Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Last-Minute Music Gifts & 2016 Releases on WPRB

Only ten days left until Christmas. Still, plenty of time in which to order that perfect gift for the music-lover in your life, or to treat yourself for being such a good Secret Santa.

This morning on WPRB, the focus will be on new releases issued over the course of 2016. There will be little snippets of Christmas music along the way, of course, but they will act as mere segues between the featured attractions. Playlists and record information will be posted online at the station website.

We’ll open the floodgates on Christmas next week. In the meantime, it’s a full morning of potential stocking stuffers, from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Don’t forget to leave out a cookie and some cocoa for Classic Ross Amico.

PHOTO: No kittens were harmed in the assembling of this program

December 15, 2016
Karel Husa Pulitzer Winner & “Prague 1968” Composer Dies

The Czech-born composer Karel Husa has died. A former student of Arthur Honegger and Nadia Boulanger, Husa came to the United States in 1954. He became an American citizen in 1959.

In 1969, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his String Quartet No. 3. In 1993, he was honored with a Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition for his Cello Concerto. However, he is probably best known for his “Music for Prague 1968,” inspired by the Soviet bloc invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Performance of his music was banned in his homeland for over three decades. At the time of his death, Husa was 95 years-old.

“Music for Prague 1968”:

The composer is interviewed by Bruce Duffie:

http://www.bruceduffie.com/husa.html

December 15, 2016
11 Days ’til Christmas Holiday Music WWFM

Only 11 days to Christmas. Tune in this afternoon to hear music for the season by Howard Hanson, Joseph Jongen, Benjamin Britten and Cecilia McDowall. We’ll also mark the birthday anniversaries of Ron Nelson, Rosalyn Tureck, Christopher Parkening, and maybe even Spike Jones.

There’s a lot to celebrate this afternoon, as we continue our countdown to Christmas, from 4 to 7:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

December 14, 2016
Christmas Music Today on WWFM

Christmas now is drawing near.

Join me this afternoon to hear Rutland Boughton’s “Bethlehem,” a choral drama adapted from the 14th century Coventry Nativity Play. Composed in 1915, and written very much in the English pastoral idiom, the work incorporates settings of familiar carols, such as “O come, all ye faithful” and “The Holly and the Ivy.” If you gravitate toward the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, I think you’ll really enjoy this.

It will come your way following today’s noontime concert, as I sit the board for a recorded program, “A Spanish Christmas Celebration,” featuring the Philadelphia-based Piffaro, The Renaissance Band. WWFM’s David Osenberg will co-host with Piffaro’s founders and artistic directors, Joan Kimball and Robert Wiemken.

Piffaro’s next set of concerts, “La Nochebuena,” will take place this weekend, at Trinity Center for Urban Life in Philadelphia on Friday at 7:30 p.m., the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill on Saturday at 7:30 p.m., and Immanuel Church Highlands in Wilmington, DE, on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. For more information, consult the group’s website at piffaro.org.

Rutland Boughton’s “Bethlehem” will begin at 2:00 this afternoon.

Join us today for theses ghosts of Christmases past, from noon to 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

December 13, 2016
Save Westminster Choir College in Princeton

Anybody else care about keeping Westminster Choir College in Princeton (as opposed to it being relegated to the music department of Rider University)? Sign the petition now.

Article:

http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2016/12/hundreds_sign_petition_against_selling_moving_west.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Petition:

https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-unification-of-the-westminster-choir-college-campus-and-the-rider-campus

December 12, 2016

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS