Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Princeton Symphony Orchestra

Bette Davis Film Music Rebroadcast This Weekend

PLEASE NOTE: If you are a lover of classic film music and also an early riser, tomorrow morning’s rebroadcast of “Picture Perfect” (6 ET) comes deep from within the archive. Because of the nature of tonight’s special two-hour Oscar Party, full of references to the 8:00 broadcast of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s “A Silver Screen Salute,” I’ve decided to bypass the daunting editing process and instead selected a tribute to Bette Davis from 2011.

The program will include music from “Now, Voyager” (Max Steiner), “Mr. Skeffington” (Franz Waxman), “All About Eve” (Alfred Newman) and “The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex” (Erich Wolfgang Korngold).

Davis was nominated for ten Academy Awards, and won twice, early, for Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938), though she turned in solid performances for pretty much her entire career. There is little about her style which doesn’t scream “ACTING!” So it seems only an appropriate choice for this Academy Awards weekend.

Listen to it here: http://www.wwfm.org.

In fact, if you read this between 8 and 10 tonight, tune in to catch the Princeton Symphony Orchestra concert. It’s a lot of fun.

BTW – Tonight’s “Picture Perfect” Oscar Party will be archived on the WWFM website as a webcast. However, the PSO “Silver Screen Salute” will not.

February 21, 2015
Oscar Music Night Picture Perfect & PSO’s Silver Screen

If, like me, you are nutty in the nutbone for classic movie music, you might want to join me tomorrow night for a special two-hour “Picture Perfect,” as we look ahead to the 87th Academy Awards.

Beginning at 6 ET, we commence our annual Oscar party, with wall-to-wall music from Academy Award-winning films, with selections from “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” “Ben-Hur,” “The Godfather” and many others. We’ll also sample from this year’s nominees for Best Original Score.

Then at 8, I’ll introduce the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, in a broadcast of their February 7 concert, held at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium, as music director Rossen Milanov takes the podium for the orchestra’s first ever “Silver Screen Salute.”

The concert will include music from “Gone with the Wind,” “The Magnificent Seven,” “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Star Wars,” among others. The American Boychoir will appear in John Williams’ “Empire of the Sun,” “Amistad” and “Saving Private Ryan,” as well as in “Over the Rainbow” from “The Wizard of Oz.”

Milanov and Chris Collier of the Princeton Garden Theatre will join me at intermission to talk about movies and the PSO concert.

Butter up the popcorn! We’re ready for our close-up. Four hours of movie music magic, on “Picture Perfect” and the PSO’s “A Silver Screen Salute,” starting Friday evening at 6, at http://www.wwfm.org.

PLEASE NOTE: There will be no webcast for the PSO concert, so be there, or be square!

February 19, 2015
Princeton Symphony Salutes the Silver Screen

Lights! Camera! Music?

The Princeton Symphony Orchestra will present “A Silver Screen Salute” on February 7 at 8 p.m.

The concert, which will take place at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium, will include some of film’s most evocative music, including themes from “Gone with the Wind,” “The Magnificent Seven,” “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Star Wars.”

Also featured will be Academy Award winning music by Franz Waxman for “Sunset Boulevard,” Bernard Herrmann’s score for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo,” Ennio Morricone’s poignant melodies for “Cinema Paradiso,” and John Williams’ Indiana Jones march from “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

The PSO will be joined by The American Boychoir for selections from Williams’ “Empire of the Sun,” “Amistad,” and “Saving Private Ryan,” as well as Herbert Stothart’s score for “The Wizard of Oz,” on themes of Harold Arlen.

NPR arts commentator Bob Mondello will host the event. Read more about it in my article in today’s Trenton Times.

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/01/princeton_symphony_orchestra_p.html

PHOTO: PSO Music Director Rossen Milanov, ready for his close-up

January 30, 2015
Robert Belinic Croatian Guitarist Princeton Symphony

How much is a ten-minute phone call to Croatia?

I interviewed Croatian guitarist Robert Belinić – who speaks impeccable (and, to my ear, unaccented) English, by the way – for my article in today’s Trenton Times.

Belinić will join the Princeton Symphony Orchestra for Joaquin Rodrigo’s beloved “Concierto de Aranjuez” at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium this Sunday at 4 p.m. The program will also include Ottorino Respighi’s “Three Botticelli Pictures” and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

Daniel Boico, for two seasons assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, will guest conduct. I find it amusing – or perhaps bemusing – that although the focus of the article is Belinić, the Times selected a photo of Boico.

You can read more about it here:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2015/01/classical_music_princeton_symp_1.html

BTW – As a follow-up to my Shakespeare article the other week, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra will present their second program of Bard-inspired works this weekend, including a concert at Richardson Auditorium tonight at 8 p.m.

The program will include Dvorak’s “Othello Overture,” Sergei Taneyev’s recovered love duet from a projected opera on “Romeo and Juliet” by Tchaikovsky, selections from Samuel Barber’s rarely-heard “Antony and Cleopatra,” and the “Walk to the Paradise Garden” from “A Village Romeo and Juliet” by Frederick Delius.

In addition, violinist Sarah Chang will appear in a suite after Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story” (of course inspired by “Romeo and Juliet”) in an arrangement by film composer David Newman.

If you missed the write-up, here it is again:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/12/classical_music_nj_symphony_or_1.html

Happy listening!

PHOTO: Robert Belinić, the guitarist whose image the Times would not print

January 16, 2015
Princeton Symphony: Commedia dell’Arte Concert

Commedia dell’arte tomfoolery, I suppose, could have a tenuous connection to Hallowe’en, with its masked stock characters (figures such as Harlequin, Scaramouche, Pulcinella, etc.) all up to some sort of trickery. But comparisons end there, as the Princeton Symphony Orchestra presents a commedia-heavy concert this Sunday.

Rossen Milanov will conduct Stravinsky’s “Petrushka,” a ballet about a lovelorn puppet who meets a violent end, only to return commedia-style and jeer his tormentors, and William Bolcom’s “Commedia for ‘Almost’ 18th Century Orchestra.” In between, Natasha Paremski will be the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

The concert will take place at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium this Sunday at 4 p.m., with a pre-concert talk at 3.

A post-concert reception will be held for ticket-holders at the Princeton University Art Museum, at which commedia-related prints will be displayed.

You can read more about it in my article in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/10/classical_music_princeton_symp.html

PHOTO: Antic Arlecchino (a.k.a. Harlequin)

October 31, 2014

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