Now that I’ve attended to all my end-of-week obligations (and replaced the faulty router I complained about two Saturdays ago), I am again footloose and fancy free in the cyber universe. I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who expressed disappointment that my Thursday morning show on WPRB was coming to an end, gratitude for what I managed to achieve there, and anticipation for what may lie in the near future. I intend to respond to all of your comments personally – I was both too busy and too wiped out to do so on Thursday and Friday – so don’t think that I did not appreciate them!
I want to remind you that the plan is for me to create a new show on WPRB, which will air on Sunday mornings, beginning on February 11 (next week). I am asking you again for your suggestions and your feedback. There are a couple of ideas I would like to bounce off of you, and I’d like to know if they hold any appeal. It took a few weeks, when I first started on Thursdays, to settle into a format, and I expect the same will be the case for Sundays. Nothing is etched in stone!
One possibility I have been entertaining is to resurrect the dormant tradition of playing a Sunday opera. The strength and also the limitation of my doing so would be that if I were to draw on my personal collection (which is what I always do), the show would definitely be skewed toward unusual and neglected repertoire – which is great if you love English music, Slavic opera, Scandinavian stuff, and forgotten American fare, and horrible if you love Verdi. Also, with opera, if you are in for a penny, you are in for a pound. That means that if you tune in and imagine that you aren’t going to like what I am playing, I’ve lost you for the entire show.
Another idea is to present a show of light classics. This could involve some degree of music for the stage, including operetta and zarzuela, or selections there from. These would appear in a format that would also allow for a fair amount of British Light Music, light classical, and generally cheery stuff – not “pops” fare, necessarily, but beautiful, tuneful music that has basically dropped off everyone’s radar. I think that could make for a great Sunday morning. But I am also open to other suggestions.
Of course, I could always just do what I’ve been doing for the past few years, but you’d only get it for three hours (as opposed to five), and I can’t always guarantee that it will be “light.”
The program would occupy a 7-to-10 slot immediately prior to Jeannie Becker’s “Sunday Jazz.” If I were to tackle a particularly mammoth opera, I could start earlier on a given week, though my preference is to start at 7. Remember, the program will launch next Sunday, so get me your thoughts as soon as you can. Again, thank you for all your words of support, and thank you for following Classic Ross Amico.
