Classic Ross Amico

Tag: WPRB

St Patrick’s Day Music & Princeton Symphony Preview

It’s never too early to begin celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, so I hope you’ll join me early tomorrow morning on WPRB. Just as St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland, we’ll drive all the cobwebs out of our brains with cleansing reels, tin whistles, and sentimental airs.

We’ll have music from Ireland and on Irish themes, with works by native composers John Larchet, Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, and Joan Trimble; composers of Irish descent Edward Joseph Collins, Henry Cowell, and Augusta Holmès; and Irishmen-for-a-day Ludwig van Beethoven, Frank Martin, and Romeo Cascarino, for starters.

We’ll cram in all the weeping and drinking and step dancing and fighting that we can before 10:00, at which time we’ll shift gears, and I will be joined by Christopher Lyndon-Gee. Lyndon-Gee will be guest conducting the Princeton Symphony Orchestra at Richardson Auditorium this Sunday afternoon at 4, in a program featuring music by Sir Edward Elgar and Carl Nielsen.

Lyndon-Gee, a prolific recording artist who has garnered five Grammy nominations, will talk a bit about the weekend’s program, and then surprise us with a selection of his recorded performances. His catalog skews heavily toward unusual and neglected repertoire, which very much makes him a man after my own heart.

It will be all the green beer you can drink, tomorrow morning from 6 to 10 EDT. Then we’ll hide all the bottles for a visit from Christopher Lyndon-Gee from 10 to 11, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. I hope you’ll assist me in setting a Guinness world-record (if you know what I mean), on Classic Ross Amico.

March 15, 2017
Early Music Month on WPRB: Medieval to Modern

The pull of history will be strong tomorrow morning on WPRB, as we celebrate Early Music Month. We’ll examine the influences 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 (William Kraft, Paul Lansky, and Kile Smith) are still very much with us.

At 9:00, I’ll be joined by John Burkhalter, a stalwart of the local Early Music scene and a member of the Guild for Early Music. He’ll fill us in on the Guild and its series of upcoming concerts featuring vocal and instrumental music from the 12th through the 18th centuries. The concerts will be presented by the Guild’s member groups throughout the month of March. You’ll find a complete schedule at guildforearlymusic.org.

Plainchant and polyphony, pavanes and galliards, madrigals and lute pieces, all will shimmer as if from a distant mirror, as we enjoy 20th and 21st century classics inspired by the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, this Thursday morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. I’ll be feeling a tad Middle Aged myself, on Classic Ross Amico.

#EarlyMusicMonth
Early Music America

March 2, 2017
Early Music Month on WPRB: A Funhouse Mirror

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

This morning on WPRB, don’t expect the usual duets for solo instrument and piano. In honor of Early Music Month, we’ll gaze into a distant mirror – albeit a funhouse mirror – glimpsing courtly dances, Gregorian chant, madrigals, and hymn tunes, transformed by “contemporary” composers – that is to say, composers who have worked over the course of the past century.

At 9:00, I’ll be joined by John Burkhalter, a stalwart of the local Early Music scene and a member of the Guild for Early Music. He’ll fill us in on the Guild and a series of upcoming concerts that will feature vocal and instrumental music from the 12th through the 18th centuries. The concerts will be presented by the Guild’s member groups throughout the month of March. You’ll find a complete schedule at guildforearlymusic.org.

Our playlist this morning will include music inspired by Elizabethan dances, a guitar concerto based on Renaissance madrigals, arrangements of virginal pieces and cantigas for different instrumental ensembles, and wind music based on 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 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. The bodkins are perpetually at odds, on Classic Ross Amico.

#EarlyMusicMonth
Early Music America

March 2, 2017
Black History Month Classical Music on WPRB

Now that we’re all finished with the Groundhog, St. Valentine (snowed out, actually), and the Presidents, we can turn our attention fully to Black History Month. Tomorrow morning on WPRB, we’ll survey over 200 years worth of music by composers of color.

We’ll hear pieces by Joseph Boulogne (the Chevalier de Saint-Georges), Margaret Bonds, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, William Levi Dawson, R. Nathaniel Dett, Duke Ellington, Adolphus Hailstork, Ulysses Kay, Florence Price, William Grant Still, George Walker, José Silvestre White Lafitte (a.k.a. Joseph White), and others.

I hope you’ll join me as I celebrate Black History Month, tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. Black is the new black, on Classic Ross Amico.

PHOTOS: (clockwise from left) Joseph White, Florence Price, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

February 23, 2017
Black Composers on WPRB

Florence Price’s “Mississippi Suite.” Joseph White’s Violin Concerto in F-sharp minor. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Symphonic Variations on an African Air.” David Baker’s “Three Ethnic Dances” for clarinet and orchestra. Adolphus Hailstork’s “Done Made My Vow.” George Walker’s “Piano Concerto.” Duke Ellington’s “Black, Brown and Beige.”

These are some of the pieces we’ll be listening to this morning, as we explore the diversity of music of the black experience, from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’ll be serving your coffee black, on Classic Ross Amico.

February 23, 2017

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