Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Ross Amico

America Through a Foreign Lens on WPRB

On the suggestion of a loyal listener, who alerted me to the fact that Sir Arnold Bax’s Symphony No. 7 was dedicated to “The People of America,” I thought I would take a different tack this year when putting together my show in honor of Independence Day, which I will observe tomorrow morning on WPRB.

Instead of targeting the strike zone of American patriotism that encompasses composers who came of age during the Great Depression and World War II (much of whose music I admire and even love very much), we’ll view America and the American experience through a foreign sensibility. Some of the composers will be immigrants, excited and even grateful to have made the United States their home, and some will be visitors. Some, such as Richard Wagner, who wrote his dreadful “American Centennial March” for the 1876 celebrations in Philadelphia, will merely have been looking to cash a paycheck.

Not all of the music will sound American (eg. Bax’s Symphony No. 7, given its premiere in conjunction with the 1939 New York World’s Fair); some of it will be self-consciously so (Ernest Bloch’s “America”).

Join me tomorrow, as we welcome the tired, the poor, the huddled masses of the world’s composers, yearning to celebrate the United States, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. I’ll be stirring the musical melting pot, on Classic Ross Amico.

June 28, 2017
Midsummer Traditions Worldwide Radio Show

Why let the calendar get in the way of a good pagan tradition? Join me tomorrow morning on WPRB as I stand like a colossus, with one foot on the summer solstice and the other on St. John.

June 21 may be the first day of summer, but the Swedes don’t celebrate Midsummer’s Eve until Friday, the eve of St. John the Baptist’s feast day. That’s the night the demon Chernobog emerges from the Bald Mountain, Puck pours love juice in everyone’s eyes, and inebriated folk leap naked over bonfires. The Swedes don’t really seem to care when it’s observed, as long as there’s plenty of drink, dancing, food, flowers and flame.

Midsummer’s Eve, of course, is tied to the summer solstice and marked by free-flowing vodka, prognostications of the identities future lovers, fertility rituals, and the wider celebration of nature. The Swedes observe Midsummer by wearing wreaths, carousing around the maypole, and eating strawberry cake. The day is a national holiday. Skål!

Sweden is not the only country to celebrate Midsummer, of course. There will be raucous celebrations in Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada (Quebec), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, Slovenia, Serbia, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Half the world will be sleeping it off on Saturday.

Bottom joins his rude mechanicals in listening in with ass’s ears, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. We’ll all be dreaming of Midsummer, on Classic Ross Amico.

June 21, 2017
Vinyl Week on WPRB: Rare Out-of-Print Records

Playing from vinyl is always a tricky proposition (I already had the needle stick on me once), but I think one well worth the risks. I hope you’ll join me this morning on WPRB, as I share selections from my own extensive record collection as part of WPRB’s Vinyl Week.

All of the recordings we’ll hear today are either out of print or available only as part of costly reissued collections of a composer’s complete works (Hans Werner Henze on the Deutsche Grammophon label). I’ve gone out of my way to select music that, for the most part, is not available even in alternative, digital recordings. What you hear this morning, you may never hear again. If you’ve heard it before, I trust it hasn’t been for a very long time.

For me, I get to relive my college radio days, cueing records, potting down and flipping LPs mid-piece, agonizing over timings when none are listed. But it’s worth it to be able to get in touch again with the humanizing effect of snap, crackle and pop. Playing vinyl is as much a tactile experience as it is an aural one. Furthermore, I will be discovering a lot of the music, much of it acquired from my days as an antiquarian book dealer, right along with you, since at the moment I don’t happen to have a functioning turntable at home.

We’re enjoying music in record time this morning, from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. I’ll be bringing it old school on Classic Ross Amico.

June 15, 2017
Schumann’s Life Music on WPRB

A would-be concert pianist, he’s said to have destroyed his hand through the use of a finger-strengthening device of his own design. He took his underage sweetheart’s father, who also happened to be his teacher, to court to sue for the right to marry, ultimately winning that right the day before she came of age. He went mad from syphilis, hurled himself into the Rhine, and spent his final months in an asylum. His name was Robert Schumann, and he was one of the most romantic of Romantic composers.

Join me tomorrow morning on WPRB, as we celebrate Schumann on the anniversary of his birth with rarely-heard works by the musicians he championed, pieces by lesser-known figures from his circle, and fabulous recordings of some of his own enduring classics. A highlight will be Sir Thomas Beecham’s reading of incidental music composed for Lord Byron’s dramatic poem “Manfred.”

If you’ve got a craving for cravats, drop in (to the Rhine or otherwise) this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. It will be all the Schumann we can shoe in, on Classic Ross Amico.

June 7, 2017
Princeton Reunions 2017 Music on WPRB

Lock up your daughters! 25,000 visitors are expected to converge on Princeton this weekend for Reunions 2017. This Thursday morning on WPRB, we acknowledge the impending influx of humanity and commensurate Tiger Pride with music composed and performed by Princeton University faculty and alumni.

Composers may include Princeton professors Milton Babbitt, Earl Kim, Paul Lansky, Steven Mackey, Bohuslav Martinu, and Roger Sessions, and students and alumni Peter Maxwell Davies, Caroline Shaw, and Julia Wolfe.

Performers may include Princeton University Chapel organist Eric Plutz, current ensemble-in-residence So Percussion, former ensemble-in-residence the Brentano Quartet, performance faculty members Geoffrey Burleson and Laura Oltman, conductor alumnus Gilbert Levine, and William H. Scheide’s Bach Aria Group.

As always, it depends on how much we are able to shoehorn in.

Reunions will commence even as I grace the airwaves, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com. Orange you glad you can stay home and enjoy the music? We’ll put a tiger in your tank, on Classic Ross Amico.

More about Reunions 2017 at the Alumni Association of Princeton University’s website:

http://alumni.princeton.edu/goinback/reunions/

June 1, 2017

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS