Tune in to WWFM – The Classical Network this Friday at 3:45 pm and Saturday at 7 pm EDT, to hear about the Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s fall plans.
David Osenberg will host Executive Director Marc Uys and Music Director Rossen Milanov, on Friday at 3:45 pm.
On Saturday, Rachel Katz will talk to Marc Uys and the Youth Orchestra of Central Jersey’s Larisa Epps about their organizations’ new partnership, on “A Tempo” at 7:00 pm.
WWFM can be heard locally at 89.1 FM. Additional frequencies and online streaming are available at wwfm.org.
Hang tight! “Picture Perfect” has moved from its former Friday time slot to Saturdays at 6 pm EDT! If that time’s not the most convenient for you, don’t forget, you can always catch it later as a webcast at WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org. Select the show, and click “listen.”
9-11: A morning for reflection. It may have been 19 years ago today, but everything about it is still so vivid.
When my telephone rang around 9:00 that morning, I was already at work, at home, on my computer, oblivious to the news. I picked up. A friend was on the line. She said a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I imagined the Empire State Building and the B-25 accident, back in the 1940s. I’m thinking maybe a piper. Terrible in itself, but accidents do happen. Then she said one of the towers “fell over.” That was what propelled me to the TV.
Nothing could have prepared us for the spectacle and terror of that morning. Nothing would ever be the same.
I was one of the lucky ones. My parents happened to be in the air at that time, on the way to China. They were traveling west across Pennsylvania. At 10:03, United States Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, southeast of Pittsburgh. The phone lines were jammed. Nobody owned a cell phone. It was a long day until I learned that my parents’ flight had been grounded in Pittsburgh.
My heart goes out to those who died senselessly, and for their survivors, for whom the day remains vivid and painful, I’m sure.
Here’s a work of solace and consolation: Robert Moran’s “Trinity Requiem” (2011), named for Trinity Wall Street, the so-called “Ground Zero church” in Lower Manhattan, composed to mark the attacks’ tenth anniversary:
The horror and surreality of the day are perfectly reflected in Gloria Coates’ String Quartet No. 8 (2001-02), with its eerie approximations not only of plane engines but also a kind of emotional instability. I know it gives me a sinking feeling, and that’s pretty much how it was to experience 9/11. If you’re looking for solace, do not go here:
Kevin Puts processes expectancy, uncertainty, and hope in his Symphony No. 2 (2002):
Remember the classic Marx Brothers mirror routine from “Duck Soup?” Expand that to an hour and forty minutes, and you’ve got “Journey to the Far Side of the Sun” (1969). Okay, maybe without the laughs.
Roy Bjellquist and I will talk ourselves blue over Gerry Anderson’s big-screen debut, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Anderson made his fortune creating futuristic television series, such as “Thunderbirds,” “Captain Scarlet,” and “Space: 1999.”
Deliberately-paced, but with captivating special effects and groovy production design, Anderson’s “Journey” is never boring. It can, however, be a little WTF. Sure, the entire premise is like something you came up with as a teenager, when feeling your way into your first philosophical discussions with a close friend. But the execution is diverting and certainly spectacular.
What if there was a parallel Earth, hidden from our view, on the far side of the sun? And what if we were to travel there? What would we find? To tell more would be to give it all away. We’ll save that for tomorrow night!
Relive that dorm room experience. Leave a comment and join the conversation. Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner live-streams on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:00 EDT.
If you missed it in June, you’ve got a second chance. The Met is streaming Jules Massenet’s “Cendrillon” for 24 hours, beginning this evening at 6:00 EDT.
While I concede that Massenet may not be at the top of every opera-lover’s wish list, this production is a gem, and not to be missed.
Massenet’s Cinderella springs from the page, with literal writing on the wall and a team-and-carriage rendered in typeset. Also, a playfully-imagined gallery of fairy tale grotesques in the supporting cast. There is a charm to Laurent Pelly’s staging that I find particularly refreshing, in an era when the thinking seems to be that everything has to trend toward the dark.
If you’re a fan of classic children’s book illustrations, don’t miss this one. With Joyce DiDonato in the title role – and Stephanie Blythe as the wicked stepmother – it’s difficult to resist.
