Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Ruth Ochs

Pioneer Songs Trenton Performance Saturday

My article previewing Saturday’s performance of Eric Houghton’s “Pioneer Songs” runs for a second time, in a somewhat expanded form, in this week’s U.S. 1 Newspaper – PrincetonInfo, out today.

Among other things, you’ll find some interesting info (if I do say so myself) on the history and architecture of the Trenton War Memorial that had to be cut in order for the piece to be able to fit into the Trenton Downtowner last week.

Houghton’s historical oratorio is an epic meditation on the courage and resilience of those Americans who blazed the western frontier. The work will be presented in its entirety at Patriots Theater at the War Memorial in Trenton this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. The cycle of fifteen symphonic songs, for vocal soloists, choir, and narrator, celebrates the first successful passage of wagon trains to California in the 1840s.

Ruth Ochs will conduct the Westminster Community Orchestra and a hundred voice choir, including the Westminster Community Chorus, prepared by Sinhaeng Lee, and the Ewing-based Glassbrook Vocal Ensemble, directed by Chaequan Anderson.

Houghton, a resident of Ewing, has been on the faculty of Westminster Conservatory of Music for 34 years. Ochs is in her fourteenth year as conductor of the Westminster Community Orchestra.

Here’s the article as it now appears online:

https://princetoninfo.com/pioneer-songs-arrive-in-the-capital-city/

You’ll find more information on the music and Saturday’s performance at pioneersongs.com.

PHOTO: Ochs and Houghton flank yours truly, during an on-air conversation that took place yesterday afternoon at WWFM – The Classical Network.

November 7, 2018
Amy Beach’s Gaelic Symphony Resounds Again

She was an extraordinary figure of her time. 26 years before women were granted the right to vote in the United States, Amy Marcy Cheney Beach composed a symphony that conquered Boston.

The “Gaelic Symphony,” as she titled it, was written in 1894. It was conceived in direct response to a call by prominent Czech composer Antonin Dvořák for Americans to break away from the European models they had for so long venerated. Instead, he urged Americans to open themselves up to their own surroundings, to find what was uniquely American and forge a distinctive national sound. For a Boston resident, English, Scottish, and Irish melodies would have been natural resources.

To coincide with the 150th anniversary of Beach’s birth, the Westminster Community Orchestra will revive this rarely-heard work, on Saturday at 8 p.m. The concert will take place at Princeton Meadow Event Center. Also on the program will be Mendelssohn’s “Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage” and a recent opus, “The Heroine’s Theme,” by Westminster Master of Music in Composition student Caeleb Tee.

You will find my article on Amy Beach and the “Gaelic Symphony” in this week’s U.S. 1, a handsome newspaper, established in 1984, with a circulation of nearly 20,000. Copies are available up and down the Route 1 corridor of Central NJ – including, of course, Princeton. Or you can follow this link.

http://www.princetoninfo.com/index.php/component/us1more/?Itemid=6&key=5-3-17ochs

Ruth Ochs, conductor of the Westminster Community Orchestra for the past 12 years, will be my guest this afternoon on WWFM – The Classical Network. Tune in at 4:00 p.m. EDT to enjoy our conversation about Amy Beach and the “Gaelic Symphony.”

May 3, 2017
WPRB’s All-Vinyl Week: Rare Grooves & Local Music

Vinyl, vinyl everywhere!

Music by contemporary composers released on the CRI label. Lesser known works, recorded by major artists on major labels, which have never been reissued. A long out-of-print DG recording of music by a Canadian master. The late Louis Lane conducting American music. Works by Philadelphia composers Paul Nordoff and Richard Yardumian. A cult classic featuring the songs of humpback whales.

These are some of the curiosities that I’ll be sharing with you this morning, as I comb the WPRB record library (leavened with a few choice albums from my own collection). It’s part of WPRB’s All-Vinyl Week. That’s right, WPRB is playing nothing but good old-fashioned vinyl through Sunday.

Ruth Ochs, music director of the Westminster Community Orchestra, will drop by around 9:00 to talk a little bit about the upcoming Westminster Conservatory of Music showcase concert, which will take place on Sunday at 3 p.m. at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium. The program will include performances by community ensembles, students and conservatory competition winners. Ochs is also conductor of the Princeton University Sinfonia.

Other than that, it all comes off the turntables this morning, from 6 to 11 ET on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We put the style in “stylus,” on Classic Ross Amico.

February 25, 2016

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