composing partners' blog

Have a look on our french blog :

• HERE, if you read french.
• Or maybe, HERE if you read only english, but mind, it's english by Google!!

And if you are fond of music - go to THIS french site, a website by composers for composers and music lovers !
The english version is also available here.

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(Published by The New York Time: June 25, 2009)
DONGGAOCUN, China — Perhaps the only thing more aurally challenging than a roomful of novice violinists screeching their way through “Mary Had a Little Lamb” is a roomful of novice violinists screeching along on out-of-tune instruments.



Violin lessons in Donggaocun, about an hour’s drive from downtown Beijing. The town manufactures string instruments.

“Stop,” Chen Yiming shouted to her students, an enthusiastic bunch, ages 8 to 47. “Can we please pay attention to our instruments and make sure they are tuned correctly?”
After a short break for adjustments, the cacophony resumed.
Violin fever has hit this drab rural township with hundreds of residents, young and old, picking up the bow as Donggaocun tries to position itself as the string instrument capital of China.
Once known primarily for its abundant peach harvest, the town, about an hour’s drive from downtown Beijing, has become one of the world’s most prodigious manufacturers of inexpensive cellos, violas, violins and double basses. Last year the town’s 9 factories and 150 small workshops made 250,000 instruments, most of them ending up in the hands of students in the United States, Britain and Germany.

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I receive this mail from an American blogger, and, for once, it looks interesting.

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All our congratulations to theses two winners, who recently joint us at our Composing partners Salon de musique.

And now, let's getting to know them better.

John Sernee (who wins the first prize) is Dutch.

He was born in 1948. After classical studies in Amsterdam where he was a student of Henk van Bergen at the Concertgebouw, John Sernee began his career with the practice of trombone.

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Is it necessary to write about Zidane to get some more visitors on our web sites? Too bad, forget Zidane and its phoney excuses, forget our July 14th brass band if you are in France, and let's speak about the two new winners of our permanent composing contest and their songs, Foxdrop by Cyrus and Miles was in the box (a music box, of course!) by SolCarlus.
The question was: Who is the very best? In both cases they composed jazz pieces, not classical music, but in very different style. This might have driven this special decision of our jury keeping both titles.
Alex said: (sorry, Alex, for my bad translation in English (. . .)

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For 6 month, Alex has been sending us his pieces of music, all more and more interesting. Did you listen to his works, specially the allegro ( 1st movement) of a piece for small orchestra? A wonder of finesse in the writing, of invention in the orchestration, a piece of music which I use to listen to every evening without flagging, always finding there some new and very special thing, a proof of its richness, isn't it.

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Alex Millet is a talented, and (too) modest young man ! He started studying piano when he was seven years old.; later on, followed up with Horn and musical composition studies. He played for a long time in jazz clubs (in Paris)... composed some short films scores. He is now focusing on concert music.

Alex Millet is living in Chicago (USA).

Enjoy this extract from his orchestral composition : "Chicago".

Another extract is to be listened only by members of our Salon de musique. Register to be able to get this score: it's free. And in this main site, don't forget to select your language (drop-down menu, top left). It's free too!

OK! Let's

1-Click to our Salon de musique site and

2-Then switch to "english" in the language pop up (on top left of the screen) to know everything (in english) about us and about our pieces of music.