Classic Ross Amico

  • Classical Music Today on The Classical Network

    Classical Music Today on The Classical Network

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    Ross Amico
    in
    4 responses

    As the day wanes, I’ll do my best to keep your late afternoon and early evening bright, here on The Classical Network.

    At 4:00, I’ll lead off with Arthur Foote’s “At Dusk.” This will commence an All-American hour, which will include a set of works by New England composers, all born in the 19th century. Then we’ll have a couple of pieces by Meredith Monk (on her birthday) and Robert Moran, respectively.

    “Music from Marlboro” gets an early start, at 5:50 p.m., to accommodate a complete performance of Franz Schubert’s Octet in F major, D. 803.

    What comes in between – in the gloaming, so to speak – is anyone’s guess.

    For now, I can pretty much guarantee a quintet of Americans and an octet of Schubert, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

  • Nancy Deussen Gershwin’s Secret?

    Nancy Deussen Gershwin’s Secret?

    by 

    Ross Amico
    in
    4 responses

    Composer Nancy Bloomer Deussen has died at the age of 88, and for the second time in two years, there are murmurs about an illegitimate child of George Gershwin. Deussen’s mother, Julia Van Norman, was exceptionally close with Gershwin, perhaps closer than the Gershwin estate would have liked.

    For her part, Deussen never wished to exploit her possible kinship to promote her own music, so perhaps it’s a disservice to her memory to even mention it. I only do so, because still fresh in the memory is the death last year of Alan Gershwin, who always insisted he was George’s son.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/obituaries/alan-gershwin-who-claimed-a-famous-father-is-dead-at-91.html

    Alan was 91. I must say, the resemblance is uncanny.

    Georgie be good!

    Deussen’s “Night Forest” for Native American flute:

    PHOTOS: Nancy Bloomer Deussen and, top to bottom, George Gershwin, Alan Gershwin, and juicy Gershwin scandal rag

  • Millennial Music & Mortality on WWFM

    Millennial Music & Mortality on WWFM

    by 

    Ross Amico
    in
    3 responses

    Boy, do I feel old. One day I wake up, and I realize I’ve been alive long enough for an entire generation of new composers to come of age.

    On today’s Noontime Concert, it’s another program featuring musicians from Network for New Music. We’ll hear recent works, including a few premieres, by contemporary composers Rene Orth, Joshua Hey, Sky Macklay, Andrew Hsu, Gabriel Bolaños and Charles Peck, all presented under the unifying theme of “Millennial Music.”

    NNM’s mission is to perform new musical works of the highest quality by a diverse array of established and emerging composers; to strengthen the new music community in the Philadelphia region; and to build support for new music by engaging in artistic and institutional collaborations and educational activities.

    Founded in 1984, Network for New Music has presented more than 650 works by living composers (of which over 150 they have commissioned) and recorded four CDs for the Albany and Innova labels. The ensemble has held an ongoing residency at Haverford College since 2007.

    NNM will present its season opener, “Streams of Sound,” at Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School Mary Louise Curtis Branch, 416 Queen Street, this Sunday at 3 p.m. For more information and a complete schedule, look online at networkfornewmusic.org.

    As if a program of millennial music isn’t enough to make me feel acutely the passage of time, our featured work following today’s broadcast concert will be Franz Joseph Haydn’s oratorio “The Seasons.” Haydn’s late masterpiece underpins the cyclical nature of the year with colorful vignettes suggesting the circle of life (and death). I think I’ll just focus on the wit and the wine.

    I hope you’ll join me as I stare into the face of my own mortality, from 12 to 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

    “Sharpening the Scythe” (1897), by Ralph Hedley

  • Nancy Deussen Gershwin Secret Dies

    Nancy Deussen Gershwin Secret Dies

    by 

    Ross Amico
    in
    4 responses

    Composer Nancy Bloomer Deussen has died at the age of 88, and for the second time in two years, there are murmurs about an illegitimate child of George Gershwin. Deussen’s mother, Julia Van Norman, was exceptionally close with Gershwin, perhaps closer than the Gershwin estate would have liked.

    For her part, Deussen never wished to exploit her possible kinship to promote her own music, so perhaps it’s a disservice to her memory to even mention it. I only do so, because still fresh in the memory is the death last year of Alan Gershwin, who always insisted he was George’s son.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/obituaries/alan-gershwin-who-claimed-a-famous-father-is-dead-at-91.html

    Alan was 91. I must say, the resemblance is uncanny.

    Georgie be good!

    Deussen’s “Night Forest” for Native American flute:

    PHOTOS: Nancy Bloomer Deussen and, top to bottom, George Gershwin, Alan Gershwin, and juicy Gershwin scandal rag

  • Nancy Deussen Gershwin’s Secret?

    Nancy Deussen Gershwin’s Secret?

    by 

    Ross Amico
    in
    3 responses

    Composer Nancy Bloomer Deussen has died at the age of 88, and for the second time in two years, there are murmurs about an illegitimate child of George Gershwin. Deussen’s mother, Julia Van Norman, was exceptionally close with Gershwin, perhaps closer than the Gershwin estate would have liked.

    For her part, Deussen never wished to exploit her possible kinship to promote her own music, so perhaps it’s a disservice to her memory to even mention it. I only do so, because still fresh in the memory is the death last year of Alan Gershwin, who always insisted he was George’s son.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/obituaries/alan-gershwin-who-claimed-a-famous-father-is-dead-at-91.html

    Alan was 91. I must say, the resemblance is uncanny.

    Georgie be good!

    Deussen’s “Night Forest” for Native American flute:

    PHOTOS: Nancy Bloomer Deussen and, top to bottom, George Gershwin, Alan Gershwin, and juicy Gershwin scandal rag

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