Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Radio Program

Black Composers Series Rediscovered on the Radio

For as long as it took Sony to reissue Columbia Records’ Black Composers Series on CD (40 years!), it was still ahead of the curve when it came to celebrating music by composers of color. Since the seismic social and political shift precipitated by the death of George Floyd, you can’t get through a week without new recordings and live performance of music by Black composers. But back in the day, these records were like Holy Grails, and as a collector, my heart would skip a beat if I ever came across one of the original albums on vinyl. I thought I would pass out when I discovered the CD reissues on the shelves of Princeton Record Exchange, since the box had basically been dumped on the market with no advertising.

Some of the composers have since found a toehold on the fringes of the concert repertoire – William Grant Still, George Walker, and the Chevalier de Saint-Georges are being heard with much more frequency – but there are many other fascinating discoveries to be savored.

I was so juiced at obtaining the entire series on CD that I promptly devoted four weeks of shows to the box set on “The Lost Chord” in 2019. Now, for the first time, the programs will be repeated, to coincide with Black History Month, over four Saturdays in February. Part One will feature selections by Saint-Georges, Olly Wilson, and Fela Sowande.

This is not a political statement, but rather a cultural and artistic one. Whatever it is that got us past this particular tipping point, I am grateful for it.

I hope you’ll join me for “Black to the Future” – selections from Columbia Records’ landmark Black Composers Series of the 1970s – on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PM PST

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW! – Saturday at 11:00 AM EST/8:00 AM PST

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EST/4:00 PM PST

Stream them, wherever you are, at the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

February 1, 2025
Fall Back into Music Sweetness and Light on KWAX

If we have to change the clocks, this is the time-change we all look forward to, as at least we “fall back” to standard time. It’s the spring that really gets you (and I don’t mean a clock spring).

As a gentle reminder to make the necessary adjustments before going to bed tonight, the focus of this week’s “Sweetness and Light” will be music about hours and minutes.

We’ll have “timely” works by Amilcare Ponchielli, Sir Granville Bantock, Albert Ketelbey, Frederic Chopin, Franz Joseph Haydn, and of course Leroy Anderson.

I hope you’ll join me, as it’s “About Time” on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio of station of the University of Oregon!

Stream it wherever you are at the link:

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

November 2, 2024
Winter Reading and Classical Music on KWAX

With the holidays now largely in the rear-view mirror, it’s a good time to curl up and catch up on your winter reading.

This morning on “Sweetness and Light,” it’s all about books, with light music classics inspired by “Vanity Fair,” “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “Don Quixote,” “The Leopard,” “Oliver Twist,” and “Tales of Hoffmann.”

I hope you’ll join me for some “light” reading, on “Sweetness and Light,” music calculated to charm and to cheer, this Saturday morning on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon.

The show will air at 8:00 Pacific Time, but you can stream it on the East Coast at 11:00 when following the link.

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

Need I say, “bookmark” it!

January 6, 2024
Laughing Through Cold Season with Hoffnung Music

It may be cold and flu season, and the holidays may dish up, among other things, a banquet of contagion. But, as it’s said that laughter is the best medicine, this week on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll laugh in the New Year with highlights from the notorious and uproarious Hoffnung Music Festival concerts.

Gerard Hoffnung was a boy when his family arrived in London, refugees from Nazi Germany. In his new home, he cultivated the persona of an English gentleman, though one with a decidedly impish bent. He attained celebrity through his work as a cartoonist, a sparkling panelist, and a public speaker. He was lauded as a brilliant improviser with a dry wit and a masterly sense of timing. He also played the tuba well enough that he was able to tackle the Vaughan Williams concerto.

Following a successful April Fool’s concert in 1956, Hoffnung embarked on the enterprise which, alongside his cartooning, ensured a kind of immortality – the first of the Hoffnung Music Festival concerts. The concerts brought together representatives of England’s finest musical talent to lampoon what, especially at the time, might have been perceived as a rather stodgy art form.

There would be three Hoffnung concerts in all. Alas, the third was presented posthumously. Hoffnung collapsed at his home in 1959, and died of a cerebral hemorrhage three days later, at the age of only 34. An untimely finish for a character who seemed his entire life to be a brilliant, fully-developed, middle-aged man, always at the peak of his form.

I hope you’ll join me as we celebrate Hoffnung’s whimsical legacy. We’ll hear Sir Malcolm Arnold’s “A Grand, Grand Overture,” for orchestra, organ, electric floor polisher, and three vacuum cleaners – the work was dedicated to President “Hoover” – and Franz Reizenstein’s “Concerto populare,” billed as “a piano concerto to end all piano concertos,” among others.

It’s a lighthearted playlist calculated to put a smile on your face and lend a boost to your spirits – to say nothing of your immune system. He who laughs last laughs best. So “Have a Ball,” on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!

Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast, so there’s a three-hour difference for those of you listening in the East. Here are the respective air-times for all three of my recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):

PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EST)

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – ALL NEW – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EST)

THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EST)

Stream all three, at the times indicated, by following the link!

https://kwax.uoregon.edu/

December 30, 2023
Odyssey on the Radio This Sunday

I’d be the first to admit that some of my shows have been more like groundouts to first. But this one is a guaranteed Homer.

This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” tune in for an hour of high adventure and satisfied bloodlust, as we listen to musical evocations of “The Odyssey.”

We’ll hear Ernst Boehe’s symphonic poem “Departure and Shipwreck,” from his cycle “From Odysseus’ Voyages” (1903-05), and Benjamin Britten’s radio play “The Rescue of Penelope” (1943), narrated by Dame Janet Baker.

Odysseus, of course, is one of the heroes of the Trojan War, waylaid time and again, on his homeward journey, by Poseidon and the frailties of his own men. It takes him ten years to make his way back to Ithaca. When he gets there, he finds his wife beset by boorish suitors all vying for her hand and his throne.

What happens next pushes all the same buttons that are still pushed whenever Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger apply the camouflage, strap on the bandoliers, and sheathe the big knives. Along the way, there’s also some meaningful father-son bonding. Leave it to Homer, who always knew how to lend a little class to the classics.

Zing goes the string of Odysseus’ bow! Just as Grandma rendered in needlepoint, there’s no place like “Home Sweet Homer,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

April 16, 2023

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