Classic Ross Amico

  • Grace Williams Birthday Celebration on The Classical Network

    Grace Williams Birthday Celebration on The Classical Network

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    Ross Amico
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    Today is the birthday of Welsh composer Grace Williams. This afternoon on The Classical Network, I’ll be sharing her best-loved music, the “Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes.” This will be part of an hour of works inspired by well-known children’s tunes, including Mozart’s “Variations on ‘Ah! Vous dirai-je, maman’” (we know it better as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”) and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ ballet “Old King Cole.”

    We’ll also have music inspired by the movies, including “Cinéma” (featuring musical portraits of Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino, and Charlie Chaplin) by the French composer Louis Aubert, also born on this date, and a delightful morceau by Chaplin himself. Somewhere along the way, we’ll even celebrate the birthday of violinist Gil Shaham.

    At 6:00, it’s chamber music from the legendary Marlboro Music Festival. It will be a program of contrasts – literally – as we juxtapose works by birthday celebrants György Kurtág and Luigi Boccherini and cap the hour with “Contrasts,” music commissioned by Benny Goodman from Béla Bartók.

    We’ll call for our pipe, call for our bowl, and call for our fiddler’s three, this afternoon from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

  • Webcasts: Love Eternal & Educational Bonds

    Webcasts: Love Eternal & Educational Bonds

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    Ross Amico
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    4 responses

    Last weekend’s “Picture Perfect” (“Love Eternal”) and “The Lost Chord” (“Educational Bonds”) are now posted as webcasts. Follow the respective link (below) and click on the “Listen” button.

    “Love Eternal,” music from “Somewhere in Time” (John Barry), “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” (Bernard Herrmann), “Always” (John Williams), and “Wuthering Heights” (Alfred Newman):

    https://www.wwfm.org/post/picture-perfect-february-14-love-eternal

    “Educational Bonds,” selections by African-American composer Margaret Bonds and her teachers, Florence Price and William Levi Dawson:

    https://www.wwfm.org/post/lost-chord-january-16-educational-bonds

  • Remembering Milne & de Leeuw on The Classical Network

    Remembering Milne & de Leeuw on The Classical Network

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    Ross Amico
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    6 responses

    Sadly, the past week has left us short of two fine musicians.

    Pianist Hamish Milne died on Wednesday at the age of 80, and conductor and pianist Reinbert de Leeuw died on Valentine’s Day at 81.

    This afternoon on The Classical Network, we’ll celebrate both artists with selections from their recorded legacies.

    Milne will be represented by one of his many performances of Nikolai Medtner – a friend and contemporary of Sergei Rachmaninoff – whose music was something of a specialty. We’ll also hear Milne as soloist in a Romantic piano concerto, to be announced.

    De Leeuw will conduct Steve Reich’s “Tehillim,” vibrant settings of Hebrew Psalms. He’ll also sit down at the keyboard for a highly individual performance of Erik Satie’s “Gymnopédies.”

    First, on today’s Noontime Concert, Piffaro, The Renaissance Band will present a program titled “Burgundian Beginnings & Beyond,” a Franco-Flemish feast of instrumental works by Guillaume Dufay, Robert Morton, Antoine Busnois, Josquin des Prez, Pierre de la Rue, and Nicholas Gombert. Directors Joan Kimball and Robert Wiemken will join host David Osenberg for this Early Music concert at 12 p.m.

    I’ll be along around 1:40. Settle in for a heymish afternoon with Hamish Milne and “Tehillim,” from 2 to 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

  • Presidents Day Classical Music Special

    Presidents Day Classical Music Special

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    Ross Amico
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    3 responses

    Hail to the Chiefs!

    You’d better sail through those white sales. You’ll want to be near an electronic device at 4:00 today for my annual State of the Union on The Classical Network. I’ll be revving up the musical automatons at the Hall of Presidents for Presidents Day.

    We’ll hear works inspired by Thomas Jefferson, Chester A. Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and of course George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Of course, I already played an hour’s worth of music in celebration of Lincoln for his birthday (February 12), but our 16th president inspired more note-spinning than can be crammed into a stovepipe hat.

    If you’re looking to buy a roll of quarters, you may be out of luck, the banks are closed. But Washington will be well represented, in Virgil Thomson’s naïf ballet “Parson Weems and the Cherry Tree” (a Bicentennial commission), George Antheil’s rousing concert overture, “McKonkey’s Ferry (Washington at Trenton),” and John Lampkin’s “George Washington Slept Here.”

    Composer Victoria Bond wrote four portraits of presidential character, for narrator and instrumental soloist. These were released on her album, “Soul of a Nation,” on the Albany Records label. The title track incorporates a violin for Thomas Jefferson, “The Indispensable Man” a clarinet for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “The Crowded Hours” a trumpet for Theodore Roosevelt, and “Pater Patriae” a flute for George Washington. I’ll select one of these for airplay this afternoon.

    Peter Lieberson’s “Remembering JFK” was composed for the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy inauguration. Its moving narration, compiled from the president’s own words, will be delivered by Richard Dreyfuss. Where have all the statesmen gone?

    And, as an added curiosity, Chester A. Arthur disliked “Hail to the Chief” so intensely that he asked John Philip Sousa to write a replacement anthem. We’ll find time for that, too.

    There may be no mail today, but we’ll sure sift through plenty of junk. I hope you’ll join me in celebrating Presidents Day, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

  • Presidents Day Music Potomac WWFM

    Presidents Day Music Potomac WWFM

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    Ross Amico
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    5 responses

    I hope you’ll join me in celebrating Presidents Day on this lovely Tuesday afternoon. I’ll been hurling CDs across the Potomac, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

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