Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

  • Bulgarian Music Discoveries Vladigerov & Bermel

    Bulgarian Music Discoveries Vladigerov & Bermel

    This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’re off to Bulgaria.

    Pancho Vladigerov – despite his Mexican-sounding first name and Swiss birth – was a seminal figure in Bulgarian music. He was the country’s first major composer to harness the idioms of Bulgarian folk traditions to classical forms.

    Fairly well known in Central Europe during the 1920s, when he was an associate of the theatrical impresario Max Reinhardt, Vladigerov had many of his works published by Universal Edition and recorded by Deutsche Grammophon. He was a composer of opera, ballet, symphonic music, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, chamber music, songs, choral works and piano pieces.

    We’ll be listening to a generous selection from Vladigerov’s “Bulgarian Dances” of 1931.

    Also on the program will be American composer Derek Bermel’s musical recollections of his studies in the region, his “Thracian Echoes” of 2002. Bermel served as artist-in-residence at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study from 2009 to 2013. His “Thracian Echoes” was performed locally,by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, in 2011.

    I hope you’ll join me as we seek the cream of Bulgarian music – “Bulgar Wheat” – tonight at 10 EDT; or that you’ll listen to it later as a webcast, at wwfm.org.

  • So Percussion Summer Institute Princeton

    So Percussion Summer Institute Princeton

    It’s the “Just So Story” that Kipling never wrote.

    So Percussion will oversee its annual So Percussion Summer Institute (SoSI) in Princeton, July 10-24. The town’s streets, public spaces and concert venues will be alive with exciting rhythmic and timbral combinations, in performances at the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Matthews Theater, Albert Hinds Plaza, Princeton Public Library, Princeton Record Exchange, and Small World Coffee. All events are free and open to the public.

    SoSI will celebrate 15 years of new works for percussion quartet, involving college-age composers and performers from all over the world in an intensive two-week chamber music seminar. Many of the pieces to be performed were developed with faculty from Princeton University Department of Music.

    For the third year, So Percussion will be closely assisted by Andrea Mazzariello in developing a curriculum of writing for percussion, readings of composer’s pieces and interactions with Princeton faculty, graduate students and special guests.

    Highlights will include performances of Terry Riley’s “In C” at Princeton Public Library (July 18, 7 p.m.) and a concert made up of So commissions, including works by Steve Reich, David Lang, and Princeton composers Steven Mackey, Paul Lansky and Dan Trueman, at the Lewis Center (July 23, 7 p.m.).

    I do my best to drum up some interest in my article in today’s Trenton Times:

    http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/07/classical_music_so_percussion_1.html

  • Picture Perfect Hiatus Show Future Uncertain

    Picture Perfect Hiatus Show Future Uncertain

    “Picture Perfect” is going on hiatus. I know the show has generated a lot of enthusiasm, and I am grateful for all the wonderful feedback I have received here. Also, the show is just plain fun to put together, if usually a lot of work!

    Recognizing its potential to draw in listeners from beyond the classical music fold (after all, film music is what introduced me to the glories of the orchestra), I am still looking for ways to keep it alive. As I posted here some time ago, if I am able to secure underwriting I will have more leverage.

    In the meantime, I am continuing to submit shows for syndication. Unfortunately, I am noticing that some stations have had to suspend their internet streaming because of changes to copyright law. You can thank the Copyright Royalty Board and SoundExchange for that.

    The only station I can find that is still streaming is Geneva Community Radio, which has posted on its home page that it will temporarily suspend its service on September 24, as they relocate their streaming set-up. At any rate, 1:00 p.m. EDT on a Tuesday afternoon is hardly an ideal time to listen to “Picture Perfect,” but if you just can’t live without the show, here’s a link:

    http://genevaradio.blogspot.com/p/listen.html

    Clearly, something needs to be done in order for the show to be heard in this area. I could always move my production of it to another station, but ideally I would like to be paid for it, and I would like it to be accessible via standard radio (as opposed to HD2, which would require listening on special equipment). I’ll get it straightened out eventually. In the meantime, you can always catch up on the WWFM webcasts here:

    http://wwfm.org/webcasts_picture_perfect.shtml

    I may be choking down shriveled carrots now, but I’m confident this is only intermission. Hope to see you on the other side.

  • Alirio Diaz Guitar Legend Passes at 92

    Alirio Diaz Guitar Legend Passes at 92

    Another star has gone out from Venezuela’s cultural firmament. Only a week after the death of composer Inocente Carreño at the age of 96, Alirio Diaz, a protégé of Andrés Segovia and the dedicatee of Joaquin Rodrigo’s “Invocación y Danza,” has died at the age of 92.

    Diaz acted as Segovia’s personal assistant. He also studied with Regino Sainz de la Maza, the dedicatee of Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez.” “Invocación y Danza” was the first of many works dedicated to the late guitarist.

    Diaz plays Rodrigo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XQ-XifFZL0

    There are plenty more Diaz videos posted on YouTube. Have a look around.

    Adios, Alirio.

  • Grimm & Mahler A Musical Fairy Tale

    Grimm & Mahler A Musical Fairy Tale

    It will be a very Grimm morning this morning, to complement our grim weather. Join me as I celebrate the birthday of Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) with one of his early works, and one not that often heard: “Das klagende Lied” (“Song of Lamentation”). “Das klagende Lied,” written while the composer was yet a student at the Vienna Conservatory, is based in part on the Grimm fairy tale “The Singing Bone.”

    In addition, there will be other Grimm-inspired music by the likes of Philip Glass, Engelbert Humperdinck, William Hurlstone, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Robert Moran, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Bernard Rogers, Robert Schumann, and Elinor Remick Warren.

    As I remarked to the witch in the candy cottage, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Join me for a morning as grim as the weather, with tales from the Brothers Grimm, from 6 to 11 EDT on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. I’ll be introducing the music in an enchanted sleep, on Classic Ross Amico.

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