Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Classical Radio Lives! Shows Find New Home

I may have lost my base camp for my specialty shows, “Picture Perfect” and “The Lost Chord” – which, with very little notice, were dropped from my friendly neighborhood classical music station (and employer of 28 years), WWFM The Classical Network – but I’ve still got a toehold in the Pacific Northwest.

It is a fact perhaps not widely circulated that the shows are syndicated. I’m not sure in how many markets. At one point there was a station in New York that was carrying them and, quite by chance, I discovered one on another station in North Carolina. It was never closely monitored, since the content was posted for free, and other stations would just pick them up to plug them into their schedules.

At present, all I know for certain is that both shows are still being broadcast on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon. “Picture Perfect” is on their Friday schedule at 5:00 pm PACIFIC TIME (which translates to 8:00 pm EASTERN TIME), and “The Lost Chord” is on their Saturday schedule at 4:00 pm PACIFIC TIME (or 7:00 pm EASTERN TIME).

Not bad for East Coast listeners. I’m in the process of ordering equipment for a home studio, so that I can continue to produce and – since I will be in a position to oversee everything and make my own decisions – aggressively promote and distribute the shows. So you can be sure I will keep you posted whenever they find another roost in your area.

In syndication, the shows always aired the week after they were heard on WWFM, so if you missed the final WWFM broadcasts of either program, you’ve got another chance today and tomorrow on KWAX.

KWAX is a great station that still honors the integrity of the music AND its listeners’ intelligence, with varied and rewarding programs that are presented with polish and professionalism. How refreshing to hear complete symphonies and concertos again, without all the vapid blather. This, folks, is the way classical radio used to be.

Give their streaming a shot now. It could very well change your life for the better.

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

As an added bonus – AND IT’S A BIG ONE – the program director is Peter Van de Graaff. Those of you who are longtime listeners of WWFM will recall Peter as the noon to 3:00 host, who also anchored the overnights. These segments were produced at WFMT in Chicago, as part of Peter’s Beethoven Satellite Network. This was foolishly thrown over by WWFM to accommodate the vastly inferior Classical 24 out of Minnesota, since C24 offers greater flexibility in terms of automation. Now, of course, on an average day, WWFM is a conduit for C24 for up to 20 hours of its broadcast day. So much for community!

In the interest of full disclosure, Peter Van De Graaff is my favorite classical music programmer of all time. And I’m not just saying that because KWAX is carrying my shows. I believe they picked them up before he started there anyway. I love Peter so much, I actually offered to come work for him in Chicago in 2012. There weren’t any openings at the time, and within three years he had moved to KWAX in Eugene.

My heart would still beat for PVdG, even if they wound up dropping my shows. Thank you, KWAX! And keep watching this space for further developments.

You can refresh your memory on the content of my shows for this weekend from these posts I wrote last week for their WWFM broadcast. Just note that the times and the station of origin have changed!

“Picture Perfect,” Fridays on KWAX at 5:00 PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EDT)

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1085977752321287&set=a.883855802533484

“The Lost Chord,” Saturdays on KWAX at 4:00 PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EDT)

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1086510718934657&set=a.883855802533484

PHOTO: Conan rides again on KWAX!

May 5, 2023
Stanley Silverman Interview WUSB Sting

Fresh off my unceremonious cancellation from WWFM – The Classical Network, I’ll be joining Phil Merkel this afternoon on WUSB for an interview with composer Stanley Silverman.

Silverman’s career has been so rich and diverse, embracing theater, film, television, classical music, and pop – he’s collaborated with artists as varied as Leonard Bernstein, Anthony Burgess, Arthur Miller, Mike Nichols, Joseph Papp, Arthur Penn, Paul Simon, Sting, James Taylor, and Michael Tilson Thomas – that it would be quixotic to believe we would even be able to scratch the surface in a 40-minute visit.

Be that as it may, Silverman will drop by to talk about his latest album, “In Celebration: The Piano Trios of Stanley Silverman,” on the Signum Classics label (Signum Records). The music is performed by the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, with special guest artist Sting. Yes, THAT Sting.

The conversation will take place this afternoon in the 3:00 hour on Captain Phil’s Planet on WUSB, the radio station of Stony Brook University. I hope you’ll join us in welcoming Stanley Silverman!

http://www.wusb.fm

May 4, 2023
Star Wars: My Musical Inspiration

Without “Star Wars,” there would be no Classic Ross Amico. I owe a very great debt of gratitude to George Lucas and all the technicians that made the original “Star Wars” the experience it was. And most especially to John Williams for bringing the London Symphony Orchestra to the fore. I spent countless hours drawing, writing, and dreaming to the double-LP soundtrack album as a kid. And the post-modern approach to the music, with its many allusions to the Romantic and early 20th century classical repertoire, revealed new worlds, richer and more limitless than even those portrayed onscreen. My single-minded absorption in this score would determine my life’s path. This was music that was so hip, so in tune with Lucas’ homage-heavy film school chock-a-block, it took years for my developing mind to unpack everything. Pop music didn’t really grab me as a kid. I had no exposure to classical music, but I was always attracted to film music, thanks to old movies that mesmerized me from earliest childhood. I never missed a television broadcast of “King Kong” or “The Bride of Frankenstein” or “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” But experiencing “Star Wars” in the theater was something else entirely. For me, May 25th (the anniversary of the film’s opening in 1977) will always be Star Wars Day. However, for today, I’ll go with the pun everyone seems to love: May the 4th be with you!

May 4, 2023
Thomas Stacy Acclaimed English Hornist Dies

“The Heifetz of the English horn” has died. Thomas Stacy was a member of the New York Philharmonic from 1972 to 2011. He was a featured soloist with the orchestra more than 70 times. He also appeared as guest soloist with many other ensembles.

More than 30 new works were written specifically for him. He was the most-recorded English hornist in the world. In 2005, he was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist for his recording of Kenneth Fuchs’ Concerto for English Horn, “Eventide.”

Stacy was also a virtuoso on the oboe d’amore. His final performances as a soloist with the Philharmonic were during the orchestra’s 2008-09 season, in an oboe d’amore concerto by Georg Philipp Telemann.

Growing up in Augusta, Arkansas – population 3000 – he listened to the New York Philharmonic Sunday afternoon radio broadcasts with his mother, a church organist. He sold his motorcycle in junior high school to buy his first English horn.

Leonard Bernstein characterized Stacy as “a poet among craftsmen.” Stacy died on April 30. He was 84 years-old.

Sibelius, “The Swan of Tuonela”

Copland, “Quiet City”

Dvorak, “New World” Symphony (video)

Kenneth Fuchs, “Eventide”

May 3, 2023
Super Chicken and the Jay Ward Cartoon Legacy

I’ve got a buddy in Philadelphia with whom I’ve been chums since the seventh grade, and he can be counted on to send me freakish snapshots of back-alley Philly, links to badly-dubbed kung fu movies, wisecracks about his latest serial killer obsessions, and clips of politically incorrect comedians. Sometimes I have to be careful not to open his mail too close to breakfast.

Last night, just before bed, he sent this, and it propelled me back across the decades.

Even not having seen the cartoon since childhood, it’s etched into my brain. Who could possibly forget Super Chicken and his sidekick, Fred the Lion? (“You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.”)

Henry Cabot Henhouse III is the Boston equivalent of the kind of fop long familiar from Zorro and “The Scarlet Pimpernel;” but in times of crisis, he downs his Super Sauce from a martini glass to become Super Chicken. His Super Suit resembles a D’Artagnan cast-off, supplemented with a domino mask. Fred, his manservant, wears his sweater inside-out. Note the backwards “F.”

Super Chicken was part of the Fred Ward stable of freewheeling cartoons produced by Jay Ward of Rocky and Bullwinkle fame. Ward was the inexhaustible genius who also gave us Dudley Do-Right, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Crusader Rabbit, Hoppity Hooper, Tom Slick, and George of the Jungle

I learned something this morning, through a quick Google search, as there was a rival company, Total TeleVision, which produced Underdog, Tennessee Tuxedo, Klondike Kat, Commander McBragg, Tooter Turtle, and Go Go Gophers. For my entire life, I thought these were Ward productions. The confusion is understandable, since they were all animated in Mexico by Gamma Productions and shared a similar vibe.

Somehow, the primitive animation worked with the concepts in ways they did not in your average, corner-cutting Hanna Barbera cartoons. The humor was offbeat, but knowing and referential, and it didn’t talk down. These were cartoons you could watch with your parents, and they would laugh too.

The theme song was written by Sheldon Allman (lyrics) and Stan Worth (music). In one afternoon, they knocked out the insinuating introductions for “Super Chicken,” “Tom Slick,” and “George of the Jungle.”

“Stan came over to my house,” Allman recalled. “We started at 1 o’clock, and by 4 o’clock we had the three songs.”

Allman, quite a multi-talented fellow, died in 2002. I found this obituary in the Los Angeles Times.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-feb-08-me-allman8-story.html

Bonus points for the “Super Chicken” opener featuring headshots of John Barrymore, Douglas Fairbanks, Valentino, and Boris Karloff! Watch it again. You know you want to.

If Gilbert & Sullivan had lived in the 20th century, they might very well have contemplated the very model of a modern clucking super chicken!

Super Chicken transformation compilation:

May 3, 2023

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