Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Yellowstone Inspires Violin Concerto

A violin concerto of Brahmsian proportions, inspired by Yellowstone National Park? You’ll have a chance to hear it this morning. I’ll be playing Jett Hitt’s cinematic “Yellowstone” in the 10:00 hour. Hitt, who holds a doctorate in composition, conducts guided horseback tours at the park!

We’ll also hear the “Chicago Fantasie Overture” by Helmuth Fuchs, who makes his home in New Jersey. The work was given its area premiere by the Westminster Community Orchestra, right here in Princeton, this past season.

Also ahead: Princeton University professor emeritus Paul Lansky’s “Travel Music” (featuring a segment about getting lost in Philadelphia) and Michael Daugherty’s exuberant “Route 66.”

We’re collecting musical postcards this morning on a road trip across country until 11 EDT on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com.

PHOTO: Composer-cowboy Jett Hitt

July 28, 2016
Einojuhani Rautavaara Obituary A Loss for Music

Okay, this one hurts.

I learn with dismay of the passing of the great Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, who died last night at the age of 87. Rautavaara, widely regarded as one of the world’s great composers, the grand old man of Finnish music, and the spiritual heir of Jean Sibelius, wrote eight symphonies, nine operas, 14 concertos, and dozens of other orchestral and vocal compositions.

By coincidence, I just played his Symphony No. 7, “Angel of Light,” on WWFM – The Classical Network on Tuesday. (Well, perhaps it’s not so much of a coincidence, since I played his “Cantus Arcticus” last week.)

I met Rautavaara once, backstage at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia in 2000, after the premiere of his Symphony No. 8. Somewhere, I’ve got a pre-digital photo of the two of us, me smiling like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. If I can find it, I will post it soon.

R.I.P. Einojuhani Rautavaara. You were one of the best we had.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jul/28/einojuhani-rautavaara-obituary

The final movement of “Angel of Light”:

July 28, 2016
Staycation Summer Road Trip on WPRB

Why travel abroad this summer, when there’s plenty to see right here?

This Thursday morning on WPRB, we’ll load up the RV and accompany composers on a trip around the country. We’ll have musical evocations of our states, cities and natural wonders. Along the way, we’ll travel Route 66 with Michael Daugherty, view some road movies with John Adams, and stop off to fill the tank with Virgil Thomson. We’ll even get lost in Philadelphia with Paul Lansky – during the Democratic National Convention, no less!

“The man who goes alone can start today,” wrote Henry David Thoreau, “but he who travels with another must wait until the other is ready.” I’m perfectly happy to wait until tomorrow.

Join me from 6 to 11 a.m. EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’ll do our best not to sing along with the radio, on Classic Ross Amico.

July 27, 2016
Frank Zappa Music Time Is Boring

“Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.”

-Frank Zappa

July 25, 2016
Music Tears and Memory Oscar Wilde

“Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory.”

– Oscar Wilde, “The Burden of Itys”

July 24, 2016

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