A Conductor Takes His Place in the (Sort Of) Family Business

04/19/24 • 4 min

This story was written by Scott Flavin for the March-April 2024 issue of Strings magazine and is read by the author.
How important is your relationship with your grandparents? Has it influenced who you are or your life’s path? What if you hardly knew or never met them?

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Warrior Energy: Electrifying Cellist Tina Guo Plays an Integral Role in ‘Dune’ and Other Scores by Hans Zimmer

This story was written by Greg Cahill for the March-April 2024 issue of Strings magazine and is read by editor Megan Westberg.
“I love that film and soundtrack music aren’t limited by preconceptions or genres,” says cellist, composer, software developer, and entrepreneur Tina Guo, 38, whose extensive film work includes the 2022 Academy Award–winning soundtrack to Dune. “Anything goes, and experimentation or seeking to always do something new is so wonderful and so exhilarating—depending on the project, anything from classical to electronic to heavy metal to country to new age to tribal to jazz. Literally anything. People used to tell me that I should ‘stick with one genre,’ but this is the perfect playground for me to release all of my creative energy.”

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The Music of Julia Perry Finds New Champions on the Centenary Celebration of Her Birth

This story was written by David Templeton for the March-April 2024 issue of Strings magazine and is read by Megan Westberg, Editor.
“I would try to figure out which composer it was all on my own,” Grammy-nominated violinist-composer Curtis Stewart says, speaking from his apartment in New York. “But the real reason I would do that, close my ears when the DJ was talking, is that I’d realized, early on, that knowing ahead of time if I was listening to Tchaikovsky or Bach or whoever would change how I listened to it. It changes the feeling you have. It changes the sense of exploration.”

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