Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

  • Zukerman’s NJSO Winter Festival Focuses on Education

    Zukerman’s NJSO Winter Festival Focuses on Education

    Widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of the past half century, Pinchas Zukerman comes across as remarkably free of ego. He’s more interested in cultivating the next generation of musicians. In fact, if you try to ask him anything about his upcoming concerts with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, education is all he wants to talk about.

    He’s especially excited about several initiatives being undertaken by the orchestra in the coming weeks, which include a plan to host young string players from the Manhattan School of Music. The students will participate in the NJSO’s performances of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony, on January 26, 28 & 29, following a period of intensive mentorship.

    Zukerman is artistic director of this year’s NJSO Winter Festival, appearing as both soloist and conductor on three programs in as many weeks. Each concert will be performed in three separate venues across the state – six in all – starting tonight at New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark. Other locations will include bergenPAC (Bergen Performing Arts Center) in Englewood, Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, Mayo Performing Arts Center – MPAC in Morristown, and the State Theatre New Jersey in New Brunswick.

    On January 20, Zukerman will be appear at Richardson Auditorium in Princeton, as soloist in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Also on the program will be Samuel Barber’s “School for Scandal Overture” and Camille Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3 “Organ.” Christian Vásquez will take the podium for the 8 p.m. concert.

    You can learn more about the NJSO Winter Festival, Zukerman and Vásquez in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

    http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2017/01/classical_music_njsos_winter_f.html

  • Hitchcock Williams & Murderous Movie Music

    Hitchcock Williams & Murderous Movie Music

    When trying to convey the tone he was looking for with his latest motion picture, director Alfred Hitchcock stated drolly to the film’s composer, “Mr. Williams, murder can be fun.”

    John Williams was hired to score Hitchcock’s final film, “Family Plot,” in 1976. At the time, he was poised between his breakout success with “Jaws” and “Star Wars,” which would make him a household name. He would be honored for both with Academy Awards for Best Original Score.

    To satisfy Hitch’s hunger for ham on wry, Williams turned to the harpsichord, an instrument that had taken on a certain mischievous quality when applied to mysteries and thrillers.

    This week on “Picture Perfect,” we’ll hear selections from this neglected score from the dawn of Williams’ widespread popularity, alongside Ron Goodwin’s music for “Murder She Said” (the first of Margaret Rutherford’s Miss Marple films), John Addison’s for “Sleuth” (Sir Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine engage in a battle of wits with potentially deadly consequences), and André Previn’s for “Dead Ringer” (a post-“Whatever Happened to Baby Jane” Bette Davis plays contentious twins whose relationship, naturally, leads to murder).

    Join me for an hour of wicked fun with arch harpsichords this week, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Friday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

  • Friday Fun Classical Music Broadcast

    Friday Fun Classical Music Broadcast

    After a long week at the office, what better way to get a jump on the weekend than with a little karaoke? Join me this afternoon at 4:00 EST to hear Leopold Stokowski conduct his own symphonic synthesis from Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov.” No one cares if you don’t exactly sound like Chaliapin when you’re stuck in Friday traffic.

    I’ll get you in the mood with the overture “Tsar Boris” by the regrettably short-lived Russian composer Vasily Kalinnikov, whose birthday anniversary it is today – but you’ll want to be there at 4 sharp!

    At 6:00, it’s “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies. It will be a program devoted to “arch harpsichords” in mysteries and thrillers. On this Friday the 13th, why not? I’ll have more about it on my Facebook page later this afternoon.

    Toss some salt over your shoulder, caress a rabbit’s foot (preferably while it’s still on the rabbit), and join me today between 4 and 7:00 EST for plenty of musical good luck, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

  • Tropical Heatwave Radio Show on WPRB

    Tropical Heatwave Radio Show on WPRB

    We’re having a heat waaaave… a tropical heat wave…

    Only days after our first taste of snow, temperatures are poised to rise into the 60s.

    This Thursday morning on WPRB, we’ll take our cue from Irving Berlin and ride the wave into the tropics. We’ll have music affiliated in some way or another with Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Brazil – broadly speaking, the Caribbean, the Amazon, and Latin America. Some of it will be in the form of picture postcards by European and (North) American composers; much it will be by artists who hail from equatorial climes.

    Join me on my tropical estancia, tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We need more cow bell, on Classic Ross Amico.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCnJ_8Z5Nb4

  • Tropical Heat Wave Music Escape

    Tropical Heat Wave Music Escape

    So long, Old Man Winter – at least for the time being.

    We’ll have an abundance of bananas and bongos this morning, as we travel south to equatorial climes, during what will seem in the Northeastern United States like a veritable heat wave. Too late for Indian Summer and too early for the Groundhog, it nevertheless provides us with some incentive to don our beachcombers and Bermuda shorts, musically speaking. We’ll enjoy a full morning of music evocative of the Caribbean, the Amazon, and Latin America. Some of the works will be by European and (North) American composers; most will be by those native to the regions.

    For those of you listening from outside the Northeast, under very different weather conditions, consider yourself snow birds, bound for the tropics.

    Join me as I crack coconuts with a machete this morning, from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’re having a heat waaave… a tropical heat wave…, on Classic Ross Amico.

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