Classic Ross Amico

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Cinco de Mayo Music & Margaritas

Cinco de Mayo. A day to celebrate Mexican victory over the French with most excellent margaritas. And of course music. Much music.

Join me this morning as we travel south of the border for works ranging from colonial times, to the birth of Mexican nationalism in music, to pieces by contemporary Mexican composers and those in the United States who were influenced by Mexican culture.

We’ll have our mouth full of nachos from 6 and 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. The oranges with our mezcal will take care of the vitamin C, on Classic Ross Amico.

#CincoDeMayo

May 5, 2016
Shakespeare Music on WPRB
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun. At least for today in the Princeton area, with increasing clouds, afternoon showers anticipated, and highs in the upper 50s. The musical forecast, however, is for 100 percent Shakespeare.

We’ll round out our month-long, Thursday morning salute to the Bard with the last of four installments commemorating the quadricentennial of his death, on April 23, 1616. Is the date etched into your memory yet? Fret thee not: the next major anniversary will be the 500th anniversary of his birth, in 2064 – by which time, I fancy, many of us will be able to congratulate him in person.

In this first hour, we’ll have musical greatness thrust upon us, with selections from Ernest Chausson’s “The Tempest,” Gabriel Fauré’s incidental music for “Shylock” (after “The Merchant of Venice”) and Sir Alexander Mackenzie’s merry – and extended – overture for “Twelfth Night.”

Those now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, from 6 to 11 EDT on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. The fewer the listeners, the greater the share of honour, on Classic Ross Amico.

Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,
And Phoebus ‘gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With every thing that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise:
Arise, arise.
- “Cymbeline,” Act II, scene 3
BTW: The birders among you might be interested to know that, according to the Scottish geologist Sir Archibald Geikie, in his 1916 book “The Birds of Shakespeare,” the Bard references all of the following in his plays: the Blackbird, Bunting, Buzzard, Chough, Cock, Cormorant, Crow, Cuckoo, Dive-dapper, Dove and Pigeon, Duck, Eagle, Falcon and Sparrowhawk, Finch, Goose, Hedge Sparrow, House Martin, Jackdaw, Jay, Kite, Lapwing, Lark, Loon, Magpie, Nightingale, Osprey, Ostrich, Owl, Parrot, Partridge, Peacock, Pelican, Pheasant, Quail, Raven, Robin, Snipe, Sparrow, Starling, Swallow, Swan, Thrush, Turkey, Vulture, Wagtail, Woodcock and the Wren.

Interestingly, the House Sparrow gets four mentions – in “Hamlet,” “As You Like It,” “The Tempest” and “Troilus and Cressida.”
April 28, 2016
Shakespeare on WPRB Final Show April 28

Time is growing short.

Tomorrow marks the final installment of our four-part salute to William Shakespeare on WPRB. Every Thursday morning in April, we have been honoring the Bard with music inspired by his writings, to mark the 400th anniversary of his shuffling off this mortal coil on April 23, 1616 (also the anniversary of his birth, though 52 years earlier).

We have five hours in which to hear any or all of the following: Frank Bridge’s “There is a willow grows aslant a brook,” Ernest Chausson’s “The Tempest,” Cecil Cole’s “Comedy of Errors Overture,” Gabriel Fauré’s “Shylock,” Gerald Finzi’s “Let us Garlands bring,” Florent Schmitt’s “Antony and Cleopatra,” Bedrich Smetana’s “Richard III,” and Johan Wagenaar’s “The Taming of the Shrew Overture,” among others.

‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished, tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. Conscience does make cowards of us all, on Classic Ross Amico.

#Shakespeare400

April 27, 2016
Shakespeare Anniversary Celebration on WPRB

Saturday is the big day. The 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. Also the anniversary of his birthday (52 years earlier), allegedly. Have you anything special planned? Back-to-back screenings of the Olivier and Branagh versions of “Henry V?” Falstaff beer pong? A “Hamlet” sleepover?

We’ll do our best to get your creative juices flowing this morning, as we set the scene with the third of four programs devoted to music inspired by the Bard’s plays. Be with me bright and early for Johan Svendsen’s “Romeo and Juliet,” Sir William Walton’s “As You Like It,” and Josef Bohuslav Foerster’s “From Shakespeare,” really musical portraits of four female characters from Shakespeare’s plays (Perdita from “The Winter’s Tale,” Viola from “Twelfth Night,” Lady Macbeth from, well, “Macbeth,” and Katherina from “The Taming of the Shrew”). And that’s just in the 6:00 hour!

Before too late, we’ll also have Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Cymbeline” by his teacher, Alexander Zemlinsky. By then, you should be sufficiently caffeinated to compose sonnets with a quill.

I’ll be welcoming two guests this morning: Mariusz Smolij, music director of the Riverside Symphonia , who will tell us about his orchestra’s Friday night concert at St. Martin of Tours Church in New Hope – he’ll talk to us a little after 8 – and William Walker from The Princeton Singers will drop by a little after 9 to tell us about the choir’s Shakespeare-inspired concerts at Princeton University Art Museum on Saturday evening.

Music and sweet poetry agree this morning, from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’re donning an Elizabethan collar, on Classic Ross Amico.

#Shakespeare400

April 21, 2016
Shakespeare on the Radio: A Bard Celebration #Shakespeare400

Once more unto the breach, dear friends!

With two weeks left in our four-part celebration of William Shakespeare this month, we’ve still got a lot of ground to cover. In case you haven’t heard, April 23 marks the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death. (It’s also traditionally held to be the date of his birth, 52 years earlier.) Every Thursday morning on WPRB, we’re listening to music inspired by Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets.

In the remaining hours, I am hoping to get to the following composers and works: Geoffrey Bush’s “Yorick,” Cecil Coles’ “Comedy of Errors Overture,” David Diamond’s “Music for Romeo and Juliet,” Gerald Finzi’s “Let Us Garlands Bring,” Josef Bohuslav Foerster’s “From Shakespeare,” Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” Florent Schmitt’s “Antony and Cleopatra” (in a recent recording with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta), Jean Sibelius’ “The Tempest,” Bedrich Smetana’s “Richard III,” Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Serenade to Music” (on a text from “The Merchant of Venice”), Sir William Walton’s “Macbeth,” and Alexander Zemlinsky’s “Cymbeline,” among others.

In this week of the Pulitzer Prizes, we’ll also hear Paul Moravec’s “Tempest Fantasy,” the 2004 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

With only ten hours to go, can I possibly program all of these, with additional surprises? Where there’s a Will, there’s a way! Maybe I’m a utopianist, but I sure will try. I have no idea if and when any of them will be played, so you will just have to tune in whenever you can, for as long as you can.

I’ll also welcome two guests tomorrow: Mariusz Smolij, music director of the Riverside Symphonia, will tell us about his orchestra’s Friday night concert at St. Martin of Tours Church in New Hope – he’ll talk to us a little after 8 a.m. – and William Walker from The Princeton Singers will drop by a little after 9 to tell us about their Shakespeare-inspired concerts at Princeton University Art Museum on Saturday evening.

We’re buried by the Bard, Thursday mornings in April, from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’re all shook up for Shakespeare, on Classic Ross Amico.

PHOTO: Funerary monument, carved by Gerard Johnson, a Shakespeare contemporary, which overlooks Shakespeare’s grave at Holy Trinity Church at Stratford-upon-Avon.

The epitaph on the grave itself (attributed to Shakespeare):

Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare,
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones.

#Shakespeare400

April 20, 2016

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