Classic Ross Amico

Tag: WPRB

MLK Day: Celebrating Black Composers on WPRB

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.”

So said Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On this, the eve of King’s birthday anniversary, we present a full morning of music by composers of African descent, much of it underrepresented at any time of the year. You’ll hear fine and shamefully neglected works by David Baker, Marion Bauer, Henry T. Burleigh, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Roque Cordero, William Levi Dawson, Duke Ellington, Adolphus Hailstork, Ulysses Kay, Tania León, the Chevalier J.J.O. de Meude-Monpas, Florence Price, William Grant Still, and George Walker, or as many of these as we can get to.

Clipper Erickson, piano of Westminster Conservatory of Music will drop by at around 10:00 to talk a bit about R. Nathaniel Dett, the grandson of fugitive slaves, who went on to become an important voice in American music. Erickson’s album of Dett’s complete piano works, “My Cup Runneth Over,” has recently been issued on the Navona Records label.

We’ll be there before sunrise to honor MLK’s vision of a daybreak of freedom and justice and equality, from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We rise up with greater readiness, on Classic Ross Amico.

January 14, 2016
MLK Day Eve Music by Black Composers

Coming up in the 9:00 hour, we’ll hear Adolphus Hailstork’s cantata, “Done Made My Vow,” on texts steeped in African American history and the writings and speeches of figures such as Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Then at 10:00, Clipper Erickson, piano of Westminster Conservatory of Music will drop by to talk a bit about R. Nathaniel Dett, the grandson of fugitive slaves, who went on to become an important voice in American music. We’ll sample from Erickson’s album of Dett’s complete piano works, “My Cup Runneth Over,” recently issued on the Navona Records label.

On the eve of MLK’s birthday, it’s all music by composers of African descent until 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com.

PHOTOS: All hail Hailstork (left), with a debt to Dett

January 14, 2016
Music Color & Expectations

Does the color of one’s skin have any bearing on the kind of music one writes? Should a black composer be expected to incorporate jazz or spiritual inflections into his or her music?

Tune in tomorrow morning to have lazy expectations confounded. We’ll have representatives of the jazzy and spiritual schools, of course, but we’ll also hear works by a Pulitzer Prize winner who makes his home in New Jersey, an Afro-Cuban master of the guitar, a musketeer in the service of Louis XVI, and an Englishman infatuated with the works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Clipper Erickson, piano of Westminster Conservatory of Music will drop by at around 10:00 to talk a bit about R. Nathaniel Dett, the grandson of fugitive slaves, who went on to become an important voice in American music. Erickson’s album of Dett’s complete piano works, “My Cup Runneth Over,” has recently been issued on the Navona Records label.

In addition, we’ll hear recordings of the late conductor Paul Freeman, some spirituals sung by Marian Anderson, and the cantata “Done Made My Vow” by Adolphus Hailstork, in a recording made by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

In advance of MLK Day, it’s an exploration of content, character and color, with music by composers of African descent, tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM or at wprb.com. Music is King, on Classic Ross Amico.

January 13, 2016
Pierre Boulez Radical Avant-Garde Composer

“Blow the opera houses up!”

“All the art of the past should be destroyed!”

“A musician who has not experienced… the necessity for the dodecaphonic language is USELESS!”

“From Schoenberg’s pen flows a stream of infuriating clichés!”

“The Paris opera is full of dust and crap! Operatic tourists make me want to vomit!”

Pierre Boulez could be provocative and full of contradictions. The gadfly of modern music died on Tuesday at the age of 90. I hope you’ll join me as we celebrate this radical figure of the avant-garde, who in his later years found value even in the music of Strauss and Bruckner.

It’s all Pierre Boulez this morning, from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We “excite the curiosity of the snobs,” on Classic Ross Amico.

January 7, 2016
Remembering Boulez Provocateur of Music

He wanted to blow up the opera houses and destroy the Mona Lisa. Sometimes it’s necessary to push hard in order to find equilibrium.

Pierre Boulez might not be to everyone’s taste, either as a composer or a conductor, but if he did one thing well it was to force everyone to think – about music, about progress and about the reasons we value the things we hold sacred.

It had originally been my intention to show up for my WPRB shift tomorrow and enjoy a lazy morning of English music, since I really didn’t have any other plans. As soon as I drafted my Facebook announcement, however, I was blindsided by the news that Boulez died yesterday at the age of 90.

Now, I can’t claim to be passionate about Boulez, but he is too important a figure in the world of classical music simply to ignore. Besides, I do like his recordings of Bartók and Debussy, he made a fine set of Schoenberg’s choral music, and the last time I listened to “Le marteau sans maître,” I thought, you know, this isn’t so bad.

Boulez proclaimed, “A civilization that conserves is one that will decay!” Just the same, I think he’d be glad to join me tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com, as I share Boulez records from my collection. It certainly beats the alternative, says Classic Ross Amico.

January 6, 2016

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