With the holidays now largely in the rear-view mirror, it’s a good time to curl up and catch up on your winter reading.
This morning on “Sweetness and Light,” it’s all about books, with light music classics inspired by “Vanity Fair,” “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “Don Quixote,” “The Leopard,” “Oliver Twist,” and “Tales of Hoffmann.”
I hope you’ll join me for some “light” reading, on “Sweetness and Light,” music calculated to charm and to cheer, this Saturday morning on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon.
The show will air at 8:00 Pacific Time, but you can stream it on the East Coast at 11:00 when following the link.
Don’t miss the world premiere broadcast of my new show, “Sweetness and Light,” this morning on KWAX!
Going forward, I’ll be adding a third show to my syndicated output, offering a weekly playlist of British Light Music, ballet, operetta, waltzes, marches, parlor music, and piano miniatures of a kind once familiar from Grandma’s piano bench – in short, undemanding fare calculated to charm and to cheer and to help you forget your worldly woes.
It’s all holiday-oriented this week, so why not give it a whirl. And then be sure to drop back later in the day, when I share selections from Heinrich von Herzogenberg’s oratorio “Die Geburt Christi” (“The Birth of Christ”) on “The Lost Chord.”
I’m dreaming of a light Christmas. Happy holidays to you!
Remember, KWAX is on the West Coast (the radio station of the University of Oregon), so there’s a three-hour difference for those of you listening in the East. Here are the respective air-times for all three recorded shows (with East Coast conversions in parentheses):
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday on KWAX at 5:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (8:00 PM EST)
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday on KWAX at 8:00 AM PACIFIC TIME (11:00 AM EST)
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday on KWAX at 4:00 PM PACIFIC TIME (7:00 PM EST)
Stream all three, at the times indicated, at the link!
It is with great excitement that I announce the impending launch of a brand-new show, to be broadcast weekly from my current home-away-from-home, KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon.
As you may know, I’ve always had a soft spot for the confectionary genre known as British Light Music. This is a kind of music that was once widely enjoyed in theaters, at seaside resorts, on popular radio programs, and even as background to enhance the shopping experience. It was certainly a fertile field for anyone looking to pluck a memorable signature tune. (For a prominent example in the U.S., one need look no further than Captain Kangaroo, who poached Edward White’s “Puffin’ Billy.”) British Light Music will be well-represented, alongside light music from other sources, on “Sweetness and Light.”
Depending on the week, we’ll also hear selections from ballet, highlights from operetta, dollops of film music, waltzes, marches, parlor music, and piano miniatures of a kind once familiar from Grandma’s piano bench. I suppose now GREAT-Grandma’s piano bench. In short, undemanding fare, calculated to charm and to cheer and to help you forget your worldly woes.
With Christmas only days away, this week’s playlist will include several works evocative of wintry scenes (including the original version of “Jingle Bells,” published in 1857, and rendered as a hilarious parlor song), incidental music from a now-forgotten Christmas pageant (spearheaded by Reginald Owen, who went on to play Ebenezer Scrooge in a 1938 film version of “A Christmas Carol”), ingratiating selections by two composers associated with the movies (Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Henry Mancini), and some steaming bowls of keyboard wassail (courtesy of Billy Mayerl and Percy Grainger).
This is the first show produced entirely in my home studio. Now that I’ve got it down, we can also expect fresh installments of “Picture Perfect” and “The Lost Chord” in the coming year.
“Sweetness and Light,” my third syndicated show, will take its inaugural bow this Saturday, December 23, at 8 a.m. PST. (That’s 11 a.m. here on the East Coast.) Sweeten your morning and lighten your spirit by listening at the link.
