So in recognition of my lack of blogging since April of 2008, I have attempted to structure the following into my posting for 2009.

We shall see how it goes. For the most part, I'm pretty excited about what I was able to come up with in terms of giving the blog a bit more structure so this year will be a good indicator of whether I can be consistent with this or not.

It took me a couple of days to come up with this, so bear with me on it.

• 2009 is a Special year for music and the following is planned throughout the year:

Joseph Haydn, the child of Austria. In correlation with the 200th Anniversary of the great Classical composer’s death we shall examine the life of Franz Joseph Haydn, the “father” of the symphony and the string quartet.

Mendelssohn: the Mystic Romantic. 2009 marks the 200th Anniversary of the German composer’s birth. We reveal the growing power of this composer’s music as it has slowly become more recognized as an important event in the history of romantic music.

Vladimir Horowitz, a pianist unchallenged! November 5, 2009 will mark the twentieth passing of his death and the month will be dedicated to who was possibly one of the greatest souls to ever play the piano.

• Returning features...Revamped!

Symphonic Saturday! An eclectic, more diverse range of composers and styles observed in one of the most important mediums of music, now updated every other Saturday.

It begins with Brahms’ Symphony No.2 in D Major on January 17, 2009 and ends with Beethoven’s Symphony No.5 in C minor on January 2, 2010

Schubert, Rimsky-Korsakov, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Elgar, Shostakovich, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Haydn, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Mahler, Vaughan Williams, and Dvorak…and many more composers to be featured

Rachmaninoff’s Table! Originally conceived as a medium for exploring his Preludes and his Etudes-Tableaux (hence, table) for piano, this year moves into another direction of the Sergei Rachmaninoff’s compositional output, featuring the rarely heard Symphonies, the Orchestra Suites, choral and voice works, the famous Cello Sonata and additional works for piano as well.

Brahms is Better! The best of Brahms comes to the table this year. His intermezzi for piano, my favorite Op.118 and 119 will be featured as well as his other Opus collections. Brahms famous choral works, solo and piano collaborations as well as touching on more of the chamber music the great romantic created will be featured.

Mozart Musings! How could one not get enough of Mozart? While I was never a big fan of his music, it is quickly growing on me as this year, starting in February we take a journey down the path of his life through the 27 piano concerti Mozart wrote. As well as featuring a summer of Mozart symphonies as on June 26, July 25, and August 10, the final three symphonies (39, 40 and 41) the composer wrote will be featured respectively, with each date corresponding to their day of completion back in the summer of 1788.

The Great Performers and Recording Essentials! While this hasn’t exactly worked out the way I planned, all three performers I attempted to feature earlier will get a redo starting with the latest, Boris Berezovsky in January to start off the year. Friederich Gulda and Mitsuko Uchida will be featured in August and September again. With Horowitz getting November, other famous pianists such as Arthur Rubinstein, Claudio Arrau, Evgeny Kissin, joining them will be some promising newcomers of the past few years, Nikolai Tokarev, The Anderson & Roe Piano Duo, Katherine Chi, Yundi Li, Rafal Blechacz, and many more.

Top 100 Concerto Countdown! Despite my best efforts this post kept getting delayed and I just couldn’t keep it going. But with the rest of the posts looking to be more work than this one, the Concerto Countdown is one of my favorites and will resume from the last post (No.79-75) as well as a full recap starting Wednesday February 4th, 2009.

• Some New Ideas

Music in the Movies! Starting in May-August, we’ll explore some of the great composers such as John Williams, James Horner, Danny Elfman, Howard Shore, and many others just to name a few and the impact that their scores have had on both the movies they were featured in but how effective they were. Plus my personal top ten scores

The Orchestra Pit! Trying to expand on various mediums of how music can be effectively portrayed. We extend music on to the stage where the orchestra is no longer the focal point but still remains the prime communicator between the visual art and the emotional appeal. Ballet music, Opera, and other forms of expressive art such as interpretive and ballroom dancing...to name a few.

BG & the PIANO Performs! I hope to be able to get a video, or several of my playing up, to show that I do actually play the piano, in the approaching months but I may have to pull a few favors to get some guys I know with good recording equipment to go along with me.

And on a side note: Chopin Sticks and Simply Beethoven are on a small hiatus until 2010. In what will be a big year for both composers, marking the 240th Anniversary of the birth of Beethoven and the 200th Bicentennial of Chopin’s birth in Poland. In addition the 2010 International Chopin Piano Competition headlines what should be a great year for piano fans.

I hope all goes according to plan, and hope you enjoy what I have in store.