Classic Ross Amico

Tag: WPRB

Shakespeare Anniversary Celebration on WPRB

Saturday is the big day. The 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. Also the anniversary of his birthday (52 years earlier), allegedly. Have you anything special planned? Back-to-back screenings of the Olivier and Branagh versions of “Henry V?” Falstaff beer pong? A “Hamlet” sleepover?

We’ll do our best to get your creative juices flowing this morning, as we set the scene with the third of four programs devoted to music inspired by the Bard’s plays. Be with me bright and early for Johan Svendsen’s “Romeo and Juliet,” Sir William Walton’s “As You Like It,” and Josef Bohuslav Foerster’s “From Shakespeare,” really musical portraits of four female characters from Shakespeare’s plays (Perdita from “The Winter’s Tale,” Viola from “Twelfth Night,” Lady Macbeth from, well, “Macbeth,” and Katherina from “The Taming of the Shrew”). And that’s just in the 6:00 hour!

Before too late, we’ll also have Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Cymbeline” by his teacher, Alexander Zemlinsky. By then, you should be sufficiently caffeinated to compose sonnets with a quill.

I’ll be welcoming two guests this morning: Mariusz Smolij, music director of the Riverside Symphonia , who will tell us about his orchestra’s Friday night concert at St. Martin of Tours Church in New Hope – he’ll talk to us a little after 8 – and William Walker from The Princeton Singers will drop by a little after 9 to tell us about the choir’s Shakespeare-inspired concerts at Princeton University Art Museum on Saturday evening.

Music and sweet poetry agree this morning, from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’re donning an Elizabethan collar, on Classic Ross Amico.

#Shakespeare400

April 21, 2016
Shakespeare on the Radio: A Bard Celebration #Shakespeare400

Once more unto the breach, dear friends!

With two weeks left in our four-part celebration of William Shakespeare this month, we’ve still got a lot of ground to cover. In case you haven’t heard, April 23 marks the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death. (It’s also traditionally held to be the date of his birth, 52 years earlier.) Every Thursday morning on WPRB, we’re listening to music inspired by Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets.

In the remaining hours, I am hoping to get to the following composers and works: Geoffrey Bush’s “Yorick,” Cecil Coles’ “Comedy of Errors Overture,” David Diamond’s “Music for Romeo and Juliet,” Gerald Finzi’s “Let Us Garlands Bring,” Josef Bohuslav Foerster’s “From Shakespeare,” Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” Florent Schmitt’s “Antony and Cleopatra” (in a recent recording with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by JoAnn Falletta), Jean Sibelius’ “The Tempest,” Bedrich Smetana’s “Richard III,” Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Serenade to Music” (on a text from “The Merchant of Venice”), Sir William Walton’s “Macbeth,” and Alexander Zemlinsky’s “Cymbeline,” among others.

In this week of the Pulitzer Prizes, we’ll also hear Paul Moravec’s “Tempest Fantasy,” the 2004 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

With only ten hours to go, can I possibly program all of these, with additional surprises? Where there’s a Will, there’s a way! Maybe I’m a utopianist, but I sure will try. I have no idea if and when any of them will be played, so you will just have to tune in whenever you can, for as long as you can.

I’ll also welcome two guests tomorrow: Mariusz Smolij, music director of the Riverside Symphonia, will tell us about his orchestra’s Friday night concert at St. Martin of Tours Church in New Hope – he’ll talk to us a little after 8 a.m. – and William Walker from The Princeton Singers will drop by a little after 9 to tell us about their Shakespeare-inspired concerts at Princeton University Art Museum on Saturday evening.

We’re buried by the Bard, Thursday mornings in April, from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’re all shook up for Shakespeare, on Classic Ross Amico.

PHOTO: Funerary monument, carved by Gerard Johnson, a Shakespeare contemporary, which overlooks Shakespeare’s grave at Holy Trinity Church at Stratford-upon-Avon.

The epitaph on the grave itself (attributed to Shakespeare):

Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare,
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones.

#Shakespeare400

April 20, 2016
Shakespeare Radio April Broadcasts

Get ready to hoist a glass with Sir John. Coming up at around 8:30, it’s Edward Elgar’s symphonic study “Falstaff.”

Then at 9:00, we’ll be joined by William Hobbs, music director of Westminster Opera Theatre, and Trent Blanton, stage director for Westminster’s production of Verdi’s “Falstaff,” which will be performed at the Robert L. Annis Playhouse on the campus of Westminster Choir College in Princeton this Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

Later, it’s on to the dramatic symphony “Romeo and Juliet,” by Hector Berlioz.

It’s all music inspired by Shakespeare every Thursday morning in April, as we remember the Bard on the 400th anniversary of his death (on April 23, 1616), on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com.

April 14, 2016
Shakespeare on the Radio This Week

Strike up, pipers!

This Thursday morning on WPRB, we continue with our commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare – on April 23, 1616 – with the second of four programs devoted to music inspired by his sonnets and plays.

Depending on how timings align, tomorrow’s playlist may include Mily Balakirev’s incidental music for “King Lear,” Sir Edward Elgar’s symphonic study “Falstaff,” and Hector Berlioz’s dramatic symphony “Romeo and Juliet,” among others. But who knows? I’ve got a whole suitcase full of Shakespeareana, which I’ll keep playing and replenishing through the end of the month.

What’s certain is that we’ll be joined in 9:00 hour by William Hobbs, music director of Westminster Opera Theatre, and Trent Blanton, stage director for a production of Verdi’s “Falstaff,” which will be performed at the Robert L. Annis Playhouse on the campus of Westminster Choir College in Princeton this Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

To borrow from Juliet, our only love springs from our only hate, every Thursday in April from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. Radio is such sweet sorrow, on Classic Ross Amico.

April 13, 2016
Shakespeare 400 WPRB Celebrates the Bard

To sleep, Perchance to dream…

Ha! Not much chance of that on a Thursday morning, not when I have to be on the air at 6:00.

Every Thursday morning in April, we’ll honor the Bard, as we mark the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. We’ll hear overtures, incidental music, symphonic poems, art songs, choral works, and operatic highlights inspired by the plays and sonnets. Some of the pieces may be familiar, or marginally so; others have been criminally underplayed.

Tune in over the coming weeks to enjoy works like Constant Lambert’s “Romeo and Juliet,” Gerald Finzi’s “Love’s Labours Lost,” Josef Bohuslav Foerster’s “From Shakespeare;” Paul Moravec’s “Tempest Fantasy,” Florent Schmitt’s “Antony and Cleopatra;” Alexander Zemlinsky’s “Cymbeline,” and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ beloved “Serenade to Music,” set to a text from “The Merchant of Venice.”

All the world’s a stage, this morning and over the next three Thursdays, from 6 to 11 EDT, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. Brush up your Shakespeare, on Classic Ross Amico.

#Shakespeare400

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.

– “The Merchant of Venice,” Act 5, scene 1

April 7, 2016

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