A few more memories of WWFM – The Classical Network for the station’s 40th anniversary.
TOP: Live broadcast of Choral Arts Philadelphia performance of Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio,” with Rachel Katz and Alice Weiss
BOTTOM (left to right): Hand-in-hand with David Dubal; from an old program guide, with Bliss Michelson, Richard Gladwell and Marjorie Herman, and Heidi Jamieson, Win Howard, Ted Otten, and Michael Kownacky; with Mike Harrah at one of the editing booths
According to a statement issued by Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth II died peacefully today at Balmoral Castle, her estate in the Scottish Highlands, with her family around her. She was 96 years-old.
Elizabeth reigned as Queen of England from 1953. In 2015, she became the country’s longest-reigning monarch. She lived to see the massive celebrations in honor of her 70th year on the throne, held only this past June. Now Charles is King.
Under the circumstances, it doesn’t seem appropriate to link a bunch of festive coronation marches. Instead, here’s Herbert Howells’ “Behold O God Our Defender,” composed on Christmas Day, 1952, also for Elizabeth’s coronation.
“When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”
Or of queens, for that matter. R.I.P.
I first saw Anne Akiko Meyers with the Philadelphia Orchestra at The Mann Center back in 1991 (playing Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto), and she was very special indeed. Ten years earlier, at the age of 11, she was already performing on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.” The next year, she made her “Top 5” debut, with the New York Philharmonic. Meyers has long since been in demand as one of the world’s top-tier violinists.
This weekend, she will be the soloist on the opening concerts of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra in Arturo Márquez’s Violin Concerto “Fandango,” a piece that was given its premiere, by Meyers, last summer at the Hollywood Bowl.
The concerto will form the core of a Latin-inflected program that will also include Ruperto Chapí’s prelude to the zarzuela “La Revoltosa” and the U.S. premiere of Marcos Fernández-Barrero’s homage to Leonard Bernstein, “America.”
Joaquín Turina’s evocative “Danzas fantásticas” and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s colorful “Capriccio espagnol” will lend further zest to this musical paella.
Music director Rossen Milanov will conduct.
The concerts will take place at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium this Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 4 pm. For tickets and more information, visit princetonsymphony.org.
Meyers on “Living the Classical Life”
“The Man Who Fell to Earth” (1976) may have traveled without luggage, but there certainly is a lot to unpack.
Nicholas Roeg’s determinedly experimental adaptation of Walter Tevis’ novel (he also wrote the books that formed the bases for Paul Newman’s “The Hustler” and the recent Netflix sensation “The Queen’s Gambit”), “The Man Who Fell to Earth” is kind of like E.T.’s lost weekend.
David Bowie, in his big screen debut, is the ethereal visitor from a dying planet who plans to return home with the necessary resources to save his people. However, he becomes increasingly mired in earthly distractions: media saturation, addiction (both chemical and interpersonal), human foibles, and institutional interference. Also, everyone he meets seems to spend so much of their time naked. And I’m talking really ‘70s naked.
Disorienting at times to the point of semi-coherence, “The Man Who Fell to Earth” is the perfect metaphor for a Roy and Ross conversation. You’ll need something stronger than water when ranking your favorite Rip Torn nude scenes in the comments section, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Interplanetary travel has seldom been so trippy as when we livestream on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:30 EDT!
Searching through my saved photos for some WWFM – The Classical Network memories. Here are four of many. Help us celebrate 40 years with your donation of $40 (or more) at 1-888-232-1212 or online at wwfm.org. Thank you for everything you do to support the music we love to share.
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: cueing up a symphony by Janis Ivanovs; group hug with Bill Zagorski and Rachel Katz; between membership pitches with Michael Kownacky; New Year’s hijinks with Carl Hemmingsen
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