Classic Ross Amico

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New Classical Music Releases Gift Guide

Everything we hear this morning will be brand spanking new. Right out of the shrinkwrap, virtually – in some cases, quite literally.

We’ll have recent releases on the Ancalagon, Beau Fleuve Records, BMOP, Bridge, Dacapo, Delos, Erato, Innova, Navona, Reference Recordings and SFS Media labels.

Featured artists and ensembles will include Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, The Danish Piano Trio, Louise Dubin, Clipper Erickson, piano , JoAnn Falletta, Marc Andre Hamelin, Sharon Isbin, Lara St. John, Nadav Lev Guitarist and Composer, the San Francisco Symphony, Orli Shaham, Mimi Stillman, True Concord Voices & Orchestra and Benita Valente, performing music by John Adams, Johann Sebastian Bach, R. Nathaniel Dett, Lukas Foss, Auguste Franchomme, Stephen Paulus, Franz Schubert, Jean Sibelius, Mieczyslaw Weinberg, and others. My hand is getting sore just thinking about it!

With the holidays right around the corner, this program should be of particular interest to anyone starting to think about gifts for the music-lovers in their lives.

I hope you’ll join me, from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM or at wprb.com, as we sample from new releases. We give until it hurts, on Classic Ross Amico.

November 19, 2015
New Classical Music Gifts WPRB Show 2015

As you may have noticed, a good many of my WPRB programs have been exercises in excess. I basically choose a theme (Goethe, the circus, Hallowe’en, “Fantasia”) and run with it. I show up with a whole box full of stuff, and I just keep playing from it until I hit the five-hour mark.

Of course, that doesn’t tell the whole story. The point is, when you deal with themes all the time, a lot of worthwhile music tends to fall through the cracks. In particular, I’ve been eyeing the mountains of promotional copies that have been accumulating in my apartment and thinking, something really has to be done about this.

This Thursday morning on WPRB, I’ll be playing from all new releases, or at the very least from albums which have been released in 2015. We’ll hear recordings issued on the Ancalagon, Beau Fleuve Records, BMOP, Bridge, DaCapo, Delos, Innova and Navona labels, and probably a whole lot more.

Over the course of the show, you may encounter selections from violinist Lara St. John’s “Shiksa,” a collection of new works inspired by Central European, Mediterranean and Near Eastern folk music; flutist Mimi Stillman’s latest, “Freedom,” featuring music by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, David Finko and Richard Danielpour; cellist Louise Dubin’s “The Franchomme Project,” a long-overdue tribute to Auguste Franchomme, friend, confidante and musical partner of Frederic Chopin; Nadav Lev Guitarist and Composer’s “New Strings Attached,” a compilation of pieces by young Israeli composers; Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP)’s traversal of the complete Lukas Foss symphonies; “Infinite Jest,” a San Francisco Symphony CD devoted to the works of John Adams; Danish Romantic piano trios performed by – well, The Danish Piano Trio; and JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s recent issue of Sibelius orchestral favorites, titled “The Essential Sibelius” (and what Sibelius isn’t?).

With the holidays fast approaching, you never know how many of these might make for interesting gift ideas. I hope you’ll join me tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM or at wprb.com, for a show made up entirely of CDs straight out of the shrinkwrap. It’s all brand-spanking new, on Classic Ross Amico.

DISCLAIMER: Tom Jones will not be played on this program!

November 18, 2015
Halloween Radio Show Spooky & Silly Sounds

At the height of the most glorious season comes the greatest of holidays: Hallowe’en. Hallowe’en has always been my favorite. I love it so, I spell it with an apostrophe, just to extend the pleasure.

This Thursday morning on WPRB, we’ll get a head start on the mischief and the incipient tooth decay, with a blend of the chillies and the sillies. We’ll hear spooky works like André Caplet’s “Conte fantastique,” after Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death,” Henry Cowell’s “The Banshee,” and George Crumb’s “A Haunted Landscape,” alongside such light-hearted treats as Kurt Schwertsik’s “Dracula’s House-and-Court Music,” Frederic Curzon’s “Dance of an Ostracised Imp,” and Billy Mayerl’s “Bats in the Belfry.”

The best preventative for having your tree branches draped with toilet paper is to join me tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com. We’ll be cutting holes in our parents’ bed sheets and rubbing our cheeks with burnt cork a few days early, on Classic Ross Amico.

October 28, 2015
Autumn Music on WPRB Despite Sunny Skies

With a weather forecast of mostly sunny skies for Princeton and highs in the mid-upper 70s, it would seem that Mother Nature would prefer Indian summer; but from deep within my windowless bunker beneath Bloomberg Hall this morning, I’ll be celebrating autumn.

Tune in to WPRB, and you’ll hear seasonal selections by any of the following (and probably a few others): Cécile Chaminade, Vernon Duke, Gerald Finzi, Morton Gould, Jennifer Higdon, Peter Erasmus Lange-Müller, Rued Langgaard, Billy Mayerl, Joachim Raff, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Ottorino Respighi, Tomáš Svoboda, Virgil Thomson, and Peter Warlock.

I’ll be wearing a sweater and sipping hot tea in defiance of the elements from 6 to 11 ET, at WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com. Of course, it’s always autumn in my heart on Classic Ross Amico.

October 22, 2015
Autumn Music Celebration on WPRB This Thursday

This is a textbook example of grasping for low-hanging fruit – or perhaps radiant leaves would be more appropriate. Be that as it may, who doesn’t love autumn? The combination of crisp, Jack Frost exhilaration and pie-induced coziness is hard to beat.

I hope you’ll join me this Thursday morning on WPRB as we celebrate the glorious season of autumn. I know, we’re already a month into it, but autumn doesn’t become truly autumn until October is ripe on the vine.

We’ll enjoy seasonal works by Cécile Chaminade, Vernon Duke, Gerald Finzi, Billy Mayerl, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Ottorino Respighi, Tomáš Svoboda, Virgil Thomson, Peter Warlock, and many, many others, as well as non-seasonal works that for some reason hold for me seasonal associations. Also, I would be remiss not to toss in a piece or two by Franz Liszt, one of the great musical minds of the 19th century – and a great person to boot – on the occasion of his 204th birthday anniversary.

I had an eager listener phone in on September 23, the Autumnal Equinox, to request music to celebrate the season. I was sorry to have to say, “Too soon!” Now that the pledge drive is over, we can all drink deep, like Dionysus at Keats’ “cyder press.” Let the rustic dances begin!

Sincere thanks to all of you who did your part last week to support independent radio. (Kenneth Hutchins, you are now the Patron Saint of Classic Ross Amico.) For those of you who weren’t listening or were unable to pledge, remember, you may do so at any time, at wprb.com. You’ll be doing me a personal kindness if you send along a line or two to let them know how much you enjoy the show.

We’ll be offering up a tray full of apples and Spiced Wafers tomorrow morning, from 6 to 11 ET, at WPRB 103.3 FM, or online at wprb.com. It will be more fun than a five-hour leaf fight on Classic Ross Amico.

October 21, 2015

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