Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Midsummer Music Bonfires and Roman Roots

You can thank the Romans. They’re the ones who marked the summer solstice on June 24. Hence, the schism between the longest day (June 21) and Midsummer. But the Romans liked nothing if not a good party, so why not keep celebrating?

This morning on WPRB, on the second day of summer, we anticipate the Eve of St. John – Midsummer, tomorrow night – the night when the demon Chernobog emerges from the Bald Mountain, Puck pours love juice in everyone’s eyes, and inebriated folk leap naked over bonfires.

Join me for selections inspired by Swedish Midsummer revelry, Ukrainian folklore, and Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” We’ll also hear music from Igmar Bergman’s “Smiles of a Summer Night,” Alfred Schnittke’s “(K)ein Sommernachtstraum” – “(Not) a Summer Night’s Dream” – and Gunnar de Frumerie’s ballet “St. John’s Eve.”

We’ll squeeze the juice of love-in-idleness onto sleeping eyelids, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Don’t get between me and my bonfires, on Classic Ross Amico.

June 22, 2017
Lalo Schifrin Birthday Celebration on WWFM

On the first day of summer, only the 85th birthday of Lalo Schifrin could eclipse the sun. The Argentinian-born Schifrin has composed over 100 scores for film and television, including those for “Cool Hand Luke,” “Bullitt,” “Dirty Harry,” “Enter the Dragon,” “Mannix,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “Rush Hour,” and of course “Mission: Impossible.” (His music for “The Exorcist,” however, was demonstrably rejected by director William Friedkin, who hurled the master tape out into the parking lot.)

A highly respected jazz pianist, Schifrin was discovered by Dizzy Gillespie, who knew to hire him on the spot. He has lived in the United States since 1958, making a very healthy living arranging and composing across genres, including bossa nova, jazz, bebop, rock, and classical, all the while cashing those lucrative Hollywood paychecks.

Join me this afternoon, as I celebrate Schifrin’s birthday with his flute concerto, “Concierto Caribeño.” We’ll also hear music by birthday celebrants Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (ninth son of Johann Sebastian), Swedish composer Hilding Rosenberg, conductor Hermann Scherchen, soprano Judith Raskin, American pianist and composer Henry Holden Huss (born in Newark, NJ, in 1862), and Czech composer Pavel Haas, who studied with Janáček (the master considered him his finest pupil), but met an early end at Auschwitz.

As if all that is not enough, I’ll have a couple of selections for the season, as time allows. Join me from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT. I am too much in the sun on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

June 21, 2017
Midsummer Traditions Worldwide Radio Show

Why let the calendar get in the way of a good pagan tradition? Join me tomorrow morning on WPRB as I stand like a colossus, with one foot on the summer solstice and the other on St. John.

June 21 may be the first day of summer, but the Swedes don’t celebrate Midsummer’s Eve until Friday, the eve of St. John the Baptist’s feast day. That’s the night the demon Chernobog emerges from the Bald Mountain, Puck pours love juice in everyone’s eyes, and inebriated folk leap naked over bonfires. The Swedes don’t really seem to care when it’s observed, as long as there’s plenty of drink, dancing, food, flowers and flame.

Midsummer’s Eve, of course, is tied to the summer solstice and marked by free-flowing vodka, prognostications of the identities future lovers, fertility rituals, and the wider celebration of nature. The Swedes observe Midsummer by wearing wreaths, carousing around the maypole, and eating strawberry cake. The day is a national holiday. Skål!

Sweden is not the only country to celebrate Midsummer, of course. There will be raucous celebrations in Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada (Quebec), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Slovenia, Serbia, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Half the world will be sleeping it off on Saturday.

Bottom joins his rude mechanicals in listening in with ass’s ears, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. We’ll all be dreaming of Midsummer, on Classic Ross Amico.

June 21, 2017
Golandsky Piano Festival Broadcasts Wei Luo

Temperatures are predicted to rise, both indoors and out, as the 13th annual Golandsky Institute International Piano Festival gets underway, July 10-15. The Classical Network will set the stage for musical refreshment with a series of broadcast concerts from last year’s festival. Join me today at noon for a recital by Wei Luo.

Born in Shenzhen, China, in 1998, Wei Luo studied at the Shanghai Conservatory, beginning at the age of 10. She racked up numerous top prizes in China before winning first prize in the 11th Chopin International Competition for Young Pianists in Poland and the 2nd Rachmaninoff International Competition for Young Pianists in Frankfurt, both in 2010.

In 2012, she was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she is a protégé of Gary Graffman. We’ll hear her in an impressively varied program of works by Albéniz, Beethoven, Chopin, Bartók, and Rachmaninoff.

This year’s festival will feature five concerts in six days, all held at Taplin Auditorium in Princeton University’s Fine Hall. Concerts begin at 8 p.m.

The festival will include performances by Claudio Martínez Mehner (appearing July 10, in works by Ligeti, Bach, C.P.E. Bach); Josu de Solaun (July 11, Chopin, Liszt, Tausig, Enescu); Father Sean Duggan (July 13, chamber and solo keyboard music of Bach); the Bill Charlap Trio (July 14, an evening of jazz); and Ilya Itin (July 15, Schubert and Rachmaninoff). Tickets are available online through the Princeton University Box Office.

The Golandsky Institute is the preeminent center for the Taubman Approach, a groundbreaking analysis of the motions that function beneath a virtuoso technique. The Institute helps musicians overcome limitations and avoid injury through the development of a healthy technique. The International Piano Festival is held concurrently with the Institute’s Summer Symposium, held on the campus of Princeton University, July 9-17.

More information about the concerts and the Institute’s Summer Symposium may be found online at http://www.golandskyinstitute.org.

Hear Wei Luo in concert. The broadcast begins at 12:00 EDT. I’ll be with you until 4, when among my featured works will be Bartók’s fairy tale ballet “The Wooden Prince.” Listen in to WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

June 20, 2017
Sibelius Incidental Music Rediscovered

Jean Sibelius was the composer of seven authorized symphonies that stand like granitic monoliths at the heart of 20th century music. Less well known, perhaps, is the abundant incidental music he composed for the theater. Join me for an historic 1932 recording of selections written for the play “Belshazzar’s Feast,” with Robert Kajanus conducting, and a more recent, digital premiere of the complete incidental music composed for “Everyman,” made under the baton of Osmo Vänskä. Enjoy this neglected-but-worthwhile music on “Sibelius, Incidentally,” this Sunday night at 10 EDT on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

June 19, 2017

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