With Memorial Day past, the season of summer travel has unofficially begun. This morning on WPRB, composers venture abroad, traveling for study, work and leisure.
Antonin Dvořák is lured to America with a job offer to head the National Conservatory of Music in New York. Julius Röntgen develops a friendship with Edvard Grieg that leads to spending summers with his wife in Norway. Darius Milhaud serves as secretary to the French ambassador to Brazil. Ignaz Moscheles anticipates a trip to Scotland. Derek Bermel studies Thracian folk music in Bulgaria. Benjamin Britten and Lennox Berkeley soak up Catalan folk music in Spain. Colin McPhee is captivated by gamelan music in Bali. And birthday boy Sir Edward Elgar vacations in Italy.
In addition, Reynaldo Hahn sends some musical postcards, Johann Strauss beckons us with the polka “On Vacation,” and Michael Torke gives us a portrait of “An American Abroad.”
At 9:00, we’ll pause to catch our breath with a visit from Thomas Lento of The Princeton Festival. He’ll drop by to let us know what’s on offer in terms of musical events for those of us who will remain home in the Princeton area for the month of June – including chamber and instrumental music, jazz and choral concerts, musical theater (“A Little Night Music”), dance, opera (“Peter Grimes”), and a screening of the classic Carl Theodor Dreyer film “The Passion of Joan of Arc” accompanied by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra.
I hope you’re up early and already packing. We follow the composers abroad this morning, from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. You’ll find us in rumpled linen and comfortable footwear, just in case, on Classic Ross Amico.
