Carlo Gesualdo was a prince and landholder in Venosa in southeastern Italy. Around 1588 his wife began an affair with a gentleman in the vicinity. In 1590 Gesualdo, found the pair in bed together, stabbed them both, and hung their corpses in front of his castle for all to see. The story was retold repeatedly by poets of the day in a sixteenth-century equivalent of headline news. Was Gesualdo really a renegade as well as a murderer? Was he even a “modernist” of his time?

Dr. Justin O’Dell, Assistant Professor of Clarinet at Michigan State University, writes about his experiences having Trio di Clarone member Wolfgang Meyer as his post-graduate teacher.

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Olivier Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles (From the Canyons to the Stars), commissioned to commemorate America’s bicentennial, was inspired the by the American West. Conductor Jeffrey Tate and the Hamburg Symphony, in collaboration with Israeli filmmaker Daniel Landau, bring the piece alive in a new cinematic installation, where images of man’s impact on the environment create a counterpoint to sounds of untouched nature. UMS’s video producer and filmmaker Sophia Kruz interviewed Daniel Landau over Skype.

On January 29, UMS will present the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra who will perform French composer Olivier Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles (From the Canyons to the Stars). From the Canyons to the Stars was inspired by the natural wonder Messiaen found in the landscapes of the American West. We put together a playlist of other music we love which was inspired by nature. Take a listen.