Classic Ross Amico

  • Samuel Barber Doc Premieres Tonight

    Samuel Barber Doc Premieres Tonight

    by 

    Ross Amico
    in
    2 responses

    This documentary about the great American composer Samuel Barber airs tonight at 8 on WHYY Philadelphia, with a repeat on 7/21 at noon. This will mark the world broadcast premiere, and the coverage area includes the composer’s hometown of West Chester, PA. Barber studied composition at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. His “Adagio for Strings,” recognized the world over, is one of the most famous pieces written by an American composer, the introspective flip side of “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” Like so much of Barber’s music, it is revealing not only of the American character, but the broader human condition.

    You can also view the documentary here, on demand:

    Thanks again to filmmaker H. Paul Moon for making the trip in to WWFM – The Classical Network yesterday to share some of his insights into the composer and his experiences in the undertaking of this worthy project, “Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty.”

  • Samuel Barber Absolute Beauty Aired on WHYY

    Samuel Barber Absolute Beauty Aired on WHYY

    by 

    Ross Amico
    in
    4 responses

    Everybody knows Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.” But how much do we really know about the composer and the man? Join me this afternoon for a conversation with filmmaker H. Paul Moon, who will be joining me in the studio to talk about his new documentary, “Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty”, which will air locally on WHYY Philadelphia tomorrow night (Saturday) at 8 p.m.

    Barber, born in West Chester, PA, and a graduate of Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, is something of a native son. He must be ranked in the top five of all American composers, but of those, his music must be the most deeply personal. I hope you’ll join me for a conversation with H. Paul Moon this afternoon at 4:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

    Watch the trailer for “Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty,” and be enticed: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/barber

  • Eiffel Tower Ballet: A Surreal Bastille Day

    Eiffel Tower Ballet: A Surreal Bastille Day

    by 

    Ross Amico
    in
    5 responses

    Vive la France!

    In 1921, Jean Cocteau brought together five of his composer protégés, all members of Les Six, to provide music for a ballet set atop the Eiffel Tower on July 14 – Bastille Day. (The sixth, Louis Durey, pleaded illness.)

    The scenario involves a wedding breakfast on one of the platforms of the famed Parisian landmark. A series of surreal and vaguely satiric incidents involve a pompous speech made by one of the guests, a hunchbacked photographer asking the assembled guests to “watch the birdie,” the sudden appearance of a telegraph office, a lion devouring one of the guests, and the arrival of “a child of the future” who commits mass murder. The ballet concludes with the end of the wedding.

    Cocteau encapsulated the ballet’s themes as “Sunday vacuity; human beastliness, ready-made expressions, disassociation of ideas from flesh and bone, ferocity of childhood, the miraculous poetry of everyday life.” Quel illumination!

    Francis Poulenc, who provided the music for some of the numbers, alongside that of Georges Auric, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud and Germaine Tailleferre, referred to the piece as “toujours de la merde.”

    Tune in and judge for yourself. “Les mariés de la tour Eiffel” (“The Wedding Party on the Eiffel Tower”) will be among my featured selections for Bastille Day, this Friday afternoon, from 4 to 6 EDT.

    Then stick around for music from movies set during the Napoleonic Wars. I’ve assembled suites from “War and Peace” (by Nino Rota), “The Pride and the Passion” (Trenton’s own George Antheil), “The Duellists” (Howard Blake), and “Napoleon” (Arthur Honegger), for “Picture Perfect” at 6.

    Our afternoon will begin at 4:00 with a visit from filmmaker H. Paul Moon, who will talk a little bit about his new documentary, “Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty,” which will receive its world broadcast premiere tomorrow night at 8:00 on WHYY Philadelphia.

    As always, there will be plenty of beauty to enjoy today from 4 to 7 p.m. on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

    PHOTO: The Eiffel Tower in the days of Les Six

  • JoAnn Falletta’s WPRB Radio Fest

    JoAnn Falletta’s WPRB Radio Fest

    by 

    Ross Amico
    in
    6 responses

    It’s a Falletta Fest! All recordings of works conducted and/or played by JoAnn Falletta this morning on WPRB.

    Falletta is in Princeton with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra for this year’s NJSO Edward T. Cone Composition Institute, five days of intensive compositional evaluations and consultations, master classes and career-building opportunities, which will culminate in a live concert performance of participating composers’ works. The concert, including four new works and a piece by Institute director Steven Mackey, will take place at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium Saturday at 8 p.m.

    We’ll celebrate Falletta’s return by sampling from her vast discography, with orchestral music by, among others, Romeo Cascarino, Kenneth Fuchs, Jack Gallagher, E.J. Moeran, Jerome Moross, Behzad Ranjbaran, Igor Stravinsky, and Marcel Tyberg, performed by orchestras with which Falletta has had fruitful associations, including the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, and the Women’s Philharmonic.

    We’ll also listen to a couple of new releases of music by Richard Strauss and Vítězslav Novák, issued on the Naxos label, a rare recording featuring Falletta as guitarist, and two that she made with her husband, the clarinetist Robert Alemany.

    Falletta herself will drop by around 9:00 to talk about the institute and some of her other projects. She’s always very busy, with plenty of concerts, festivals and recordings in the pipeline.

    I hope you’ll join me this morning for some entrancing musical rarities, courtesy of JoAnn Falletta, on Classic Ross Amico, from 6 to 11 EDT on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com.

  • WPRB Webstream Down Tune to 103.3 FM

    WPRB Webstream Down Tune to 103.3 FM

    by 

    Ross Amico
    in
    5 responses

    I’m sorry to report, if you live outside the range of our analogue signal, that the WPRB webstream at wprb.com is down this morning. I’m told that we’re working to get it up again as soon as possible. If you live as far south as Philadelphia, or even further (I’ve received the signal all the way down into Delaware), or west, into the Lehigh Valley, for instance, try to get us on your radio. We’ve actually got pretty good analogue coverage at WPRB 103.3 FM. In the meantime, we apologize for the inconvenience. Hopefully we’ll be back soon!

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