Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Princeton Concerts Explode With Talent

Okay, so even if it does have the vexing habit of dropping last-minute surprises on those of us who work in print media (most recent example: sending out a press release yesterday about Steve Reich appearing with So Percussion at Richardson Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow), I have to admit Princeton University has really outdone itself for next season. Joyce DiDonato, Marc-André Hamelin, Steven Isserlis, Bobby McFarren, the Takács Quartet, Abigail Washburn, Pinchas Zukerman and more will appear as part of the 125th season of the university’s flagship concert series. An artistic residency by Gustavo Dudamel serves to put the whole enterprise way over the top. Dudamel will bring musicians from the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Berlin Philharmonic. And this is just the series that we KNOW about.

During the intermission of today’s Noontime Concert on The Classical Network, I’ll be joined by the amazing Marna Seltzer, Director of Princeton University Concerts, who will preview next season’s outstanding artist roster. Our on-air conversation will take place around 1:00 p.m.

Prior to that, I hope you’ll join me at 12:00 for a knockout recital given at Richardson Auditorium on November 17 by pianist Benjamin Grosvenor. The concert will include works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Claude Debussy, Alban Berg, Maurice Ravel, and Johannes Brahms, interleaved with musical reflections on Brahms by Brett Dean.

Then, a little after 2:00, with the trees budding but the weather still wildly in flux, we’ll attempt coax spring, with two major works inspired by the season, performed by venerable orchestras located comparatively nearby – John Knowles Paine’s Symphony No. 2 “Im Frühling” (“In Springtime”), with the New York Philharmonic, and Igor Stravinsky’s “Le sacre du printemps” (“The Rite of Spring”), with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

In whatever language, we spring into great music, from 12 to 4 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

April 17, 2018
Trio Vitruvi Carnegie Debut & New Album

This is a big week for Trio Vitruvi. The Copenhagen-based ensemble will make its Carnegie Hall debut, in Weill Recital Hall, tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. The program will include piano trios by Schubert, Shostakovich, and Dvořák.

Then on Friday, Vitruvi’s first album, of Schubert chamber music, will be released on Bridge Records, Inc. The recording features a performance of the rarely-heard Bärenreiter Urtext edition of Schubert’s Piano Trio No. 2 in E-flat major, D. 929, which contains extra music not included in previous editions.

Join me this afternoon at 4:00 EDT on The Classical Network, as we sample from this impending release; then learn more about the prize-winning trio and its Carnegie appearance through a conversation with Vitruvi pianist Alexander McKenzie. McKenzie, who began his piano studies at the age of six, attended the Danish Academy of Music. He is also one half (with Vitruvi’s Niklas Walentin) of the violin-piano duo Walentin & McKenzie.

Following our interview, I’ll mark the birthday anniversaries of Leó Weiner (we’ll enjoy his “Hungarian Folk Dance Suite”), Federico Mompou (the “Variations on a Theme by Chopin”), and Henry Mancini (a selection of music from the Pink Panther films).

All told, we’ll be in the pink, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

April 16, 2018
Tax Time Tunes on WPRB

April 15th. Tax Time! Or just about.

Since the traditional deadline for filing income tax in the United States falls on a Sunday this year, it’s possible to live in denial for another 48 hours. Monday is Emancipation Day in Washington, DC, so nothing is due until Tuesday. Why let it ruin your weekend?

This Sunday morning on WPRB, we’ll have three hours of music related to filing your taxes. We’ll break the bank with works about wealth and penury, found and lost money, precious metals, careless spending, treasures sought, currency and coins, and good old fashioned tax protest.

If you’ve already completed your taxes, kick back and dream of what you’ll do with your newly acquired wealth, in the form of a fat tax return; or, in the unfortunate event that you’ll be paying through the nose, contemplate what great height you’ll likely be leaping from. If you haven’t paid your taxes, this morning would be as good a time as any to plug in the adding machine and think about meeting your friends for coffee and a movie.

Brother, can you spare a dime, this Sunday morning from 7 to 10 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com? You don’t have to worry about having money in the bank when the music is priceless, on Classic Ross Amico.

April 15, 2018
John Foulds Composer Rediscovered

Though steeped in the comparatively conservative milieu of the English musical renaissance at the turn of last century, John Foulds possessed a physical, intellectual, spiritual, and creative wanderlust.

Foulds moved to India in 1935. There, he collected native folk tunes. He became director of European music for All-India Radio in Delhi, created an orchestra from scratch, and labored tirelessly to fulfill his vision of a synthesis between Eastern and Western music. He also composed works for traditional Indian instruments. His efforts on behalf of the radio were so successful that he was asked to open a satellite branch in Calcutta. Unfortunately, he contracted cholera and died within a week of his arrival, at the age of 58.

Because of the remote location and the fact that a number of the pieces of his maturity have been lost, or the manuscripts extensively compromised, Foulds’ slight reputation has rested for the most part on his “light music.” But Foulds was definitely ahead of his time, as the gradual rediscovery of his works has revealed, with the composer’s fascination for quarter-tones and, occasionally, a tendency toward an almost proto-minimalism.

So diverse were Foulds’ output and enthusiasms that it is difficult, if not impossible, to encapsulate the scope of his achievements within a single hour. Nevertheless, this Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we will endeavor to do our best, by sharing his light concert overture “April – England,” “Three Mantras” from the abandoned Sanskrit opera, “Avatara,” and selections from “A World Requiem.”

It’s a Foulds paradise! Join me for “April Foulds,” this Sunday at 10 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Foulds (right), sitting in on an Indian jam session

April 15, 2018
Milos Forman Director of Cuckoo’s Nest Dies

Milos Forman, director of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Amadeus,” has died.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/14/obituaries/milos-forman-dead.html

April 15, 2018

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