Classic Ross Amico

Tag: New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra

Antheil’s Ballet Mécanique Returns to Trenton

When “Ballet Mécanique” was given its world premiere in Paris in 1926, the onslaught of synchronized player pianos, airplane propellers, siren, electric bells, and percussion whipped the audience into an opening night frenzy. Some of the most prominent artists of the day began to throttle one another and rain fists upon their neighbors’ heads. Even in a city jaded by musical scandals (“The Rite of Spring” was unveiled there in 1913, sparking surely classical music’s most-discussed riot), “Ballet Mécanique” was something special.

The composer was George Antheil (pronounced “ANN-tile”), born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1900. Antheil went on to pursue an unusually varied career, but he never could live down this masterpiece of the Machine Age. It is not for nothing that he titled his autobiography “Bad Boy of Music.”

This week, Trenton’s Bad Boy will make good, when he is embraced by his hometown orchestra, the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra, under circumstances that will not soon be forgotten.

In a prime example of form following function, “Ballet Mécanique” will be the centerpiece of a kind of industrial vaudeville to be held at the Roebling Machine Shop, 675 South Clinton Avenue, in Trenton, on Saturday, April 20, at 7:30 p.m.

But that’s not all. There’s also John Cage, Lou Harrison, the Plenty Pepper Steel Band, and Trenton Circus Squad!

Read more about it in my article in this week’s U.S. 1 Newspaper – PrincetonInfo, available from local vending machines and at area business, or online, today.

https://www.communitynews.org/princetoninfo/artsandentertainment/george-antheil-and-a-marriage-of-music-industry/article_28e86b32-fbfb-11ee-ad9e-5f434e9d5447.html

April 17, 2024
Aranjuez Guitar Concerto NJ This Weekend

Opportunities to enjoy a genuine guitar concerto – that is to say, an acoustic guitar with symphony orchestra – in person are scarce. That being the case, it should be self-recommending for you to check out this weekend’s concert with the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra, as the centerpiece of tomorrow night’s Latin-inflected program will be not just any guitar concerto, but possibly the most famous of all time – or at the very least, of the last century – Joaquin Rodrigo’s “Concierto de Aranjuez.”

Even if you can’t pronounce it, you’ll recognize the music! Here’s the soloist, Peruvian artist David Galvez, to tell you more about it:

The program will also include works by Arturo Marquez and José Pablo Moncayo. Music director Daniel Spalding will conduct. The concert will be held at Patriots Theater at the War Memorial in Trenton, Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

For tickets and more information, visit capitalphilharmonic.org.

April 14, 2023
Ukraine Benefit Concert Trenton NJ

The LOTUS Project will team with the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra to present a benefit concert for Ukraine, next Saturday, June 11, at 6 pm, at St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic Church Trenton NJ, on the corner of Grand and Malone.

The program will feature Ukrainian music and a new work, “Requiem for the Homeless,” by Frank La Rocca. La Rocca is the grandson of Ukrainian immigrants who settled locally.

For tickets and information, follow the link.

https://www.thelotusprojectnj.org/ukraine

Learn more about The LOTUS Project here:

https://www.thelotusprojectnj.org/

June 3, 2022
Film Composers Go Classical on WPRB

It takes very little to get me going on a film music jag – especially classic film music. Tomorrow morning on WPRB, the program will be made up entirely of works by composers for the silver screen. However, the emphasis will be on their music for the concert hall. The way I figure, I will introduce each concert piece with an example of a composer’s film music, and then follow it up with a symphony, concerto, string quartet or aria from the same hand.

I don’t know how many of these we’ll actually be able to get to, but I’ve compiled a box full of music by Elmer Bernstein (composer of “The Magnificent Seven”), Bruce Broughton (“Silverado”), Ernest Gold (“Exodus”), Jerry Goldsmith (“The Omen”), Bernard Herrmann (“Psycho”), Lee Holdridge (“The Beastmaster”), James Horner (“Titanic”), Maurice Jarre (“Lawrence of Arabia”), Laurie Johnson (“Dr. Strangelove”), Erich Wolfgang Korngold (“The Adventures of Robin Hood”), Jerome Moross (“The Big Country”), Ennio Morricone (“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”), Rachel Portman (“Emma”), Nino Rota (“The Godfather”), Miklós Rózsa (“Ben-Hur”), Lalo Schifrin (“Dirty Harry”), Franz Waxman (“The Bride of Frankenstein”), and John Williams (“Star Wars”).

This weekend, Daniel Spalding will conduct the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra in a blockbuster program of “Cinematic Classics,” featuring works by Rózsa, Herrmann and William Walton, with Odin Rathnam the soloist in Korngold’s Violin Concerto. The concert will take place at the Trenton War Memorial on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Spalding will be my guest tomorrow morning around 10:00.

It’ll be buttered popcorn and Sno-Caps for breakfast, tomorrow from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’ll be shattering all box office records, on Classic Ross Amico.

May 11, 2016
Golden Age Film Scores Return to Trenton

There’s a moment in the Billy Wilder classic “Sunset Boulevard” when Gloria Swanson, as a faded silent movie actress, remarks, “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”

Much the same could be said, setting aside the delusions of grandeur, of the great composers who worked during Hollywood’s golden age. It’s ironic that in the current era of vertiginous CGI that so many of our movies seem to lack dimension. There was a time when music with a strong profile was regarded as an essential element of the moviemaking process. It was a way of creating 3-D without the necessity of special glasses.

On May 14, the New Jersey Capital Philharmonic Orchestra will remind us of what’s been missing, to great extent, from the movie-going experience in recent years. The program “Cinematic Classics” will be presented at Patriots Theater in the Trenton War Memorial. Works by composers Miklós Rózsa, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Bernard Herrmann and William Walton prove what can be achieved by a skilled musician with a gift for melody, an innate sense of drama, and good old-fashioned musical know-how.

For those of you who believe that they don’t make ‘em like they used to, this concert is highly recommendable. You can read more about it in my article in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/05/classical_music_njcp_performin_1.html

May 6, 2016

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS