This Week at The Classical Station
by Chrissy Keuper
Saturday and Sunday, 30-31 August 2025
It’s the weekend! We’re right here with your soundtrack.
And here’s what’s on the playlist:
Join Peggy Powell at 1pm ET for Saturday On Point, your weekly spotlight on classical music for dancers on the stage. This week, she salutes Labor Day weekend with All-American ballets, including Aaron Copland conducting his own Appalachian Spring and John Alden Carpenter’s Birthday of the Infanta.
At 6pm ET, Haydn Jones is playing your requests and dedications
on the Saturday Evening Request Program.
Here’s the playlist.
Make requests and dedications for next week’s programs here.
Start your sacred Sunday morning at 7:30am ET with Sing For Joy from St. Olaf College, followed at 8am ET by James Steelmon and Great Sacred Music, featuring Dona nobis pacem by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s wonderful Requiem.
At 6pm ET, Tom Hayakawa is your host for new and recent classical releases on Preview!, with highlights this week from Mozart through the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and Mahler through soprano Sonya Yoncheva with the Montreal Symphony.
On these dates in the history of classical music:
Arnold Walter in the Electronic Music Studio at the University of Toronto, early 1960s. (Photo courtesy of University of Toronto)
Canadian composer and music educator Arnold Maria Walter was born August 30, 1902, in Hannsdorf (Hanušovice), Moravia. As a young student and musician, Walter tutored fellow students in Latin and Greek to fund his own private music studies; he then attended the University of Prague’s law school and studied composition and musicology at the University of Berlin (and had a brief stint in medical studies at Masaryk University in Brno). Walter found it hard to find work as a composer and musician, but he found a place as a contributor to the music journal Melos in Berlin. In the early 1930s, Walter fled Germany for Spain, where he found a teaching post and studied folk music and languages. The Spanish Civil War meant another emigration, this time to England, before accepting a faculty position with Upper Canada College in Toronto. Walter remained in Canada for the rest of his life, becoming the founding director of the Royal Conservatory Senior School at the Toronto Conservatory of Music (now the Royal Conservatory of Music); establishing the Opera School of the Conservatory and the first degree program in Canada for elementary and secondary school music teachers; and directing the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto. He is also credited with establishing the first electronic music studio in Canada and one of North America’s most comprehensive music libraries, and for generally transforming music education in Canada.
Alma Schindler Mahler, c. 1908. (Austrian National Library – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
And Austro-Hungarian composer and socialite Alma Schindler Mahler was born August 31, 1879, in Vienna. Schindler focused on the piano as a young music student, then studied composition and counterpoint with a number of tutors, including Alexander von Zemlinsky; over her life, she composed works for voice and piano, as well as chamber and solo piano works. She was a well-known cultural figure in her time (especially after marrying composer Gustav Mahler in 1902) and moved in musical and artistic society for the rest of her life. Schindler eventually settled in Los Angeles in the 1940s; became a US citizen in 1946; and then moved to New York City and moved in the city’s cultural circles for the remainder of her life (until 1964).
Friday, 29 August 2025
Happy Friday, All!
We’re playing your special requests and dedications on All-Request Friday (and again tomorrow evening on the Saturday Evening Request Program).
Here are the playlists
Make requests for next week’s shows here
On this date in the history of classical music:
Elísabet Erlingsdóttir, date and photographer unknown.
It’s the birthdate of Icelandic soprano Elísabet Erlingsdóttir in 1940; she was known throughout her career as “Elísabet with the voice.” Erlingsdóttir studied solo voice and voice education at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Munich and went on to premier songs, song-cycles, arrangements of Icelandic folk songs, and chamber pieces. She was a founding singer with the Icelandic Opera in 1982, and sang many roles there and at the National Theatre. She also began the first degree course in solo singing in Iceland and was head of the vocal department at the Reykjavík College of Music and on the music faculty of the Iceland University of Arts while also giving master classes in Scandinavia, Europe, and the U.S.
Thursday, 28 August 2025
It’s Friday Eve, All!
We’ll celebrate this evening with Dr. Jay Pierson and Thursday Night Opera House, featuring a Giacomo Puccini Double Feature: Antonio Pappano conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and London Voices in La Rondine (1997) and Lorin Maazel conducting the National Philharmonic Orchestra and Ambrosian Opera Chorus in Le Villi (1979). Come for the excellent music and stay for the legendary soloists. Join us at 7pm ET.
On this day in classical music history:
Dame Imogen Cooper. (Photo by Michael Eleftheriades)
A very Happy Birthday to British pianist Imogen Cooper, born in North London in 1949. Cooper began studies at Paris’s Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique at the age of 12 and at 17, was awarded a Premier Prix de Piano. Among her teachers and mentors were Arthur Rubinstein, Clifford Curzon, and Alfred Brendel, and she has performed and recorded all over the world for most of her life. She was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2007 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) 2021.
Wednesday, 27 August 2025
Are you having a good week, Listeners? Here’s some fantastic music that will make it even better.
On this date in the history of classical music:
Constantine Orbelian, conductor.
A very Happy Birthday to American pianist and conductor Constantine Orbelian, born in San Francisco, California, in 1956 (and named after his paternal uncle Konstantin Orbelyan, a well-known Armenian composer). Orbelian was a piano prodigy and debuted with the San Francisco Symphony at the age of 11. He attended the Juilliard School and began a career as a piano virtuoso with symphony orchestras throughout the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and Russia. Orbelian has served as Music Director of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and the Philharmonia of Russia; Chief Conductor of the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra in Lithuania; and General and Artistic Director of the State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater in Yerevan, Armenia, and he founded the annual Palaces of St. Petersburg International Music Festival. Orbelian is currently music director and Principal Conductor of the New York City Opera.
Tuesday, 26 August 2025
Please consider supporting this wonderful music that we all love!
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On this date in classical music history:
Nico Muhly. (Photo by Heidi Solander – Courtesy of St. Rose Music)
A very Happy Birthday to American composer Nico Muhly, born in 1981 in Randolph, Vermont. As a child, Muhly sang and studied piano and later attended both Columbia University and the Juilliard School on a dual-degree program in English and music composition. During grad school, Muhly was an archivist for composer Philip Glass, and he collaborates and performs with musicians in a number of genres, though he considers himself primarily a classical composer.
Monday, 25 August 2025
Listeners, it’s a brand new week and we’re right here with some great classical music to make your week even better.
This evening at 7pm ET, join Vince Tillona for Drop the Needle and the warmth of vinyl recordings. This week’s show highlights Antonio Vivaldi’s storm at sea and Gustav Holst’s tranquil universe.
Then at 8pm ET, Monday Night at the Symphony features recordings of the French National Orchestra and works by Ravel, Debussy, Prokofiev, and Mussorgsky.
And on Tuesday, tune in for Classical Café with George Leef for this week’s Legendary Performer:
Paavo Berglund.
On this date in classical music history:
Undine Smith Moore, c. 1984. (Photo by Tracy Atkinson – Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s the birthdate of African-American composer Undine Smith Moore in Jarratt, Virginia, in 1905. Moore was known as the “Dean of Black Women Composers” and was trained as a pianist, but the vast majority of her compositions were works for voice inspired by spirituals and folk music. She attended Juilliard Graduate School under its first scholarship to complete study at Fisk University. Moore was a music teacher in the public schools of Goldsboro, North Carolina, before joining the faculty of Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute (later Virginia State University) in 1927. She remained at the school until 1972. Moore was a recipient of the National Association of Negro Musicians’ Distinguished Achievement Award in 1975; Music Laureate of Virginia in 1977; and the Governor’s Award for the Arts in Virginia in 1985.