Tag: Horses

With the Kentucky Derby drawing near, it’s all about horses and horseraces on “Sweetness and Light.”

We’ll hear William Bolcom’s ballet “Seattle Slew;” a concert piece arranged from one of John Williams’ breakout film scores, for Mark Rydell’s “The Reivers,” adapted from William Faulkner’s coming-of-age novel about a boy swept up in automobile theft and illicit horseracing; and of course Stephen Foster’s “Old Kentucky Home.”

In addition, there will be Derby and thoroughbred-related works by Robert Farnon, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, William Schuman, and Leroy Anderson.

Meet me at the starting gate. It will be an hour of jockeys and juleps on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

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I had this Sports Illustrated in 1977. I wonder if I have it still? I don’t know why, but I was crazy about Seattle Slew. But then, everyone was. The kind of media attention focused on the race back then would be baffling to anyone who grew up in the internet age. I was 10 years old in May 1977. I named my hermit crab Seattle Slew.