Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Kile Smith

Early Music Month on WPRB: A Funhouse Mirror

My, but it’s Early – Early Music, that is!

This morning on WPRB, don’t expect the usual duets for solo instrument and piano. In honor of Early Music Month, we’ll gaze into a distant mirror – albeit a funhouse mirror – glimpsing courtly dances, Gregorian chant, madrigals, and hymn tunes, transformed by “contemporary” composers – that is to say, composers who have worked over the course of the past century.

At 9:00, I’ll be joined by John Burkhalter, a stalwart of the local Early Music scene and a member of the Guild for Early Music. He’ll fill us in on the Guild and a series of upcoming concerts that will feature vocal and instrumental music from the 12th through the 18th centuries. The concerts will be presented by the Guild’s member groups throughout the month of March. You’ll find a complete schedule at guildforearlymusic.org.

Our playlist this morning will include music inspired by Elizabethan dances, a guitar concerto based on Renaissance madrigals, arrangements of virginal pieces and cantigas for different instrumental ensembles, and wind music based on early lute pieces, among others. Around 9:45 or 9:50, we’ll enjoy a recording of Philadelphia composer, writer, and radio personality Kile Smith’s “Vespers,” ably performed by The Crossing and Piffaro, The Renaissance Band.

It’s a taste of Merrie Olde Princeton, from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. The bodkins are perpetually at odds, on Classic Ross Amico.

#EarlyMusicMonth
Early Music America

March 2, 2017
Early Music Month on WPRB: Medieval & Renaissance Inspired Sounds

My, but it’s Early – Early Music, that is!

This morning on WPRB, in honor of Early Music Month, we’ll be quaffing dances, quaffing chant, quaffing madrigals, and quaffing hymn tunes, as “contemporary” composers – composers who have worked over the course of the past century – look back for inspiration to music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Maurice Duruflé would fall soundly into that category. Duruflé, a former choirboy at the Cathedral of Rouen and one of the greatest organists of his time, drew on his love of chant in the composition of his Requiem. Lyn Ransom, founder and artistic director of VOICES Chorale, will drop by this morning in the 9:00 hour to talk a bit about the ensemble’s upcoming presentation of the work on Sunday, at Trenton’s Trinity Cathedral, in a reconstruction of a performance given under the direction of the composer while on a visit there with his wife in 1971.

Our playlist this morning will also include music inspired by Elizabethan dances, a guitar concerto based on Renaissance madrigals, a violin concerto on modes derived from Gregorian chant, and wind music based on some early lute pieces, among others. Around 9:45 or 9:50, we’ll enjoy a recording of Philadelphia composer, writer, and radio personality Kile Smith’s “Vespers,” ably performed by The Crossing and Piffaro, The Renaissance Band.

It’s a taste of Merrie Olde Princeton, from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. The bodkins are perpetually at odds, on Classic Ross Amico.

#EarlyMusicMonth

#EarlyMusicAmerica

March 3, 2016
Early Music’s Influence on Modern Composers

The pull of history is strong this morning. We’re celebrating Early Music Month, examining the influence of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance on “contemporary” composers – that is to say, composers who lived within the past 100 years. In fact, several of them (Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, William Kraft, and Kile Smith) are still very much with us.

Lyn Ransom, founder and artistic director of VOICES Chorale, will join me in the 9:00 hour to talk a little bit about the ensemble’s upcoming performance on Sunday, at Trenton’s Trinity Cathedral, of Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem, a work imbued with the composer’s lifelong love of chant, in a reconstruction of a performance given there under Duruflé’s direction in 1971.

Plenty more to come, including Respighi’s “Concerto Gregoriano,” Carl Orff’s “Kleines Konzert,” and Kile Smith’s “Vespers,” featuring Philadelphia-based Piffaro, The Renaissance Band.

It’s all tonsures and codpieces until 11:00 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com.

PHOTO: Husband and wife Maurice and Marie-Madeleine Duruflé

#EarlyMusicMonth

#EarlyMusicAmerica

March 3, 2016

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