This Week at The Classical Station
by Chrissy Keuper
Saturday, 2 November and Sunday, 3 November 2024
Hello, Weekend!
We feel priveleged to be able to connect with you through this beautiful and passionate music, at all hours of every day. It’s very special to all of us to be a part of WCPE / The Classical Station and you are part of it, too. If you’re listening, you know how important this music is in your life.
Please donate and support the music we all love AND the magic of public radio.
Our Fall Membership Campaign is wrapping up on Sunday, so make your donations and connect with us! THANK YOU for listening and for supporting what we do and love.
Saturday:
Join Haydn Jones at 6pm ET for the Saturday Evening Request Program. The playlist can be found here, and you can make requests for next week’s programs here. (All-Request Friday returns next week!)
Sunday:
This week’s Great Sacred Music includes performances by the Taverner Consort, Choir, and Players; the Choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London; and organist Michael Murray. You’ll hear works by Franz Liszt, Eric Whitacre, Johann Sebastian Bach, and many more. Join co-hosts Mick Anderson and Peggy Powell at 8am ET.
And Preview! will feature new releases from the classical music world. Join us at 6pm ET.
On these dates in the history of classical music:
Giuseppe Sinopoli conducting l’Orchestra Giovanile Italiana, c. 1994. (Photo by Centro Documentazione Musicale – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Italian conductor and composer Giuseppe Sinopoli was born November 2, 1946, in Venice, and had varied interests though music was an early and sustained interest through his life. After secondary school, Sinopoli studied music at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice while also enrolled in the faculty of medicine at the University of Padua. He obtained a doctorate in medicine with an emphasis on psychiatry, and completed a dissertation on criminal anthropology in 1972, then continued his musical studies in composition in Darmstadt under György Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Bruno Maderna, and with Franco Donatoni at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. He studied conducting under Franco Ferrara and at the Vienna Academy of Music with Hans Swarowsky. Sinopoli was composing throughout the 1970s and began regularly conducting in the 1980s. His best-known composition is his opera Lou Salomé, which premiered at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich in 1981. In 1983, he was appointed conductor of the New Philharmonic Orchestra in London, and went on to conduct the Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Wiener Philharmoniker, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the Berliner Philharmoniker. From 1990, he was principal director of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin and of the Staatskapelle in Dresden from 1992, and was musical artistic director of the Taormina Festival from 1989 to 1997. Sinopoli died in 2001; since 2005, Taormina Arte has dedicated the festival to Sinopoli and highlights his musical compositions.
John Barry at his piano, c. 1967. (Courtesy of Hulton Archive, Getty Images)
And British composer and conductor John Barry was born in York, Yorkshire, on November 3, 1933. Barry’s father was a projectionist who later owned a chain of cinemas, so the young Barry was raised in and around cinemas and was highly influenced by the music of the films that he saw. He took composition lessons with Francis Jackson, who was the organist of York Minster Cathedral and then played the trumpet during his national service in the British Army playing the trumpet; Barry served in Cyprus and studied from a correspondence course with jazz composer Bill Russo. He finished his national service and went to work as an arranger for the orchestras of Jack Parnell and Ted Heath, then formed the John Barry Seven in 1957; he began composing theme tunes for the BBC and film music for United Artists, starting in 1963, when he wrote the first of 11 scores for the James Bond films (through 1987). He won Grammy-, Academy-, and BAFTA Awards for his film scores, including five Oscars for Born Free (1966); The Lion in Winter (1968); Out of Africa (1985); and Dances with Wolves (1990). In 1999, Barry was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to music; was named a Fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors in 2001; and was named a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) in 2005.
Friday, 1 November 2024
A special reason to support WCPE / The Classical Station today:
Anonymous donors known as the Friends from Greensboro will match all donations made today up to $20,000. Double the impact of your donation! Donate here or call our volunteers at 877-556-5178 between 8am and 6pm ET. Thank you!
On today’s date in classical music history:
Roger Quilter, c. 1922. (Photo by Herbert Lambert – Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery NPG Ax7746)
It’s the birthdate of British composer Roger Quilter, born in 1877 in Brighton and Hove, Sussex. His first musical education was at the preparatory school at Farnborough, then Eton College; in 1893, he began studying composition at Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt with fellow students Percy Grainger, Cyril Scott and H. Balfour Gardiner, then became a member of the Frankfurt Group, made up of composers who studied at the conservatory. By the early 1900s, Quilter was well-known as a composer of art songs; his Songs of the Sea were performed by Denham Price at the Crystal Palace in 1901 and were often performed on the radio, and his song-cycle To Julia was premiered by tenor Gervase Elwes in 1905. That marked the beginning of a long collaboration between Quilter and Elwes; when Elwes was killed in 1921 in an accident at Boston railway station, Quilter founded and administered the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund in his memory. Quilter wrote more than 100 songs, choral works, music for solo piano, and instrumental music for orchestra and the stage and is perhaps most widely known for Non Nobis, Domine, written for the 1934 Pageant of Parliament at the Royal Albert Hall. He also published the Arnold Book of Old Songs, a collection of folk and traditional songs from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and France. Composer Peter Warlock named Quilter as a major influence on his own compositions.
Thursday, 31 October 2024
Happy Halloween and Happy Friday Eve!
Become a member today of WCPE / The Classical Station and support the music that you love (along with some spooky favorites throughout the day)! Then, join us at 7pm ET for the Fall Membership Campaign edition of Thursday Night Opera House: Dr. Jay Pierson, Chrissy Keuper, and Eric Mitchko (General Director of the North Carolina Opera) will play some favorite recordings from the great operas and as you listen, we’ll be taking your donations.
On this date in the history of classical music:
Odaline de la Martínez. (Photo by Malcolm Crowther – Courtesy of odalinedelamartinez.com)
Happy Birthday to Cuban-American composer and conductor Odaline de la Martínez, born in Matanzas in 1949. Her parents sent her to live with family in the U.S. in the early 1960s, where she studied music and mathematics at Tulane University. After graduating, a Marshall Scholarship from the British government and a Danforth and Watson Fellowship allowed Martínez to attend the Royal Academy of Music and study composition and piano. While attending RAM, she co-founded the Lontano Ensemble (1976). In 1979, she won composer awards from the American National Endowment for the Arts and then a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1980. In 1984, Martínez was the first woman to conduct at the BBC Promenade Concerts (the Proms). Her first opera, Sister Aimee: An American Legend premiered at Tulane University the same year, then performed at the Royal College of Music (1987). The Brazilian government awarded her the Villa Lobos medal in 1987 for championing the works of composer Heitor Villa Lobos and other Brazilian composers. In 1990, Martínez was named a fellow of the Royal Academy of Music. She founded LORELT (Lontano Records Limited, 1992) to promote the music of contemporary women composers and Latin American composers, and she founded the London Festival of American Music in 2006 to spotlight American and U.S.-based composers. Martínez is a frequent guest conductor throughout Great Britain, including all the BBC orchestras, as well as Ensemble 2e2m in Paris; the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra; the Australian Youth Orchestra; the OFUNAM and the Camerata of the Americas in Mexico; and the Vancouver Chamber Orchestra, and she is also a broadcaster for BBC Radio and Television.
Wednesday, 30 October 2024
The Classical Station’s Fall Membership Campaign is in full swing. Have you donated yet?
A donation of any amount = membership
Support public radio, classical music, AND the station that plays the music that you love, always hosted by a live announcer. We have these Thank You Gifts to offer you, or you may choose to have your entire donation go toward supporting the station. Either way, let us hear from you today!
Some businesses will match employee contributions to nonprofits like The Classical Station (and some will even double or triple the amount of a gift of support). Ask your employer (or previous employer, if you’re retired) if they will match your gift, or search those businesses here.
If you’re a business owner who would like to match and/or boost your employees’ contributions to The Classical Station, email our membership department. And consider becoming one of our Business Sponsors! You’ll reach a global audience of loyal listeners AND you’ll be supporting WCPE/The Classical Station, too. More information is here, or email WCPE’s business development specialist Mary Moonen to learn more.
On this date in the history of classical music:
Frans Brüggen, c. 1978. (Photo by the New York Times – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of Dutch flute and recorder virtuoso and musicologist Frans Brüggen in 1934 in Amsterdam. As a child, he studied recorder and flute at the Amsterdam Muzieklyceum, then musicology at the University of Amsterdam. When he was 21, he was appointed professor at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague (1955) and already had a widespread reputation as a recorder and Baroque flute virtuoso with a strong focus on traditional instruments. In the 1960s, he commissioned several works for recorder including Luciano Berio’s Gesti (1965); in 1972, he co-founded the avant-garde recorder ensemble Sour Cream with Kees Boeke and Walter van Hauwe; and he co-founded the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century (Orkest van de Achttiende Eeuw) in 1981. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) named Brüggen its co-principal guest conductor (1992), a title he shared with Simon Rattle. From 1991 to 1994, he was the conductor of Radio Kamerorkest. He was also a visiting professor at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley, and made many recordings.
Conductor James Judd. (Photo by Melinda Parent – Courtesy of Danart Management)
And Happy Birthday to English conductor James Judd, born on this day in 1949 in Hertford, Hertfordshire, and an early student of the piano, flute, and organ. When he was in high school, he found he had a talent for conducting and followed his musical path as a student at the Trinity College of Music in London. Almost immediately after graduating, he began his long professional career in conducting (which continues) by becoming assistant conductor to Lorin Maazel with the Cleveland Orchestra, and then associate music director of the European Union Youth Orchestra under Claudio Abbado. Judd was the Florida Philharmonic’s final full-time music director (1987-2001) and was appointed music director of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in 1999 (until 2007). He also led the NZSO’s first appearances at The Proms and at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in 2005. In 2013, Judd was appointed music director of The Little Orchestra Society and founded the non-profit Miami Music Project. The next year, he was named music director of the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion; appointed artistic director and principal conductor of the Daejeon Philharmonic Orchestra (South Korea) in 2016; and named chief conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra in 2017. He is currently conducting the New Zealand Opera (2024).
Tuesday, 29 October 2024
The Classical Station’s Fall Membership Campaign is in full swing.
A donation of any amount = membership, so become a member today!
Have you already donated? Consider a sustaining membership that will mean a regular monthly gift to the classical station. Donate here anytime, or call 877-556-5178 to talk to one of the volunteers who are here waiting to talk to you. Support public radio, classical music, AND the station that plays the music that you love, always hosted by a live announcer. We have these Thank You Gifts to offer you, or you may choose to have your entire donation go toward supporting the station.
However you choose to make your donation, let us hear from you today!
We thank you, always, for listening and for supporting WCPE / The Classical Station since 1978.
TODAY ONLY:
Make a donation today between 8am and 6pm ET and be entered for a “Choose Your Own Series” ticket package from the North Carolina Symphony, which includes three pairs of tickets to any three classical concerts of your choice in the 2024/2025 season.
Make your requests now for the Saturday Evening Request Program! We’ll be putting off All-Request Friday for another week as we raise funds through our Fall Membership Campaign (don’t worry: ARF will return on November 8th), but Hayden Jones will be playing your requests from 6pm to midnight ET on Saturday evening, as usual.
On this date in the history of classical music:
Michael Ponti, c. 1972. (Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of German-American pianist Michael Ponti in 1937 in Freiburg im Breisgau. His father was a U.S. diplomat and he spent most of his childhood in Washington, D.C. and began piano lessons early. The family returned to Germany in 1955 and Ponti entered piano studies at the Musikhochschule Frankfurt until 1961, taking master classes with Arthur Rubinstein and Robert Casadesus. He was a finalist in 1964 in the Queen Elisabeth Competition, and he won first prize in the Busoni Piano Competition in Italy; these competitions paved the way for his international performance career, which began with a Vienna debut of Bartók’s 2nd Piano Concerto. Ponti performed extensively all over the world; he was the first to record the complete piano works by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Sergei Rachmaninov, and Alexander Scriabin; and he performed and recorded with his Ponti-Zimansky-Polasek Trio until the late 1990s, when a stroke left him without the use of his right hand and arm. He performed works for the left hand for a while, then retired from performance altogether. He lived until 2022.
Jon Vickers in the 1983 Metropolitan Opera production of Peter Grimes. (Photo courtesy of Metropolitan Opera)
And it’s the birthdate of Canadian operatic tenor Jon Vickers in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, in 1926. Vickers won a scholarship in 1950 to study opera at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto; joined London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1957; and debuted with the Metropolitan Opera in 1960. Vickers was renowned and quickly world-famous for his wide acting range, his powerful voice and technique, and his commanding stage presence. He made appearances in roles with opera companies throughout Europe and sang in the Bayreuth Festival and at the Salzburg Easter and Summer Festivals (where he became one of Herbert von Karajan’s favorite singers). Vickers also made many recordings and was a long time collaborator with American pianist Richard Woitach. He retired in 1988 and lived until 2015.
Monday, 28 October 2024
Welcome to the new week, Listeners!
You’re listening, but are you a member of WCPE / The Classical Station?
A donation of any amount = membership.
There are so many benefits, including your support of public radio, classical music, and the station that is your companion 24 hours a day, bringing you the music that you love. See the Thank You Gifts that we offer, or choose to have your entire donation go toward supporting the station. Our Fall Membership Campaign continues through Sunday, November 3rd, and we want to hear from you!
We thank you for listening and for supporting us since 1978.
This week’s Monday Night at the Symphony (Fall Membership Campaign edition) will spotlight some of our Thank You Gift cds, including Joe Hisaishi conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
Join us at 8pm ET for selections from some of the best orchestras in the world!
On this date in classical music history:
Howard Hanson, c. 1959. (Author unknown – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
American composer and conductor Howard Hanson was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, in 1896. Hanson studied music with his mother as a child, then attended Luther College in Wahoo; studied composition and music theory at the Institute of Musical Art (which became the Juilliard School); and then studied composition, piano, cello, and trombone at Northwestern University. After graduating in 1916, Hanson accepted a full-time position teaching music theory and composition at California’s College of the Pacific; the college appointed him Dean of the Conservatory of Fine Arts in 1919. A year later, he composed the first of his works to achieve national recognition, The California Forest Play, which won the American Academy’s first Prix de Rome in Music in 1921 along with his symphonic poem, Before the Dawn. The prize allowed him to live in Italy for a few years, mostly in Rome, where he focused only on composing and conducting; Hanson’s Quartet in One Movement; Lux Aeterna; and Symphony No. 1, “Nordic,” were products of this prolific and formative period of his life. While in Rome, he befriended and was highly influenced by composer Ottorino Respighi, and also cited Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Gustav Holst, Giovanni Palestrina, and Richard Wagner as major influences on his music. Hanson made his U.S. conducting premiere with the New York Symphony Orchestra in 1924 and caught the eye of George Eastman, who appointed him director of the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester; under Hanson’s 40-year tenure, it became a premier American school of music. He founded the American Composers Orchestral Concerts in 1925 and the Festivals of American Music in 1931; both were avidly attended by live audiences at the Eastman Theater and broadcast nationally via radio until the early 1970s. In 1930, Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Hanson’s Symphony No. 2, “Romantic,” to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and it became Hanson’s best known work. The Metropolitan Opera premiered his opera Merry Mount in 1934, receiving 50 curtain calls for the performance (which may be a standing record for the opera company and an opera, in general). In 1938, Hanson teamed up with WHAM (Rochester) and the national NBC Red Network for Milestones in the History of Music, weekly radio broadcasts of student ensembles at the Eastman School in a survey of western music. Hanson, the Eastman School, and WHAM received a Peabody Award for outstanding service to music for that effort in 1946. Hanson developed a similar series with the same name that was carried by the CBS radio network, as well. He founded the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra in 1939, made up of musicians with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Eastman School of Music faculty and students; until 1969, Hanson made more than 100 recordings with the orchestra for multiple record labels, focused on works of his own and other American composers. In 1944, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Symphony No. 4, “Requiem.” In 1954, then-conductor of the Eastman Wind Ensemble Frederick Fennell called Hanson’s Chorale and Alleluia, “the most awaited piece of music to be written for the wind band in my twenty years as a conductor in this field.” Hanson collaborated with the Ford Foundation during the 1950s and 1960s on a series of television films on composition; he was also a member of the Music Advisory Panel, which evaluated candidates for the Department of State’s Cultural Presentations program, a diplomacy initiative that sent American musicians around the world to perform. Hanson retired as Director of the Eastman School in 1964 and became the first director of the University of Rochester’s new Institute for American Music, serving until his death in 1981. Throughout his busy career, Hanson was also guest conductor for the New York Philharmonic; the Boston Symphony Orchestra; the NBC Symphony Orchestra; and other leading orchestras, and he founded the Eastman Philharmonia orchestra, a touring orchestra made up of students at the school. By Hanson’s own estimate, he premiered more than 2000 works by over 500 American composers during his tenure at the Eastman School. He also composed a lot of other music, won numerous other awards, and remains one of the most prolific and beloved American composers in the history of classical music.