Classic Ross Amico

  • Prodigal Son Ballet Father’s Day on KWAX

    Prodigal Son Ballet Father’s Day on KWAX

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    Ross Amico
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    Nothing is guaranteed to get Dad out on the dance floor faster than ballet music inspired by the Prodigal Son.

    As related in the Gospel of Luke, a young wastrel burns through his family fortune, then returns home to the arms of a forgiving father. The son’s elder, more responsible brother is none too pleased, but the father explains that since the younger son has repented and returned, as if from the dead – in essence, was lost, and is now found – it is cause for celebration.

    This week on “The Lost Chord,” it’s an off-center Father’s Day tribute, as we listen to ballet music inspired by the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

    We’ll hear a late, folk-inspired score by the Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén, staged in honor of his 85th birthday in 1957, and Sergei Prokofiev’s alternately pungent and transcendentally lyrical opus, written for the Ballets Russes in 1928. The latter was developed simultaneously with Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4 and shares much of the same thematic material.

    Father knows best. Celebrate the Day of the Dad with “Son Dance,” ballet music inspired by the Prodigal Son, this week on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

    Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

    PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

    SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

    THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

    Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

    https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

  • Spaghetti Western Music for Father’s Day on KWAX

    Spaghetti Western Music for Father’s Day on KWAX

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    Ross Amico
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    This week on “Picture Perfect,” for Father’s Day, it’s a fistful of spaghetti for Dad.

    We’ll be sampling an hour’s worth of distinctive scores from spaghetti westerns – ultra-cool, hyper-stylized entertainments, made by Italians but often shot in Spain, with their multinational casts heavily dubbed in post-production.

    Spaghetti westerns frequently turned the conventions of American westerns on their heads. At any rate, the morality of the traditional western was made much murkier, with antiheroes cast as protagonists, usually motivated by greed and revenge. Especially greed.

    As with the American film industry, only more so, when the Italians found something that worked, they went into overdrive, churning out literally dozens of knock-offs and imitations a year, until a given genre had run its financially lucrative course.

    To this end, over 600 European westerns were produced between 1960 and 1980. The most influential of these were those directed by Sergio Leone, especially those of the so-called “Dollars” Trilogy – “A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More,” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”

    These, of course, featured then-rising star Clint Eastwood. His co-star in the second and third films was Lee Van Cleef, who in American westerns such as “High Noon” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” had bit parts as one of the villain’s henchmen, but became an international superstar as the spaghetti western’s most reliable – and bankable – heavy.

    We’ll sample from music for the “Dollars” Trilogy, composed by Ennio Morricone, and the “Sabata” Trilogy (which also starred Van Cleef), composed by Marcello Giombini.

    Tell Dad it’s all-you-can-eat. We’ll be piling the plates high with music from spaghetti westerns, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

    Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

    PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT

    SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT

    THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT

    Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

    https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

  • Princeton Festival: “Tosca” & More!

    Princeton Festival: “Tosca” & More!

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    Ross Amico
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    5 responses

    Life has gone so far over the top recently that even Puccini’s “Tosca” no longer seems farfetched. Once scathingly dismissed by musicologist Joseph Kerman as a “shabby little shocker,” this tale of love, politics, and the world’s most melodramatic diva is now so meta that the characters threaten to leap from the stage. If you’ve never seen it, well, never mind. Now’s your chance! One of the world’s most popular operas will be given three performances at The Princeton Festival, this Friday at 8:00, Sunday at 4:00, and Tuesday at 7:00.

    Soprano Toni Marie Palmertree will sing the title role of the fiery opera singer who has a peculiar idea of what constitutes a kiss, tenor Victor Starsky her lover, the luckless artist Cavaradossi, and baritone Luis Ledesma, the slimy chief of police Scarpia. Puccini’s spinetingling score contains some of his most ardent, shattering music. And that is saying something!

    The Princeton Symphony Orchestra, Princeton Festival Opera Chorus, and student singers of Princeton Middle School will be conducted by music director Rossen Milanov.

    The opera will be presented in the state-of-the-art festival pavilion on the grounds of Morven Museum & Garden at 55 Stockton Street/Rte. 206.

    Prior to the Sunday performance, Westminster Choir College’s Margaret Cusack and stage director Eve Summer will discuss the production in a special presentation at Morven’s Stockton Education Center at 2:15.

    Of course, opera is not the only thing to look forward to this week. Tonight, Kentucky-born, classically-trained violinist Tessa Lark will introduce “Stradgrass” to Princeton. Lark went from playing in her father’s gospel bluegrass band to studies at the New England Conservatory and Juilliard. Her festival program will meld music by Telemann, Bach, and Ysaÿe with Appalachian and bluegrass licks. The concert will take place at Trinity Church Princeton at 33 Mercer Street (across the way from Morven Museum), beginning at 7 p.m.

    Back under the Morven pavilion, and in between this weekend’s performances of “Tosca,” American Repertory Ballet will execute “An Evening of Pas de deux” accompanied by members of the PSO, again conducted by Milanov. On the program will be selections from Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” and Minkus’ “Don Quixote,” along with Ethan Stiefel’s “Delibes Duet.” The dancing will begin this Saturday at 7 p.m.

    Yet to come, next week: “Baroque Brilliance” with The Sebastians, Motown with Masters of Soul, “Viva Vivaldi” with violinist Daniel Rowland and cellist Maja Bogdanović, and “ARRIVAL from Sweden: The Music of ABBA!”

    For more information, visit the Princeton Festival website at https://princetonsymphony.org/festival.

    CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Tessa Lark (“Stradgrass,” tonight at 7:00 at Trinity Church), Toni Marie Palmertree (“Tosca,” Friday at 7:00, Sunday at 4:00, and Tuesday at 7:00 at Morven Museum), inside the Festival Pavilion, and American Repertory Ballet (“An Evening of Pas de deux,” Saturday at 7:00 at Morven)

  • Tim Keyes’ Consort Celebrates 30 Years

    Tim Keyes’ Consort Celebrates 30 Years

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    Ross Amico
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    5 responses

    Tim Keyes’ day job is that of Pastoral Assistant of Music and Liturgy at the Catholic Church of St. Charles Borromeo in Skillman, NJ. But he’s also a prolific composer of oratorios, symphonies, concertos, film scores, chamber music, instrumental works, and choral pieces. His most recent work, “The Pool,” completes a triptych of sacred oratorios inspired by episodes from the Gospel of John. With its first performance at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium this Saturday at 8 p.m., the group of musicians Keyes directs, the Tim Keyes’ Consort, will celebrate 30 years.

    The orchestra and chorus are made up of professional and amateur musicians. Mentorship is central to the Consort’s mission. Saturday’s concert will open with a work by Rutgers Mason Gross student Amelia Cunningham, “Irish Overture,” and Ithaca graduate Kathryn Dauer will return to conduct Keyes’ “Adagio.” Read more about it in my article in the Princeton weekly U.S. 1, out today.

    https://www.communitynews.org/princetoninfo/artsandentertainment/three-decades-three-oratorios-for-tim-keyes/article_20876a40-2d2a-4e8a-8799-c8901ac4b582.html

  • Brian Wilson The Endless Summer RIP

    Brian Wilson The Endless Summer RIP

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    Ross Amico
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    2 responses

    The Endless Summer ends. R.I.P. Brian Wilson.

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