Classic Ross Amico

Tag: WPRB

Poetry and Music on WPRB This Week

If music and sweet poetry agree,
As they must needs, the sister and the brother,
Then must the love be great ’twixt thee and me,
Because thou lov’st the one and I the other.
Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch
Upon the lute doth ravish human sense;
Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such,
As passing all conceit, needs no defence.
Thou lov’st to hear the sweet melodious sound
That Phœbus’ lute, the queen of music, makes;
And I in deep delight am chiefly drowned
Whenas himself to singing he betakes:
One god is god of both, as poets feign,
One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.

– Richard Barnfield, 1574-1621 (attributed to Shakespeare)

This Thursday morning on WPRB, we invoke the Muses (or a number of them anyway) for five hours of poetry and music.

We’ll hear our share of singing, of course – choral settings and lieder – but also a satisfying number of orchestral and instrumental works, with music inspired by the poetry or persons of Matthew Arnold, Aloysius Bertrand, William Blake, Robert Burns, Lord Byron, Lewis Carroll, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, E.E. Cummings, A.E. Houseman, Victor Hugo, Ben Johnson, Edward Lear, Federico Garcia Lorca, Edgar Allan Poe, Alexander Pushkin, William Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Wallace Stevens, Dylan Thomas and William Butler Yeats, or as many of those as I can get to.

We’ll also enjoy a visit from J.D. Burnett, founder and artistic director of the Kinnara Ensemble, which will perform at The Hun School of Princeton this Saturday at 8 p.m., presenting Ralph Vaughan Williams’ “Serenade to Music,” along with works by Johannes Brahms and others. He’ll drop by at around 10:00 to tell us a little bit more about their season.

I hope you’ll join me for a banquet of poetry and music, tomorrow morning from 6 to 11 ET, at WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com. We’re not averse to verse on Classic Ross Amico.

September 30, 2015
Blood Moons Popes & Purrs on WPRB

Some regard a “blood moon” eclipse as a portent of the End of Days. Others blanch at the cataclysmic implications of swapped air shifts.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/doomsday-predicted-as-blood-moon-coincides-with-sukkot/

Chances are you will either be in synagogue this morning, or you’ll wish you were, when flighty bird Classic Ross Amico sits in for the always reliable Marvin Rosen at WPRB. Ah well, we might as well make the best of it.

We’ll be jumping on the media bandwagon this week to salute Pope Francis and maybe grumble a little bit about the situation in Philadelphia, where the Pope Fence is going up and tow trucks are impounding cars all across Center City.

We’ll honor the Pope (it’s not his fault) with music inspired by his namesake, St. Francis. Francis brought forth musical tributes from many composers across the centuries. We’ll hear from Kenneth Fuchs, Paul Hindemith, Franz Liszt, Francis Poulenc, Joaquin Rodrigo, Sir William Walton, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Leo Sowerby.

Also, because of Francis’ well-known affinity with and for the critters, we’ll leaven the proceedings with works evocative of the animal kingdom, pieces like Samuel Barber’s “The Monk and His Cat,” Jennifer Higdon’s “An Exaltation of Larks,” Peter Schickele’s “Bestiary,” and of course Gioachino Rossini’s “Cat Duet.”

Marc Uys, Executive Director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, will drop by at around 9:00 to tell us a little bit about the PSO’s upcoming season, which will begin on Sunday at 4 p.m. at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium, when violinist Jennifer Koh will perform Anna Clyne’s “The Seamstress” (after a poem of William Butler Yeats) and Rossen Milanov will conduct Sergei Rachmaninoff’s wonderfully wistful Symphony No. 2.

Due to Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, Marvin Rosen’s Classical Discoveries will be heard on THURSDAY this week, from 5:30 to 11 a.m. ET. Despair not! This is only a temporary circumstance. Marvin will return to his regular Wednesday slot next week, and I’ll be back on Thursdays.

For the time being, I hope you’ll join me for St. Francis and friends, this morning from 6 to 11, on WPRB 103.3 FM or online at wprb.com. The fur will fly this week, on Classic Ross Amico.

September 23, 2015
St. Francis & Animal-Inspired Classical Music

If you’ve got Francis Fever, but you’re too pooped to Pope, you can avoid the excitement of impassible bridges and car impoundments simply by staying home and turning on the radio. I can’t promise it will be like a vicarious thumbs up from the Pontiff, but you’ll hear plenty of music inspired by his namesake, St. Francis, and the animals he respected and loved.

The historical Francis was the son of a prosperous silk merchant, who renounced his worldly life and took a vow of poverty, inspiring others to follow him and in the process creating three religious orders. Two years after his death in 1226, he was proclaimed a saint by Pope Gregory IX. He is patron saint of animals and the environment, and one of the two patron saints of Italy (the other being Catherine of Siena). You’ll notice pets and their owners lined up around Catholic and Anglican churches on October 4, the Feast Day of St. Francis. FUN FACT: St. Francis is alleged to have been the inventor of the Christmas crèche, or the Nativity scene.

We’ll have musical salutes to Francis by Kenneth Fuchs, Paul Hindemith, Franz Liszt, Francis Poulenc, Joaquin Rodrigo, Leo Sowerby, and Sir William Walton, interspersed with musical evocations of four-legged, winged and scaled friends, such as Samuel Barber’s “The Monk and His Cat,” Jennifer Higdon’s “An Exaltation of Larks,” Peter Schickele’s “Bestiary,” and of course Gioachino Rossini’s “Cat Duet.”

As if all that weren’t enough, we’ll be graced by the presence of Marc Uys, Executive Director of the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, who will drop by at around 9:00 to tell us a little bit about the PSO’s upcoming season, which will begin on Sunday at 4 p.m. at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium, when violinist Jennifer Koh performs Anna Clyne’s “The Seamstress” (after a poem of William Butler Yeats) and Rossen Milanov conducts Sergei Rachmaninoff’s wonderfully wistful Symphony No. 2.

Do keep in mind that we will be heard at a special time this week. Due to Yom Kippur, Marvin Rosen’s Classical Discoveries will air on THURSDAY morning from 5:30 to 11 ET; Classic Ross Amico will appear in Marvin’s usual slot, WEDNESDAY morning, though in my case it will be from 6 to 11. That extra half hour’s sleep makes all the difference!

I hope you’ll join us on WPRB 103.3 FM, or online at wprb.com. We’re pulling the old switcheroo this week, on Classic Ross Amico.

September 22, 2015
Jewish Music for the High Holy Days on WPRB

If a blast on the shofar sends you into ecstasies, have I got the show for you!

There will be shofars aplenty over the course of my five hours on WPRB this morning, as we listen to music by Jewish composers and/or on Jewish themes, in honor of the High Holy Days.

There will be works by composers such as Paul Ben-Haim, Herman Berlinski, Ernest Bloch, David Diamond, Sril Irving Glick, John McCabe, Sergei Prokofiev, Maurice Ravel, Paul Schoenfield, Dmitri Shostakovich, David Stock, and Philadelphia natives Louis Gesensway and Amanda Harberg.

We’ll also be upholding an annual WPRB tradition, initiated by Teri Noel Towe, of airing a recording of Pablo Casals performing Max Bruch’s “Kol Nidrei.”

A number of these composers aren’t even Jewish – and a few of the pieces aren’t particularly “Jewish” sounding – but all of them pay tribute to the fecundity and soulfulness of the Jewish experience.

Join me this morning from 6 to 11 ET, at WPRB 103.3 FM or wprb.com, for music for the Days of Awe, the ten days that span Rosh Hashanah (the New Year) to Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). If you need anything, just “give a challah,” to Classic Ross Amico.

September 17, 2015
Jewish Music for the High Holy Days

Coming up in the next hour, it’s “The Chagall Windows,” English composer John McCabe’s luminous, strange and beautiful impressions of the stained glass tableaux located at the synagogue of the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem.

Also, we’ll hear Philadelphia native Amanda Harberg’s “Elegy” for viola and piano, a work dedicated to one of her teachers, Marina Grin.

It’s all music by Jewish composers or on Jewish themes for the High Holy Days this morning until 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM and wprb.com.

September 17, 2015

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