Classic Ross Amico

Tag: WWFM

Hanukkah Handel and Modern Sounds on WWFM

During these shortest days of the year, we can use all the light we can get. With four candles in the menorah last night, we’ll celebrate the third day of Hanukkah with a complete recording of Handel’s other holiday oratorio, “Judas Maccabaeus.” A complete performance of the piece will come your way this afternoon on WWFM, following today’s noontime concert.

Today’s midday broadcast will highlight the Brooklyn-based concert venue, National Sawdust. Included will be performances by the Chiara String Quartet, which has been stunning audiences with its performances of all six string quartets by Béla Bartók from memory, and the violinist Francesca Anderegg, a new music champion, who will perform Clint Needham’s “On the Road” and selections from Reinaldo Moya’s “Imagined Archipelago.”

After that, we’ll get a Handel on the Maccabees. What’s old is new, and what’s new is played as if it were standard repertoire, today between 12 and 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

December 27, 2016
Festive Post-Christmas Music: Toys, Wren Boys, Hanukkah

Judging from a compact disc on the EBS label, German toy symphonies seem to have been the rage for well over a century, at least since Leopold Mozart’s wacky exercise, long attributed to Haydn, which includes plenty of drums, toy trumpets and bird whistles. We’ll hear one of those this afternoon, which may or may not be the escape from Christmas you’re looking for, depending on whether or not you have little ones congregating at your house.

We’ll also have music for St. Stephen’s Day, including some musical commemorations of Good King Wenceslas and acknowledgements of the Irish tradition of “hunting the wren.”

Finally, we’ll get caught up with Hanukkah, as we wind down on the second day of the Festival of Lights and begin the third at sunset.

Christmas proper may be over, but I assure you, things will remain quite festive, this afternoon from 4 to 7 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Here come the Wren Boys!

December 26, 2016
Christmas Classical Music on WRTI & WWFM

Can it already be this close to Christmas? I guess it is. Today will mark my final two live air shifts before the Christmas holiday.

I hope you’ll join me on WRTI in Philadelphia at 90.1 FM and wrti.org, as I’ll be seated under the mistletoe from 10 am. to 2 p.m. Among the works I’ll be presenting will be Antonio Vivaldi’s OTHER “Gloria” (RV 588), one of Robert Russell Bennett’s splashy suites from “The Many Moods of Christmas,” and a complete recording of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker.” I’m not sure if there will be any time left over for me to add anything of my own, but hey, any opportunity to actually sit and listen to a complete “Nutcracker” is fine by me.

Then I ride the Polar Express to the Trenton-Princeton area, where I’ll pick my own music, on WWFM The Classical Network at 89.1 FM and wwfm.org, from 4 to 6 p.m. I’ll keep it fairly light today with Leopold Mozart’s “Musical Sleigh-Ride,” in that wacky recording by the Eduard Melkus Ensemble, with all the rowdy dogs and horses, and John Rutter’s work for children’s chorus and harp, “Dancing Day,” kind of a companion piece to Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols.” It’s probably safe to assume there will be some more English music, as well.

Then at 6:00, on WWFM, I’ll be your host for “Picture Perfect,” when the focus will be on music from Christmas television specials that were originally broadcast from the 1950s through the 1980s. I’ll write a little more about it, here, as the time draws nigh.

And don’t forget “The Lost Chord,” my syndicated program of unusual and neglected repertoire. It airs on WWFM on Christmas night, this week at 11 p.m., in order to make room for a broadcast of Handel’s “Messiah” from Trinity Wall Street at 8. On the program will be Hubert Parry’s “Ode on the Nativity” and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ very last work, “The First Nowell.”

Merry Christmas, everyone, and happy listening!

December 23, 2016
Yule Revelry on WWFM Celebrate Winter Solstice

Welcome, Yule!

It’s December 21. Skate on over to WWFM this afternoon, as I mark the year’s shortest day and longest night with abundant revelry, courtesy of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s “Victoria and Merrie England” and John Langstaff’s “The Christmas Revels.” We’ll also make festive with Christopher Rouse’s makeshift midwinter celebration, “Karolju.” Of course, we’ll have music inspired by wintry sights, sounds, and activities. And we’ll follow Arthur Honegger on his musical journey from dark-to-light, “Une cantate de Noël,” or “A Christmas Cantata.”

Join me, as we drive the cold winter away, this afternoon from 4 to 7:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

December 21, 2016
Festive Holiday Music on WWFM This Week

Season’s greetings!

The elves have nearly finished piling high my sleigh with unique and festive Christmas packages for all you deserving girls and boys. Join me during my air shifts this week – Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 4 to 7 p.m., and Tuesday from noon to 4 p.m. – for plentiful music of the season.

We’ll have selections for the solstice, music evocative of midwinter sport, and plenty of garland and tinsel to go around. Highlights this afternoon will include Ariel Ramirez’s “Navidad Nuestra” and Camille Saint-Saens’ “Christmas Oratorio.”

My heart grows three sizes this day. It all begins at 4:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and at wwfm.org.

December 19, 2016

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