Classic Ross Amico

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Academic Music on WPRB Radio

Okay, BMOC. How much do you really know about “academic” music? Time to hit the books on WPRB.

We’ll have selections to put you in the mindset of school and study this morning, including symphonies inspired by Cambridge (Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry), Texas Christian University (Don Gillis), Charterhouse (Ralph Vaughan Williams), and a finger-wagging schoolmaster (Franz Joseph Haydn). There will also be a march for the Yale-Princeton Football Game by Charles Ives and episodes of inappropriate hard drinking at graduation with Johannes Brahms and Hugo Alfven.

For extra credit, tune in for test pieces written for student musicians, music performed by university ensembles, and possibly even a few etudes (literally “studies”).

Remember, there will be plenty of time to sleep in class, so join me this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. It’s a perpetual school of hard knocks, on Classic Ross Amico.

September 7, 2017
School Days Classical Music on WPRB

Ah, school days! Time again to flagpole sit, stuff phone booths and swallow goldfish, all in the name of higher (and lower) education.

Join me this Thursday morning on WPRB, as we turn our thoughts to academic pursuits. We’ll have symphonies inspired by Cambridge (Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry), Texas Christian University (Don Gillis), Charterhouse (Ralph Vaughan Williams), and a finger-wagging schoolmaster (Franz Joseph Haydn). There will also be a march for the Yale-Princeton Football Game by Charles Ives, and episodes of hard drinking at graduation with Johannes Brahms and Hugo Alfven.

Join me in reassembling the dean’s car in his living room, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. It will be seven years of college down the drain, on Classic Ross Amico.

September 6, 2017
Labor Day American Music Celebration

Labor Day is many things to many people. Officially, it is a federal holiday, a celebration of the worker. Unofficially, it holds connotations of the end of summer, a last chance to hit the road and enjoy the beach, have family and friends over for a picnic, or simply kick back for three days and deny the impending, precipitous dash through the autumn and winter holidays. For us, it’s an excuse to flood the air waves with American music.

Join me this Thursday morning on WPRB, as we celebrate the American landscape, with music about natural and man-made wonders. We’ll conjure up the dungareed laborer, with the sounds of rivets and factory whistles. We’ll take a last dance around the firehouse and the gazebo. We’ll even enjoy some musical picnic foods. Plenty of the music will be wondrous in itself.

Put aside thoughts about punching the clock or punching your supervisor, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Hard times come again no more, on Classic Ross Amico.

August 31, 2017
Bernstein’s Ecstasy Aired on WPRB

Making music threw Leonard Bernstein into ecstasies. And he wasn’t ashamed to let you know it.

Join me this Thursday morning on WPRB as we anticipate the 99th anniversary of Bernstein’s birth (on August 25, 1918) with highly charged performances of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 4 and Jean Sibelius’ “Pohjola’s Daughter,” alongside Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat major, with Bernstein at the keyboard, playing with joyful abandon.

Along the way, we’ll salute The American Boychoir, the Princeton-based organization that closed its doors on August 15th after 79 years, with a recording of Bernstein’s “Chichester Psalms.” Bernstein’s last major work, “Arias and Barcarolles,” will be heard in its original (and better) version for mezzo-soprano, baritone and piano four hands. The world premiere recording features Judy Kaye and William Sharp, the latter no stranger to Princeton audiences, thanks to frequent guest appearances singing Bach with The Dryden Ensemble. We’ll also appreciate the talent of the late Barbara Cook with selections from “Candide.”

In addition, there will be some real rarities along the way (Nikolai Lopatnikoff’s Concertino for Orchestra, David Diamond’s Symphony No. 4). We’ll hear Bernstein the conductor, the pianist and the chamber musician, the composer of concert works and musical theater pieces.

Celebrate the genius of this musical hydra, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Lenny goes for broke, on Classic Ross Amico.

August 24, 2017
Honoring Hannah A Musical Goodbye on WPRB

It is hard to say goodbye.

I will lay my sweet Hannah to rest musically this morning on WPRB, by honoring her memory with works related in one way or another to our beloved pets and companions. Among the featured works will be John Alden Carpenter’s ballet “Krazy Kat,” George Crumb’s “Mundus Canis,” Peter Schickele’s “Thurber’s Dogs,” Robert Russell Bennett’s “Suite for Skip and Sadie,” Alan Rawsthorne’s “Practical Cats” (after T.S. Eliot), Alan Hovhaness’ “Fred the Cat,” and Kenneth Leighton’s “Household Pets.” There will also be pieces inspired by Noah and St. Francis of Assisi.

In addition, we’ll hear many, many shorter works by composers such as Leroy Anderson, George Antheil, Samuel Barber, Frederic Chopin, Zez Confrey, Aaron Copland, Ernst von Dohnanyi, Daniel Dorff, Sir Edward Elgar, George Gershwin, Carlos Guastavino, Howard Hanson, William Lloyd Webber, Arthur Pryor, Maurice Ravel, Elie Siegmeister, Igor Stravinsky, Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky, and Laurel Zucker.

It will be more engaging than a length of yarn or even a wayward cricket, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wrpb.com. I’m really missing my baby, on Classic Ross Amico.

August 10, 2017

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