Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Saad Haddad

JoAnn Falletta Returns to WPRB

I am very pleased to announce that JoAnn Falletta has agreed to return as my guest this week on WPRB.

Falletta is in Princeton as part of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Edward T. Cone Composition Institute. Four emerging composers will have their works rehearsed and performed by the NJSO, participate in masterclasses with Institute Director Steven Mackey, receive feedback from NJSO musicians, and benefit from career-building advice from music-industry leaders.

Falletta will help mentor the composers and then conduct the orchestra in representative works by Noah Kaplan, Sam Lipman, Alyssa Weinberg, and another former Classic Ross Amico guest, Saad Haddad, alongside Mackey’s “Four Iconoclastic Episodes.” The concert, which is open to the public, will take place at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium this Saturday at 8 p.m.

Tune in to WPRB this Thursday morning at 9:00 to hear Falletta talk about the institute and some of her other projects. As music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, she’s always very busy, with plenty of concerts, festivals and recordings in the pipeline. Falletta has championed dozens of works that could easily be classified as unusual and neglected. She is also an indefatigable champion of new music.

To celebrate her return to Princeton, we’ll enjoy a full morning of her recordings, including selections from new releases of music by Richard Strauss and Vítězslav Novák on the Naxos label. Mark your calendars for another Falletta Fest on Classic Ross Amico, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com.

Meet the composer, Saad Haddad:

http://www.njsymphony.org/about-njso/newsroom/in-the-news/meet-the-cone-institute-composers-saad-haddad

July 12, 2017
Saad Haddad Wins Ives Fellowship

Congratulations to Saad Haddad, Composer. The American Academy of Arts and Letters has named Haddad a recipient of a Charles Ives Fellowship. Ives’ widow, Harmony, bequeathed to the Academy the royalties to Ives’ music, enabling Ives awards in composition to be bestowed since 1970. The award brings with it a prize of $15,000.

Haddad appeared as my guest last month on Classic Ross Amico on WPRB 103.3 FM. His work, “Manarah,” was heard on a concert of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra on January 29. The PSO will present a newly commissioned work from Haddad on one of next season’s concerts. I wish him the very best.

Fascinatingly, the Academy houses the actual contents of Ives’ studio, which has been painstakingly reproduced, as it originally appeared in the composer’s home in Redding, CT, as part of the institute’s Manhattan gallery. You’ll find more information here:

http://artsandletters.org/exhibition/charles-ives-studio/

PHOTO: Saad Haddad (left) with PSO music director Rossen Milanov

March 1, 2017
Groundhog Day Music Fest on WPRB

All hail the wise and venerable Groundhog!

This morning on WPRB, we’ll salute the Grand Prognosticator, on his special day, with a musical menagerie of extraordinary abilities. We’ll have music about amazing animals, ranging from insects to eagles to great whales, including Francis Poulenc’s “The Model Animals,” Leoš Janáček’s “The Cunning Little Vixen Suite,” Miklós Rózsa’s “The Jungle Book,” Peter Schickele’s “Bestiary,” and more. The procession begins at 6:00 EST.

Then at 10:00, we’ll have a visit from Saad Haddad, Composer, who will share some of his music and talk a bit about his use of electronic processing to suggest the sounds of his Middle Eastern heritage. Haddad’s fascinating “Manarah” was heard on a concert of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra this past Sunday.

This weekend, the PSO will present its Saturday Evening POPS! Concert. Broadway singer Sierra Boggess will join the orchestra for a program that will illustrate the transition of the musical from stage to screen and back again. The conductor for the concert will be Lucas Richman. Richman has had ample experience working in film, and his concert piece “Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant” certainly reflects a cinematic sensiblity. We’ll hear it this morning, in the 9:00 hour, supporting the clever and entertaining poems of Jack Prelutsky. Get ready to hear all about the Ballpoint Penguins, the Shoehornets, the Zipperpotamuses, and the Clocktopus.

It will be a morning of zoological and cryptozoological wonders for Groundhog Day, from 6 to 10:00 EST (Saad Haddad will join me from 10 to 11), on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. I’ll be doling out the feed and shoveling up after everyone, on Classic Ross Amico.

Punxsutawney Phil is expected to make his forecast around 7:20 EST

February 2, 2017
WPRB Celebrates Groundhog Day & Local Music

If you haven’t tuned in to WPRB yet this morning (and you really should), we are saluting the Groundhog this morning with music evocative of the animal kingdom. Sure, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, predicting six more weeks of winter, but he’s only right 39 percent of the time. Even so, he deserves our love, because he’s a groundhog.

Yet to come: Lucas Richman: Conductor/Composer’s “Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant,” after witty animal poems by Jack Prelutsky, which will introduce us to Ballpoint Penguins, Shoehornets, Zipperpotamuses, and the Clocktopus, among others. Richman will conduct the Princeton Symphony Orchestra Saturday Evening POPS! concert at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium this weekend. Broadway phenom Sierra Boggess will celebrate the musical, in a program that will trace its transition from stage to screen and back again.

At 10:00 this morning, we’ll shift gears, as I will be joined by Saad Haddad, Composer. Haddad’s fascinating “Manarah” was heard on a PSO concert this past weekend. He’ll be dropping by to share more of his music and to talk about his use of electronic processing to suggest the sounds of his Middle Eastern heritage.

There’s plenty yet to come today. Join me in hibernation, between now and 11:00 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com.

PHOTO: Saad Haddad (left) with PSO Music Director Rossen Milanov

February 2, 2017
Groundhog Day Music Special

Tomorrow, the Groundhog will demonstrate the full scope of his prognosticatory powers, as he emerges from his den, briefly, to call the expiration date on winter.

But the Groundhog is not the only creature of the natural world possessed of extraordinary talents. Tomorrow morning on WPRB, we’ll salute this wise and gifted rodent through music inspired by zoological and cryptozoological wonders – creatures such as the Hedgehog, the Bee, the Unicorn, the Whale, and the Bold Umbrellaphant.

At 10:00, I will be joined by a very special guest, composer Saad Haddad, Composer, whose fascinating work, “Manarah,” was heard on a concert of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra this past weekend. Haddad will share more of his music, which similarly employs electronics to expand the palette of Western acoustic instruments, such as the trumpet, the piano, the violin, the viola, and the cello, to evoke the microtones and glissandi characteristic of the Middle East.

Join me, as I brag as lustily as Thoreau’s Chanticleer, standing on his roost, this Thursday morning, from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We shadow the Groundhog, on Classic Ross Amico.

February 1, 2017

Tag Cloud

RECENT POSTS