Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Light Music

Woodland Walks on “Sweetness and Light”

It’s well into May, the birds are singing, and the trees are vibrant and cheering (at least from where I type, in the Northern Hemisphere). All in all, the conditions are perfect for a musical walk in the woods this morning on “Sweetness and Light.”

We’ll visit the forests of Sherwood and Arden, respectively, courtesy of Frederic Curzon’s “Robin Hood Suite” and William Walton’s music for a 1936 film version of “As You Like It.” In between, we’ll enjoy a trip to the Vienna woods with Johann Strauss II and explore the lush forests of Lithuania with Mikalojus Čiurlionis. We’ll even partake in a woodland revel courtesy of George Melachrino, oh my!

No need to put on a hat or tuck your pants into heavy socks. The ticks and snakes will be most amicable on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 EDT, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

——-

PAINTING: “A Walk in the Forest” (1869) by Ivan Shiskin

May 16, 2026
April in Paris on “Sweetness and Light”

This Saturday morning on “Sweetness and Light,” it’s April in Paris.

We’ll hear April-and-Paris themed songs by Charles Trenet (“En avril, à Paris”), Georges Bizet (“Chanson d’avril”) and, of course, Vernon Duke (“April in Paris”), alongside a symphony for wind instruments by Charles Gounod (first performed in Paris in April 1885), a love song by Erik Satie, a suite (“Paris”) by British light music master Haydn Wood, and a work by Darius Milhaud as good as spring itself.

It will be an hour of cafés and croissants, blossoms and bisous, on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

April 11, 2026
It’s a Light Music Easter Parade on “Sweetness and Light”

Bring down the hatboxes and polish up your shoes. It’s nearly time to take a stroll down the avenue!

I hope you’ll join me this morning on “Sweetness and Light” for a good old-fashioned Easter Parade. We’ll enjoy a veritable bouquet of graceful melodies, turned-out as boulevardiers, flirts, dandies, and dog walkers.

Gentlemen, tip your hats, and, ladies, model your bonnets, as we partake in a leisurely promenade on a lovely spring morning.

Start your day with a light music Easter Parade 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/

April 4, 2026
Feline Affection and Frivolity on “Sweetness and Light”

This week on “Sweetness and Light,” the cat’s out of the bag. It’s an hour of felicitous feline music!

On the 150th anniversary of the birth of American composer John Alden Carpenter, we’ll hear the ballet “Krazy Kat,” inspired by George Herriman’s cult comic strip. Carpenter characterized it as a “jazz pantomime”, but if there’s any jazz in it, it’s “white man” jazz of the 1920s (i.e. less jazz than “Rhapsody in Blue”). Believe it or not, I’ve actually seen this performed – twice! If memory serves, Sergei Prokofiev, in the U.S. for the debut of his opera “The Love for Three Oranges” and to perform his Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, was present at the work’s premiere. I can’t find anything on the internet to back it up right now, so it looks like I’ll be sleuthing around my library.

Carpenter’s music will headline a meow mix of melodies by Leroy Anderson, Ernst von Dohnányi, Richard Rodney Bennett, Gioachino Rossini, Nino Rota, Samuel Barber, and Zez Confrey.

It will be programming you can sink your claws into, on “Sweetness and Light.” The music, like your host, will be the cat’s pajamas, this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST, exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

February 28, 2026
Musical Confections for Valentine’s Day on “Sweetness and Light”

This morning on KWAX, it’s flowers and chocolate for breakfast. I’ll do my best to indulge your sweet tooth and lend a serotonin boost with a special Valentine’s Day sampler.

Luxuriate with an assortment of decadent Fritz Kreisler violin bonbons, a suite from Lord Berners’ ballet “Cupid and Psyche,” Victor Herbert’s orchestration of Franz Liszt’s “Liebestraum,” Henry Mancini’s arrangement of Nino Rota’s “Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet,” and some romantic reveries by Gilbert & Sillivan, Charles Ancliffe, and Leonard Bernstein.

Better limber up those lips. It will be an hour of musical confections for Valentine’s Day on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EST/8:00 PST. Hear it exclusively on KWAX Classical Oregon!

Stream it, wherever you are, at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

February 14, 2026

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