Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

New Classical Music Releases on WPRB

What’s new? Why, new releases!

It’s been too long since I last did one of these shows, which means I’ve got a shelf-full of material from which to choose. Join me tomorrow morning on WPRB to hear Yo-Yo Ma perform the cello concerto, “Azul” (Spanish for “Blue”), by Osvaldo Golijov, with The Knights (orchestra), on Warner Classics & Erato. Watch out for that hyper-accordion!

Caroline Shaw reaches across the centuries to Dietrich Buxtehude in “To the Hands,” performed by Philadelphia-based The Crossing (choral ensemble), as part of a fascinating concept album on the Innova Recordings label, “Seven Responses,” in which contemporary composers reflect on Buxtehude’s cycle of seven cantatas, “Membra Jesu nostri patientis sanctissima” (“Most Holy Limbs of Our Suffering Jesus”).

At 9:00, Clipper Erickson, piano, who is on the faculties of both Westminster Conservatory of Music and Boyer College of Music and Dance – Temple University, will drop by the studio to talk about his new release of piano music by Laurie Altman, on Neos (record label). Erickson will be performing music by R. Nathaniel Dett and Modest Mussorgsky in recital at Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church in Princeton on Saturday at 5 p.m.

At 10:00 tomorrow, I’ll be joined by composer Zhou Tian, whose “Broken Ink” will be given its US premiere by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Rossen Milanov, at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium on Sunday at 4 p.m. Our conversation will be followed by a broadcast of Zhou’s brilliantly orchestrated Concerto for Orchestra, written for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. The recording was issued on the orchestra’s Fanfare Cincinnati label.

We’ll also hear new recordings of music by John Adams performed by Alarm Will Sound (Cantaloupe Music), Richard Strauss by JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (Naxos), Schumann by pianist Joyce Yang and the Alexander String Quartet, and John Williams by the FilmHarmonic Brass (Roven Records).

May the Fourth be with you, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. We find release in recent acquisitions, on Classic Ross Amico.

May 3, 2017
Amy Beach’s Gaelic Symphony Resounds Again

She was an extraordinary figure of her time. 26 years before women were granted the right to vote in the United States, Amy Marcy Cheney Beach composed a symphony that conquered Boston.

The “Gaelic Symphony,” as she titled it, was written in 1894. It was conceived in direct response to a call by prominent Czech composer Antonin Dvořák for Americans to break away from the European models they had for so long venerated. Instead, he urged Americans to open themselves up to their own surroundings, to find what was uniquely American and forge a distinctive national sound. For a Boston resident, English, Scottish, and Irish melodies would have been natural resources.

To coincide with the 150th anniversary of Beach’s birth, the Westminster Community Orchestra will revive this rarely-heard work, on Saturday at 8 p.m. The concert will take place at Princeton Meadow Event Center. Also on the program will be Mendelssohn’s “Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage” and a recent opus, “The Heroine’s Theme,” by Westminster Master of Music in Composition student Caeleb Tee.

You will find my article on Amy Beach and the “Gaelic Symphony” in this week’s U.S. 1, a handsome newspaper, established in 1984, with a circulation of nearly 20,000. Copies are available up and down the Route 1 corridor of Central NJ – including, of course, Princeton. Or you can follow this link.

http://www.princetoninfo.com/index.php/component/us1more/?Itemid=6&key=5-3-17ochs

Ruth Ochs, conductor of the Westminster Community Orchestra for the past 12 years, will be my guest this afternoon on WWFM – The Classical Network. Tune in at 4:00 p.m. EDT to enjoy our conversation about Amy Beach and the “Gaelic Symphony.”

May 3, 2017
Mimi Stillman Plays Mozart on The Classical Network

Flutist Mimi Stillman will be my guest this afternoon, for today’s Noontime Concert on The Classical Network, as we present a program of “Mozart Woodwind Masterpieces.”

Stillman will join members of her Dolce Suono Ensemble to perform the Flute Quartet in D major, K. 285. Then Ricardo Morales – Clarinetist, principal clarinetist of The Philadelphia Orchestra, will join the ensemble for the Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581. On the second half of the program, Charles Abramovic will be at the keyboard for a special arrangement of the Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat major, K. 452. Stick around – there might even be an encore or two. The concert was recorded on March 21 at Trinity Center for Urban Life in Philadelphia.

Next Tuesday, May 9, Dolce Suono will convene for a special memorial concert for Pulitzer Prize winner Steven Stucky. The program will include a Philadelphia premiere by the late composer; DSE commissions of works from Stucky, Fang Man, and Zhou Tian; and world premiere performances of pieces by DSE Young Composers Competition winners, performed by baritone Randall Scarlata. That concert will take place at the Curtis Institute of Music’s Gould Hall at Lenfest Hall, 1616 Locust Street, in Philadelphia. You can learn more at http://www.dolcesuono.com.

Later this afternoon, we’ll enjoy the unabashedly epic Symphony No. 2 by Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén. Yesterday was the anniversary of Alfvén’s birth, and – what with all the May Day revelry – we really didn’t get to do him justice, beyond a brief festive polonaise. Alfvén composed his Second Symphony at the age of 26. The work traces an at times intense trajectory from youthful high spirits to solemn grandeur, concluding with a powerful chorale-prelude and fugue in D minor. While “absolute” in form, the composer confided that everything he ever wrote contains a hidden program. The symphony was influenced by two near-death experiences, from which the composer emerged stronger than before.

There will be much strength to be derived from our music today, from 12 to 4 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTOS: Ricardo Morales (left); Mimi Stillman and Charles Abramovic

May 2, 2017
May Day Music Festival On WWFM

Tra-la! It’s May! The lusty month of May!

Join me this afternoon for a dance around the maypole. We’ll have a selection of madrigals, music inspired by birds and flowers, some morris dances, and musical evocations of Robin Hood, a figure traditionally associated with May Day festivities. Along the way, we’ll mark the birthdays, I hope, of Hugo Alfven, Jon Leifs, Leo Sowerby, and Walter Susskind.

We’ll spring into May, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

May 1, 2017
Communiversity Traffic? Walpurgis Night Movie!

As Princeton becomes an unholy traffic nightmare for Communiversity, I’ll be home watching this:

Presumably the film was retitled “The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman,” because most Americans haven’t the slightest idea of what Walpurgis Night is.

Communiversity will place today from 1 to 6 p.m. For a complete listing of concerts and activities, follow the link:

http://artscouncilofprinceton.org/communiversity/schedule-and-activities/

Enjoy your Walpurgis Night Communiversity!

April 30, 2017

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