Happy birthday, Erich Wolfgang Korngold!

I am so excited to have just gotten off the phone with Leon Botstein. Botstein, who is president of Bard College, is also co-artistic director of the Bard Music Festival, held each summer on the campus of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. This year, the festival’s focus will be on “Korngold and His World.”

Tune in this afternoon for some of Dr. Botstein’s insights into Korngold the composer, as we talk just a bit about the festival, which will take place this year over two weekends: August 9-11 and August 16-18.

Then watch this space for news of upcoming installments of “Picture Perfect” and “The Lost Chord,” which will include more of Botstein’s comments on Korngold’s significance as a composer for opera house, concert hall, and film.

The Bard Music Festival will encompass a veritable cornucopia of Korngold, including the composer’s two greatest operas – a concert performance of “Die tote Stadt,” which will round out the festival, on August 18, and a fully-staged production of “Das Wunder der Heliane,” which will act as a kind of preamble to the festival proper, from July 26 to August 4. Leon Botstein will conduct. As has been the case with so much music performed at Bard, “Heliane” is an opera that has never before received a staging in the United States.

The festival will shine light on all aspects of Korngold’s art, by way of his own work for different media (including a performance, with film, of selections from “The Adventures of Robin Hood”), and music by his contemporaries, those he influenced and those who were influenced by him.

You can find at more about “Das Wunder der Heliane” and the Bard Music Festival by visiting fishercenter.bard.edu.

Then tune in today, in the 4:00 hour EDT, to hear portions of my conversation with Dr. Botstein – with more to come on future episodes of “Picture Perfect” and “The Lost Chord” – on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College