

www.sfcv.org

Whilst on the subject of magazines, Andante.com is a new online classical music magazine which has appeared recently with a mission to document the 20th century classical music scene and to provide well-balanced content across the classical music spectrum -- welcome! An elegant design, combined with some classy and varied writing should ensure this new site's success. Let's hope it can keep going, and solve the technical problem preventing its access by Netscape users :

www.andante.com

One happy side-effect of the 'foot and mouth' crisis in rural Britain at the moment is that, with footpaths closed, people are having to walk the roads for their fresh air, increasing the chance (especially in small villages) of meeting someone you know. On one such walk recently I met violinist Arthur Bancroft and we stood in the rain, talking about a variety of musical subjects, including tunes played by hospital machinery, music typesetting software and lightweight violin cases!

www.suckley.net/music.htm

Finally today, here's a site added recently to our links page by Natalia Peruz, which includes 'novelty musical instruments manuals for composers'. Natalia plays these novelty instruments, including Austrian cowbells, the theremin, the toy piano and (like Arthur, above) the musical saw. Nice work if you can get it. Get ready to close down those pesky pop-up advertising windows!

www.sawlady.com