Last chance to make your contribution to WWFM – The Classical Network and make it count toward the end of our fiscal year. At midnight, everything resets. We don’t want to start out 2018-2019 in the hole! Call now at 1-888-232-1212. You can also make your contribution online, until 11:59 p.m., at wwfm.org. We’ve still got a ways to go, but we can do it with your support. We’ve been broadcasting great music for 35 years, because of engaged listeners just like you. Thank you for being there for The Classical Network!
Tag: WWFM
-
Bernard Herrmann: Greatest Film Composer?
Was Bernard Herrmann the greatest film composer who ever lived? If such a claim could be supported, I’d say it’s quite possibly so. He’s not the first composer I turn to for purely musical enjoyment – I’m more of a Korngold/Rózsa/John Williams kind of guy – but has anyone more consistently found the perfect sound to support an on-screen image?
And Herrmann was never one to go for the low-hanging fruit. Take his score for “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951). Herrmann’s concept of extra-terrestrial music incorporates violin, cello, electric bass, two theremins, two Hammond organs, a large studio electric organ, three vibraphones, two glockenspiels, two pianos, two harps, three trumpets, three trombones and four tubas. Overdubbing and tape-reversal techniques were also employed. Now this guy was a composer!
His music for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Pyscho” (1960) was all strings; the brawny score to the mythological “Jason and the Argonauts” (1963) eschewed them. He could be wry (“The Devil and Daniel Webster”), romantic (“The Ghost and Mrs. Muir”), downbeat (“Taxi Driver”), or any combination of the three (“Citizen Kane”).
Unfortunately, my weekly film music show, “Picture Perfect,” will be preempted today since we still haven’t hit our goal of $70,000 for the end of our fiscal year, which will arrive, whether we like it or not, at midnight the morning of July 1. However, I am scheduled to be on the air earlier in the day today, albeit in the capacity of “wingman,” from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. I won’t be the one doing the programming, but you can be sure I will insinuate some Bernard Herrmann into the playlist on his birthday.
JUST IN: I’ll also be around in the 6:00 hour this evening, so you’ll hear a little more Herrmann then.
Please support us. There aren’t very many radio stations on which you’ll hear Bernard Herrmann’s music with regularity. Call now at 1-888-232-1212 or make a contribution online at wwfm.org. I wish I could bring you a full hour of Herrmann, but we need to make this goal! “Picture Perfect” will return next Friday at 6 p.m. In the meantime, thank you for supporting WWFM – The Classical Network.
Herrmann with Orson Welles (left) and Alfred Hitchcock
-
American Music for Independence Day & WWFM Support
Get a jump on Independence Day with The Classical Network, as we rustle up a full playlist of American music to help enliven this fourth day of our end-of-the-fiscal-year membership campaign. We have only until Saturday at 11:59 p.m. to meet our goal of $70,000. So please, step lively and help us achieve our mini-goals and challenges, because we really need to stay on track and raise this money!
For your contribution of $70, we’d be delighted to send you a CD of a recreation of a 1930s-style radio broadcast from the Strings Music Festival of Steamboat Springs, CO. World-class musicians, drawn from some of the country’s great orchestras (including those of Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Atlanta), perform music by George Gershwin (“Rhapsody in Blue”), Jerome Kern, Vernon Duke, and more. Sportscaster Verne Lundquist serves as master of ceremonies. The program is introduced by the speaking voice of Gershwin himself.
The orchestral arrangements are by masters of their art, including Nelson Riddle and Herbert Spencer, who was John Williams’ right-hand man when working on the scores to “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” and so many others, until his death in 1992.
The CD was produced in-house and is available exclusively through The Classical Network.
Help us to preserve an oasis against the homogeneous clangor and insipid prattle of commercial FM radio. We are listener-supported. Our freedom to excel is made possible by YOU. It’s our patriotic duty to keep classical music strong in America! Call now, at 1-888-232-1212, or donate online at wwfm.org. We’ll be earning our stars and stripes – and hopefully Benjamins – until 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network. Thank you for your support!
-
Support Classical Music & Get Cool Perks
By this point of the membership campaign, I think everyone could use a stiff drink. Why not enjoy it in style?
For your contribution of $35, WWFM The Classical Network is now offering these snazzy wine vests, designed and created by Professor Barbara Behrens of Mercer County Community College (home base to The Classical Network). Behrens is a longtime supporter of the station.
Bump up your contribution to $100, and in addition we’ll toss in our in-house produced CD of a recreation of a 1930s-style radio broadcast from the Strings Music Festival of Steamboat Springs, CO. World-class musicians, drawn from the some of the country’s great orchestras (including those of Cleveland, Los Angeles, and Atlanta), perform music by George Gershwin (“Rhapsody in Blue”), Jerome Kern, Vernon Duke, and more. Sportscaster Verne Lundquist serves as master of ceremonies. The program is introduced by the speaking voice of Gershwin himself.
The bottle vests will be offered starting at 3 p.m. Join Michael Kownacky and me for Happy Hour at 4, when we’ll be serving up platters of musical aperitifs to help enhance the mood, including David Shire’s “Sonata for Cocktail Piano.”
Then stick around for a special membership edition of “Music from Marlboro” at 6, including chamber music performances by Jonathan Biss, Lara St. John, Yo-Yo Ma, Mitsuko Uchida, and others, from the legendary Marlboro Music Festival.
It’s all made possible through the contributions of our listener-members. If you haven’t joined us yet, the party’s underway. Donate now by calling 1-888-232-1212 or online at wwfm.org. Thank you for supporting WWFM – The Classical Network.
-
WWFM End-of-Year Fundraiser On Now
This is it! Our end-of-the-fiscal year fundraiser is underway! Thrill to a different programming focus every day this week – women in music, for example, and American music, and something we’re calling “We Wednesday” – as together we work to shore up the station’s finances. We need your help so that we can continue to do what it is we do so well, undiminished. We’ll dazzle the ear, even as we celebrate our members, partners, and community.
Make your donation now at 1-888-232-1212 or online at wwfm.org. We’re willing to perform quadruple somersaults in order to keep bringing you the music you love. But we’re counting on you to be there for us. The spangled and leotarded staff of WWFM – The Classical Network thanks you for your support!
Tag Cloud
Aaron Copland (93) Beethoven (95) Composer (114) Film Music (124) Film Score (143) Film Scores (255) Halloween (94) John Williams (188) KWAX (229) Leonard Bernstein (101) Marlboro Music Festival (125) Movie Music (139) Opera (202) Philadelphia Orchestra (89) Picture Perfect (174) Princeton Symphony Orchestra (106) Radio (87) Ralph Vaughan Williams (85) Ross Amico (244) Roy's Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner (290) The Classical Network (101) The Lost Chord (268) Vaughan Williams (103) WPRB (396) WWFM (881)