Classic Ross Amico

  • Saad Haddad Composer on WPRB

    Saad Haddad Composer on WPRB

    by 

    Ross Amico
    in
    5 responses

    Capping this Thursday morning’s broadcast on WPRB will be a special visit from Saad Haddad, Composer, whose fascinating work, “Manarah,” was heard on a concert of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra this past weekend. Haddad will share more of his music, which similarly employs electronics to expand the palette of Western acoustic instruments, to evoke the microtones and glissandi characteristic of the Middle East.

    Haddad found his distinctive voice while transferring video tapes for his mother. “My mom had all these VHS tapes that she wanted me to convert to a digital format so that we could save them on a hard drive,” he says. “When you’re watching these tapes, it’s not like burning a CD, where it’s very quick. You have to watch the whole video for it to convert. So I started noticing my uncles, my aunts. They were my age about 20 years ago. I’m watching them, and I hear some music, the way that they speak, the rhythm of their voices.”

    He also noted the singing of a congregation at the Melkite Catholic church where he and his brothers were baptized. The prolonged exposure to these images and sounds of his past inspired him to turn to Arabic inflections as the basis of his original compositions.

    Tune in to sample for yourself. Saad Haddad joins me tomorrow morning at 10:00 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. I’ll be there at 6, on Classic Ross Amico.

  • Groundhog Day Music Special

    Groundhog Day Music Special

    by 

    Ross Amico
    in
    4 responses

    Tomorrow, the Groundhog will demonstrate the full scope of his prognosticatory powers, as he emerges from his den, briefly, to call the expiration date on winter.

    But the Groundhog is not the only creature of the natural world possessed of extraordinary talents. Tomorrow morning on WPRB, we’ll salute this wise and gifted rodent through music inspired by zoological and cryptozoological wonders – creatures such as the Hedgehog, the Bee, the Unicorn, the Whale, and the Bold Umbrellaphant.

    At 10:00, I will be joined by a very special guest, composer Saad Haddad, Composer, whose fascinating work, “Manarah,” was heard on a concert of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra this past weekend. Haddad will share more of his music, which similarly employs electronics to expand the palette of Western acoustic instruments, such as the trumpet, the piano, the violin, the viola, and the cello, to evoke the microtones and glissandi characteristic of the Middle East.

    Join me, as I brag as lustily as Thoreau’s Chanticleer, standing on his roost, this Thursday morning, from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We shadow the Groundhog, on Classic Ross Amico.

  • Westminster Choir College Protest Princeton

    Westminster Choir College Protest Princeton

    by 

    Ross Amico
    in
    4 responses

    If you’re in the Princeton area, and you just can’t sleep, Westminster Choir College is holding a 24-hour marathon performance-protest against its overlord university.

    Rider University, desperate to shore up its own finances, is floating the idea of absorbing the operation of the Princeton music school into its Lawrenceville campus. Of course that would mean the primary artifacts of Westminster’s history, in the form of its neo-Georgian buildings, quadrangles, and invigorating greenery, would be left behind for a new owner to do with what it will. How Rider would propose to move all those organs is anyone’s idea.

    Anyway, the marathon began at 11:00 this morning and will run through 11:00 tomorrow morning at Nassau Presbyterian Church. Performances will include the college’s bottomless arsenal of pianists, organists, harpists, and of course singers, with solidarity appearances by Princeton Girlchoir and Orpheus Club Men’s Chorus.

    Nassau Presbyterian Church is located at 61 Nassau Street in Princeton. Just be aware that Princeton doesn’t like cars to be left on many of its streets after 2 a.m.

    You can read more about it here:

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/Westminster-Choir-College-begins-24-hour-performance-protest.html

    And here:

    http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2017/01/westminster_choir_college_musicians_sing_oppositio.html

  • Classical Music Broadcast Schubert Glass Gliere WWFM

    Classical Music Broadcast Schubert Glass Gliere WWFM

    by 

    Ross Amico
    in
    2 responses

    This Tuesday morning at 10:00, Alice Weiss will host “The Classical Network in Concert,” featuring winners of the 2016 Astral Artists National Auditions, in a program that was recorded at the Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia.

    That means there will be no noontime concert today, leaving me with a blank canvas on which to paint for the next four hours. During that time, we will not only mark the 220th anniversary of the birth of Franz Schubert, we will also celebrate the 80th birthday of Philip Glass. Glass will be represented by his Violin Concerto, with Gidon Kremer the soloist. Kremer will appear with his chamber orchestra, Kremerata Baltica, at McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton on Friday.

    Because there is always so much room to play with on Tuesday afternoons, I usually try to accommodate a larger work, on a scale not generally encountered on radio in the middle of the day. This afternoon will be no exception, as we take a 72-minute break from Schubert to enjoy Reinhold Gliere’s Symphony No. 3, subtitled “Ilya Muromets,” in a stunning performance by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by JoAnn Falletta. Gliere’s programmatic symphony evokes the heroic exploits of the legendary bogatyr, who employs his superhuman strength against a series of formidable opponents.

    The Buffalo performance has been described by David Hurwitz of classicstoday.com as “the finest version yet recorded,” and by Peter J. Rabinowitz of Fanfare Magazine as “beyond excellent.”

    There will be plenty of blood and thunder to counterbalance the delicacy of Schubert and the minimalism of Glass, from 12 to 4:00 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

  • Rediscovering Loeffler’s Pagan Poem on WWFM

    Rediscovering Loeffler’s Pagan Poem on WWFM

    by 

    Ross Amico
    in
    2 responses

    This afternoon on The Classical Network, you’ll have a chance to affirm your lofty love for Loeffler.

    What’s that? At best, you dimly recollect his music?

    Charles Martin Loeffler was born on this date in 1861; he died in 1935. Though he long claimed to be of Alsation birth, in actuality he was born outside Berlin. The composer turned against Germany after his father died in prison, where he had been sent for his subversive writings, when Loeffler was only 12 years-old.

    Loeffler was a fastidious artist, who cut his teeth in Berlin and Paris, and indeed he is frequently identified as French-American. He settled in Boston in 1881, where he shared the first desk with the concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and became an important figure in the city’s musical life. A man of wide culture and refined taste, he founded the Boston Opera Company. In 1887, he left the Symphony to devote himself wholly to composition.

    I hope you’ll join me for Loeffler’s symphonic poem of 1906, titled “A Pagan Poem.” The work is inspired by the eighth Eclogue of Virgil, in which a maiden of Thessaly, abandoned by her lover, revives his ardor through the use of sorcery.

    The work was first performed by the Boston Symphony, under Karl Muck. It was later championed by Leopold Stokowski, who recorded it for EMI. The piano plays such a prominent role, the piece sounds at times as if it may be a piano concerto. We’ll hear pianist Robert Hunter, and also English hornist William Kosinski.

    You can enjoy it today, between 4 & 7:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network or at wwfm.org.

    PHOTO: Loeffler (left) and Stokowski – who’s the true pagan here?

Tag Cloud

Aaron Copland (93) Beethoven (95) Composer (114) Film Music (144) Film Score (143) Film Scores (255) Halloween (94) John Williams (195) KWAX (229) Leonard Bernstein (104) Marlboro Music Festival (125) Movie Music (159) Mozart (91) Opera (213) Philadelphia Orchestra (89) Picture Perfect (174) Princeton Symphony Orchestra (109) Radio (88) Ross Amico (244) Roy's Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner (290) The Classical Network (101) The Lost Chord (269) Vaughan Williams (105) WPRB (397) WWFM (881)

DON’T MISS A BEAT

Receive a weekly digest every Sunday at noon by signing up here

RECENT POSTS