Classic Ross Amico

Tag: VOICES Chorale

Early Music Month on WPRB: Medieval & Renaissance Inspired Sounds

My, but it’s Early – Early Music, that is!

This morning on WPRB, in honor of Early Music Month, we’ll be quaffing dances, quaffing chant, quaffing madrigals, and quaffing hymn tunes, as “contemporary” composers – composers who have worked over the course of the past century – look back for inspiration to music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Maurice Duruflé would fall soundly into that category. Duruflé, a former choirboy at the Cathedral of Rouen and one of the greatest organists of his time, drew on his love of chant in the composition of his Requiem. Lyn Ransom, founder and artistic director of VOICES Chorale, will drop by this morning in the 9:00 hour to talk a bit about the ensemble’s upcoming presentation of the work on Sunday, at Trenton’s Trinity Cathedral, in a reconstruction of a performance given under the direction of the composer while on a visit there with his wife in 1971.

Our playlist this morning will also include music inspired by Elizabethan dances, a guitar concerto based on Renaissance madrigals, a violin concerto on modes derived from Gregorian chant, and wind music based on some early lute pieces, among others. Around 9:45 or 9:50, we’ll enjoy a recording of Philadelphia composer, writer, and radio personality Kile Smith’s “Vespers,” ably performed by The Crossing and Piffaro, The Renaissance Band.

It’s a taste of Merrie Olde Princeton, from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. The bodkins are perpetually at odds, on Classic Ross Amico.

#EarlyMusicMonth

#EarlyMusicAmerica

March 3, 2016
Early Music’s Influence on Modern Composers

The pull of history is strong this morning. We’re celebrating Early Music Month, examining the influence of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance on “contemporary” composers – that is to say, composers who lived within the past 100 years. In fact, several of them (Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, William Kraft, and Kile Smith) are still very much with us.

Lyn Ransom, founder and artistic director of VOICES Chorale, will join me in the 9:00 hour to talk a little bit about the ensemble’s upcoming performance on Sunday, at Trenton’s Trinity Cathedral, of Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem, a work imbued with the composer’s lifelong love of chant, in a reconstruction of a performance given there under Duruflé’s direction in 1971.

Plenty more to come, including Respighi’s “Concerto Gregoriano,” Carl Orff’s “Kleines Konzert,” and Kile Smith’s “Vespers,” featuring Philadelphia-based Piffaro, The Renaissance Band.

It’s all tonsures and codpieces until 11:00 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com.

PHOTO: Husband and wife Maurice and Marie-Madeleine Duruflé

#EarlyMusicMonth

#EarlyMusicAmerica

March 3, 2016
Early Music Month on WPRB: Medieval Sounds Today

It’s never too late to be Early.

This week on WPRB, we’ll celebrate Early Music Month with a morning full of “contemporary” works – works composed over the course of the past century – that were influenced in some way or another by music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

We’ll hear works like Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ “Renaissance Scottish Dances,” George Frederick McKay’s “Suite on Sixteenth Century Hymn Tunes,” Joaquin Rodrigo’s “Concierto Madrigal,” Vittorio Rieti’s “Variations on Two Cantigas de Santa Maria,” William Alwyn’s “Elizabethan Dances,” Igor Stravinsky’s “Momentum pro Gesualdo di Venosa ad CD annum,” Ottorino Respighi’s “Concerto Gregoriano,” William Kraft’s “Vintage Renaissance,” Carl Orff’s “Kleines Konzert,” Lukas Foss’ “Renaissance Concerto,” and Kile Smith’s “Vespers” (in a recording featuring Philadelphia-based Piffaro, The Renaissance Band) – or as many of those as we can get to.

Lyn Ransom, founder and artistic director of VOICES Chorale, will visit in the 9:00 hour to talk a little bit about the ensemble’s upcoming performance on Sunday, at Trenton’s Trinity Cathedral, of Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem, in a reconstruction of a performance given there under the direction of the composer in 1971. The Requiem’s otherworldly melodies are steeped in the language of medieval chant.

Even if you’re running late, it’s nice to know that the music will be running Early, from 6 to 11 ET on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’re usually living in the past, on Classic Ross Amico.

#EarlyMusicMonth

#EarlyMusicAmerica

March 2, 2016
NJ Choirs Sing in Princeton & Jersey Shore

Cicada song is not the only music to be heard in New Jersey over the next week or so, as VOICES Chorale and the New Jersey Gay Men’s Chorus – NJGMC invite amateur singers to join them for concerts in Princeton and at the Jersey shore.

The NJGMC will hold its annual “summer sing” at Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton, Monday at 7:30 p.m. The Hopewell-based VOICES will perform at the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences in Loveladies, August 24 at 7 p.m.

You can read more about it in my article in today’s Trenton Times:

http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2014/08/new_jersey_gay_mens_chorus_to_1.html

August 15, 2014

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