Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Joan Tower, Made in America

Here’s a good work for Labor Day, to mark Joan Tower’s birthday. However, “Made in America” (2004) really has nothing to do with manufacturing. Rather, it’s a musical appreciation of the United States by a composer who spent many of her formative years (ages 9-18) in Bolivia, where her father managed the tin mines.

Tower describes her inspiration for the work in her program notes:

“I crossed a fairly big bridge at the age of nine when my family moved to South America (La Paz, Bolivia), where we stayed for nine years. I had to learn a new language, a new culture, and how to live at 13,000 feet! It was a lively culture with many saints’ days celebrated through music and dance, but the large Inca population in Bolivia was generally poor and there was little chance of moving up in class or work position. When I returned to the United States, I was proud to have free choices, upward mobility, and the chance to try to become who I wanted to be. I also enjoyed the basic luxuries of an American citizen that we so often take for granted: hot running water, blankets for the cold winters, floors that are not made of dirt, and easy modes of transportation, among many other things. So when I started composing this piece, the song ‘America the Beautiful’ kept coming into my consciousness and eventually became the main theme for the work. The beauty of the song is undeniable and I loved working with it as a musical idea. One can never take for granted, however, the strength of a musical idea – as Beethoven (one of my strongest influences) knew so well. This theme is challenged by other more aggressive and dissonant ideas that keep interrupting, unsettling it, but ‘America the Beautiful’ keeps resurfacing in different guises (some small and tender, others big and magnanimous), as if to say, ‘I’m still here, ever changing, but holding my own.’ A musical struggle is heard throughout the work. Perhaps it was my unconscious reacting to the challenge of how do we keep America beautiful.”

The piece received its first performance in October 2005.

Tower is widely regarded as one of America’s foremost living composers, and is also one of the most successful women in the field.

The Princeton Symphony Orchestra will perform her Suite from Concerto for Orchestra on its season-opening concerts, alongside Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” (with pianist Dmitry Shishkin) and Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra (at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium, Oct. 17 & 18). For more information, visit princetonsymphony.org.

Happy birthday, Joan Tower, 88 years old today!

September 6, 2026
Intensive Labor on “The Lost Chord”

This week on “The Lost Chord,” we salute the laborer for Labor Day.

Nikolai Medtner, classmate and friend of Sergei Rachmaninoff, wrote an awful lot of music for the piano. Alas, comparatively little of it is heard with any frequency. Pianists are said to adore his music, but for those in charge of concert venues the composer remains a tough sell. Medtner’s curiously titled triptych, “Three Hymns in Praise of Toil,” from 1926-27, consists of three movements: “Hymn Before Work,” “At the Anvil,” and “Hymn After Work.”

Manuel Rosenthal’s original compositions have been eclipsed by his arrangements for the runaway success, “Gaité Parisienne.” Rosenthal wrote music for the stage, orchestral pieces, pieces for voice and chorus, and instrumental works, but none of them have attained anywhere near the recognition of his Offenbach ballet, on which his name, if it appears at all, does so in rather small print. He did enjoy a successful career as one of France’s most prominent conductors. Interestingly, he was also the third and last pupil of Maurice Ravel.

We’ll hear Rosenthal’s “Les petits métiers” (“The Little Trades”), from 1933, ten deft orchestral sketches, including “The Farrier,” “The Herbalist,” “The Puppeteer,” “The Night-Watchman,” “The Postman Déodat,” “The Barber,” “The Cornet-seller,” “The Grinder,” “The Nanny,” and “The Little Telegraph-Boy.” If you don’t know what a farrier is, it’s a specialist in equine foot care!

According to the composer, “In this score, I have put my memories of the urchin I once was in the streets of Paris. They were full of songs of the trades-people, glazier, knife-grinder and so on. But I did not forget the wet-nurses who fed the new-born children of richer families, the soldiers or the little telegraph-boys, urchins of 12 or 13 years-old, who carried telegrams by bicycle. In short, all those little trades that favored exchange between people and contributed to a very French and very cheerful atmosphere.”

Speaking of horse feet, we’ll also enjoy a brief part-song by Gustav Holst, called “The Song of the Blacksmith,” a folk song arrangement from 1917. Holst later included the melody in his Second Suite in F for military band, with a lively part for anvil!

Finally, American composer John Alden Carpenter’s ballet “Skyscrapers,” from 1924, is set against the backdrop of a big city, with workmen in overalls exerting themselves amidst the haste and confusion of urban life. A whistle blows. There’s a side trip to an amusement park, with suggestions of carousels and raucous dance bands. These are interrupted, briefly, by a flashback to the idea of work, the workmen swinging their hammers and preparing to rivet. Then a reversion to play, with sailors, flappers and midway types performing a succession of colorful dances. The whistle blows again, and the laborers are summoned back to the job at hand.

Pull up a girder and get out your Stanley thermoses. I’ll be doing the heavy lifting as we punch the clock for Labor Day with “Labor Intensive” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!

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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

September 5, 2026
Once More Unto the Beach on “Sweetness and Light”

Once more unto the beach, dear friends!

This morning on “Sweetness and Light,” for Labor Day weekend, we’ll wring the last from our beach towels as we bid farewell to the summer season.

I’ll have two works that are Jersey Shore specific, including the “Cape May Suite” by Rick Sowash (who lives in Cincinnati) and “The Atlantic City Pageant” by John Philip Sousa – named for the famous beauty pageant and given its first performance on Atlantic City’s Steel Pier.

We’ll also hear from Virgil Thomson, Émile Waldteufel, Ronald Binge, Clive Richardson, Ralph Vaughan Williams, John Williams, and Morton Gould.

It will be hotter than Harfleur, but we’ll seek solace in the surf. Join me by the seaside for the last throes of summer, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

September 5, 2026
Star Trek at 60 on “Picture Perfect”

Space… the final frontier. This week on “Picture Perfect,” beam aboard for some of the best “Star Trek” music in the galaxy, as we mark the 60th anniversary of the first broadcast of the original series on September 8, 1966. We’ll hear enterprising selections from the beloved media franchise.

In retrospect, it’s hard to conceive of “Star Trek,” the original series (1966-69), staggering toward cancellation after a mere three seasons on NBC, so much a part our shared cultural consciousness it has become. The show’s popularity expanded through syndication. Still, prior to the blockbuster success of “Star Wars,” the only other “Trek” would be an animated series that aired on Saturday morning television from 1973 to 1974.

In 1977, the one-two box office punch of “Star Wars” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” revealed a latent hunger for science fiction that gave “Star Trek” the final boost it needed to reach the big screen.

“Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (1979), long-awaited, was ambitious to a fault. Its approach seemed especially ponderous next to the souped-up dog fights of a galaxy far, far away. However, there was undeniably a nostalgic satisfaction in seeing the original crew reassembled on the deck of a refurbished Enterprise, and the production values were nothing less than first-rate.

Robert Wise directed. Wise was involved in the production of any number of classic films, dating back to the 1930s, including “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” “West Side Story,” “The Haunting,” and “The Sound of Music.” He also edited “Citizen Kane.”

“Star Trek: The Motion Picture” sported state-of-the-art special effects (by Douglas Trumbull no less), and a knock-out music score by Jerry Goldsmith. I remember leaving the theater on the film’s opening night and remarking that the movie was all right, but the music was fantastic.

There’s a six-minute, music-and-special effects showpiece of a shuttle flying around the drydocked Enterprise that’s a perfect marriage of music and film. It’s like nothing you’re ever likely to encounter in movies today – and more’s the pity.

The “ST: TMP” theme has always been a fan favorite, but its resurrection, beginning with the launch of the television series “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” cemented its broader familiarity.

“Star Trek” had always positioned itself as thoughtful science fiction, and in the case of the first film perhaps it tried a mite too hard. “ST: TMP” strove for stately, but what it wound up achieving was stasis. Although a box office success, the film received mixed reviews and performed below industry expectations. However, it still made enough money to justify a sequel.

“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (1982) was a belated continuation of an episode from the original series, “Space Seed,” in which a genetically engineered superman is revived from suspended animation and attempts to take over the Enterprise. Khan, of course, was played by Ricardo Montalban, now with gleaming chest and silver mullet – worlds away from his contemporaneous characterization as Mr. Roarke on TV’s “Fantasy Island.”

The tone of the film proved a refreshing change of pace, playing up the character relationships that made the original series so enjoyable and providing enough action to satisfy audiences attuned to post-“Star Wars” spectacle. Moreover, it cleverly draws on nautical iconography – while “Star Wars” had its dogfights, “Wrath of Khan” deals more in broadsides – and that nautical flavor extends to the film’s brilliant score, by James Horner. The project propelled Horner onto the A-list of film composers.

Another memorable episode of the original series dealt with the usually unflappable Spock losing his cool, as he teeters into pon farr, a period of madness that strikes every seven years during which a Vulcan must mate or die.

“Amok Time” (1967) opened the show’s second season. It featured alien-world papier-mâché boulders, oversized Q-tip like weapons, and what is now widely recognized as the “Star Trek fight music.” This music was reused in several subsequent episodes and has since been widely parodied.

The composer was Gerald Fried, who wrote the music for Stanley Kubrick’s first four films. He also provided most of the score for the landmark television mini-series “Roots.”

Following the disappointing box office of “Star Trek: Nemesis” in 2002, the film franchise was put on hiatus for the next six-and-a-half years, possibly the result of “Star Trek” fatigue – too many movies and too many television series.

J.J. Abrams was hired in the hopes of revitalizing “Trek” with a fresh makeover. Abrams’ approach might best be summed up as “Damn the social issues! Damn the philosophical underpinnings! Damn the continuity! Full speed ahead!” The result is undoubtedly entertaining, though very much of our time, with a lot of action at the expense of the ideas and humanity that made earlier incarnations more resonant.

The “reboot” scored a hit with critics and general audiences, though it remains controversial with fans of the original series. Even the title suggests a new beginning, as the film was titled, simply, “Star Trek” (2009). The story employs an alternative timeline, so that the filmmakers are no longer beholden to more than 40 years’ worth of accrued “Star Trek” lore. It’s the kind of thing that is done all the time in comic books. Whether or not the result is for the best, I leave to you.

Neither is the music quite as rich as that for some of the earlier installments, though it does generate a fair amount of excitement within the context of the film. The composer is Michael Giacchino.

I hope you’ll join me for these selections from “Star Trek,” on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies. The music won’t be the only thing that’s transporting. Set phasers for “fun,” on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX Classical Oregon!

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Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

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The first four “Star Trek” movies are back in theaters through September 8, the anniversary of the original series’ debut. Each film is coupled with a classic “Star Trek” episode. If you missed my post about it yesterday, you’ll find more information here:

https://rossamico.com/2026/09/03/star-trek-at-60-celebrated-on-the-big-screen/

September 4, 2026
“Star Trek” at 60, Celebrated on the Big Screen

Before it took root and blossomed into a mega-franchise, “Star Trek” was viewed with skepticism by studio and network executives and wasn’t always treated with the respect it deserved. Now it’s part of the fabric of our pop culture and has been for 60 years.

The original series was broadcast for the first time beginning on September 8, 1966. To mark the diamond anniversary of its debut, not only will I be playing “Star Trek” music on my radio show “Picture Perfect” tomorrow on KWAX (8:00 p.m. EDT/5:00 p.m. EDT), but the first four theatrical features will actually be screened over the next several days at select AMC, Cinemark, and Regal theaters. These will be coupled with apposite episodes from the original series.

“Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (1979) will be presented in its director’s cut, preceded by the original series episode “The Changeling.” Both deal with probes of human origin that become sentient with perilous results. (Friday, 9/4)

“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (1982) will be preceded by “Space Seed.” Both feature Ricardo Montalban as a genetically engineered superman, one of the Enterprise’s most formidable antagonists. (Saturday, 9/5)

“Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” (1983) will be preceded by “Amok Time.” Both are tied to the Vulcan time of madness pon farr, during which Spock must mate or die. The television episode spawned the famous “Star Trek” fight music composed by Gerald Fried. (Sunday, 9/6)

“Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” (1986) will be preceded by “City on the Edge of Forever,” one of the series’ best episodes. In both, members of the crew of the Enterprise travel back in time. (Monday, 9/7)

For “Star Trek” die-hards, all four episodes and movies will be screened back-to-back, an all-day affair, ON THE ACTUAL ANNIVERSARY of the show’s first broadcast. So better plan to call in to work now! (Tuesday, 9/8)

My pick is “Star Trek II,” with its double-dose of Montalban, its James Horner score, the poignant character relationships, and the nautical space battles.

But I’ve already got my ticket for “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.” I’m one of the few who prefer the theatrical cut. For all its faults, there’s a stateliness – that admittedly teeters on the brink of stagnation – that really allows for a good wallow. I don’t think it’s a great movie by any standard, but it shoots for the stars. Sitting in a theater and experiencing Jerry Goldsmith’s score with Douglas Trumbull’s original effects seems like a good time to me. Highlight: a six-minute sequence of the glorification of the Enterprise at drydock – a heavenly union of image and sound. Also, Ilia’s theme, composed for Peris Khambatta’s character.

Google is your friend. For showtimes, search the websites of Cinemark, AMC, and Regal. Live long and popcorn!

September 3, 2026

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