Introduce yourself here.....

[Amphissa]

I know nothing about the insurance business, but I do know the environs you inhabit. I worked on 5th Avenue and lived on upper east side until I moved to a little village called Valley Cottage, just across the Tappan Zee from you. I used to make regular skips over to Zachy's where my wine was stored and flew in/out of the Westchester airport.

And, of course, visited Rachmaninoff's gravesite several times at Kensico in Valhalla.

[Grh]

Hello all
I am an archaeologist by trade and have arrived late in life to classical (awful term) music.  My preferences overlap with the focus of this group, in that I am always open to new sounds.  I listen regularly to Alfred Schnittke, Shostakovich, Hans Henze, Per Norgard, Kalevi Aho, Philip Glass, and (currently) a bevy of modern French composers (Dalbavie and Dusapin are at the top).  I fully realize that these are not composers featured herein.  I am not troubled by the apparent inconsistency in music presented and discussed.  For example, I could never imagine R. Gliere and Roger Sessions in the same room, although both are unsung.  I appreciate the availability of downloads as the current music-availability world is abridged.   
Best regards

[minacciosa]

Thanks to my colleague Karl Miller, I learned about this site a few months ago and it has since become a compulsion for me. I'm a conductor and violinist (and sometime composer) domiciled in Michigan, but working around. I've made recordings that some of you may have. Interestingly, I've never considered myself an expert on American music, but thanks to my reading Baker's Biographical Dictionary just about cover to cover while growing up, I've been able to expand the recorded catalogue with some worthy composers who were unjustly allowed to become unsung. I plan to do more. Much more if at all possible. I'm a huge supporter of British music, and though I've been privileged to perform some I have yet to record any. (You can find a couple of my fiddle performances of Bax and Bridge on YouTube.) As you can tell from my handle, I consider Nikolai Medtner to be a canonic composer. This list of my favorite composers is too long to post, but I can say that many, many of you here share my particular enthusiasms.

This site is a great place. I don't usually out myself on music sites, but the spirit invested in UC is so completely in harmony with the true spirit of music-making that I feel a great kinship with everyone here. We're all seeking the same thing: finding the ultimate sublime beauty in the world that is music, and sharing it. UC is one aspect of proof that musical beauty resides in far more places than those that have become well known. Case in point: currently listening to Eugene Goossens opera Don Juan de Manara. Again. I played the composer's violin version recently, and the audience was rapt. Thank you all so much; keep on doing what you do.
All best,
JMW

[febnyc]

I know nothing about the insurance business, but I do know the environs you inhabit. I worked on 5th Avenue and lived on upper east side until I moved to a little village called Valley Cottage, just across the Tappan Zee from you. I used to make regular skips over to Zachy's where my wine was stored and flew in/out of the Westchester airport.

And, of course, visited Rachmaninoff's gravesite several times at Kensico in Valhalla.

Well, a neighbor.  Thanks for the note and greetings to you.

I am in South Salem, about 45 minutes from you, and even closer to Zachy's! 

(I did, in between stints in Westchester County, reside for eight years on 89th and West End Avenue - where, one day, in front of my apartment building I met the famous Professor Peter Schickele, and I was located two blocks from the building in which Rachmaninoff lived during his years in America.)

[Ser Amantio di Nicolao]

(I did, in between stints in Westchester County, reside for eight years on 89th and West End Avenue - where, one day, in front of my apartment building I met the famous Professor Peter Schickele, and I was located two blocks from the building in which Rachmaninoff lived during his years in America.)

Not to get too far off the subject, here, but my father actually used to work with Prof. Schickele's college roommate.  (The "whoever he is" of The Short-Tempered Clavier?  That's the one.)  Lovely fellow, though I have met him but once.

(Speaking of - would one consider Schickele under the revised purview of this forum?  Date-wise, surely not...but he's an absolute neo-Romantic if he's anything, to me.  And far, far less sung than he should be.)

[Mark Thomas]

I always happy to hear one of Prof. Schickele's PDQ discoveries!

[febnyc]

The good Professor, besides being an expert on the life and misadventures of P. D. Q. Bach, of course was a composer in his own right.

I have a Centaur CD of some of Peter Schickele's chamber music and, indeed, in my opinion it would qualify for acceptance on this forum.  There is a late-romantic tinge to it and, if you listen very closely you might hear echoes of PDQ's style itself!

[TerraEpon]

Was? Still alive last I checked and stuff like the clarinet quintet is certainly firmly in the neo-romantic bent, though other works are a bit more modernistic in the Gershwin-influence way.

[Alan Howe]

OK, we're way off-topic here...

[matesic]

OK, but if anyone says anything unkind I'll clam up.
I'm a retired clinical scientist who got hooked on playing string quartets at school c.1965. Since retirement I've been digging around the UK music colleges and other libraries for unpublished manuscripts and neglected scores. On IMSLP I've published performing editions of quartets by Macfarren, Wood, Bishop and Ellerton, but some interesting pieces by Percy Hilder Miles (1878-1922) in the RAM Library are copyright until 2039, or until someone decides who his rightful heir is (we're working on it). I asked for permission to do the same for Stanford and Gibbs, many of whose quartets are still in ms, but got an old-fashioned response presumably because the turf is already staked out. I've also been producing one-man-band renditions of any promising string pieces I can find. I'm firmly of the opinion that c.1880-1920 is a forgotten golden age of string chamber music. I won't list all my unsung favourites, but the 5 string quartets of Ewald Straesser are all up there.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Oh, but please don't clam up! From your profile of yourself I'd say you would be an invaluable member of this forum. Keep the posts coming!.

[Gauk]

I have been using the pseudonym Gauk on and off since I was an undergrad ... obviously referring to the conductor Alexander Gauk, but it also has echos of the Scots word "gowk", a fool 

I have been chasing obscure repertoire for the last 40 years, so this should be a good home! Professionally, I'm a research scientist living in Scotland.

[semloh]

Are you a Scot by birth, Gauk? And, whereabouts in Scotland do you live? After 40 years of chasing obscure repertoire, I wonder what your favourites are and whether Scottish composers are of particular interest. Quite a number have featured here at UC.

[arpeggio]

I'm an enthusiast regarding, in particular, piano transcriptions. Also looking into underrated piano works on the fringes of the repertory, and an interest in semi-forgotten piano concerti. Though I'm an amateur pianist (albeit one who takes professional lessons), I'm an occasional concert performer and like to do my best to promote obscure music.

[thalbergmad]

Nice to see you here old chap.

Transcriptions rarely get a mention here when compared with other genres.

Thal