The Boston Symphony Orchestra's 2017 performance of Ferruccio Busoni's monumental concerto met all the composer's impossible demands. A new live recording of the event is both serious and fabulous.
This Christmas week we rebroadcast our series on American popular song. This one profiles composer Jerome Kern. He wrote the songs All the Things You are, Can't Help Lovin' That Man, I'm Old-Fashioned, Ol' Man River, and The Way You Look Tonight. A number of those songs are from the broadway musical Showboat which he wrote. We'll focus on the music he wrote before then, before 1927.
Jazz Critic Kevin Whitehead reviews "Goin' Home," the second album by tuba player and composer Bob Stewart. Stewart, who stresses that the tuba is a world instrument, heard everywhere from New Orleans to Surinam, mixes genres in this album, jumping from "Sweet Georgia Brown" to Thelonius Monk's "Bemsha Swing."
Jazz musician, Bob Dorough, musical director of the 1970s educational TV series, "Schoolhouse Rock" and composer of the popular song "Three is a Magic Number". A new CD, "School House Rock Rocks", has been released with contemporary artists such as Blind Melon, Lemonheads and Pavement, playing the old songs. Also, just published, "School House Rock: The Official Guide". (Hyperion Books) by the creators of the series, Tom Yohe and George Newall.
We continue our rebroadcast of our series on American Popular Song with a tribute to composer Hoagy Carmichael. Carmichael wrote "Star Dust," "Heart and Soul," "The Nearness of You," "Skylark" and many more. We feature performances by singer Rebecca Kilgore and pianist Dave Frishberg. We'll also talk with Richard Sudhalter, who has written a forthcoming biography of Carmichael. And we talk with Carmichael's son, Hoagy Bix Carmichael who now manages his father's music catalogue.
Sheldon Harnick spent years building his reputation as a lyricist before he began collaborating with composer Jerry Bock. He talks to Terry Gross about honing his craft and two of his most significant works, Fiorello! and Fiddler on the Roof.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a reissued recording of Arturo Toscanini conducting Berlioz--a composer not often associated with the maestro. Schwartz says the improved sound quality will help listeners better appreciate the performances.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new album featuring a 1932 recording of the composer's Bolero, performed by the Orchestre des concerts Lamoureux, and helmed by Ravel himself
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz shares his thoughts on the 250th anniversary of his favorite composer's birth: Mozart. Mozart was born on Jan. 27, 1756. (Music in the segment is from Mozart's opera Cosi Fan Tutte, taken from the DVD of the Peter Sellars production, conducted by Craig Smith on the Universal label.)
We continue our rebroadcast of our series on American Popular Song with a tribute to ragtime composer and performer Eubie Blake. He was born on Feb. 7, 1883, in Baltimore, Md. He wrote the songs for the Broadway hit Shuffle Along. African American ragtime musicians of the day sought out Eubie to write their songs. Two of Eubie Blake's best known songs are "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and "Love Will Find A Way." Just over 100 years after his life began, on Feb. 12, 1983, Eubie Blake died in Brooklyn, New York.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new CD of the opera "Lord Byron," by American composer Virgil Thomson. The librettist is actor Jack Larson.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews the new opera, "The Ghosts of Versailles ("vahr-SIGH") by composer John Corigliano ("core ee ahn no"). It premiered two weeks ago at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the first new opera to premiere at the Met in 25 years.
Rather than features songs from the 1970s in the recent Patty Hearst biopic, the filmmakers recruited composer Scott Johnson to write the soundtrack. His dense score combines synthesizers with heavy percussion, but retains the accessibility of pop music.
Greg Ford and Hal Willner produced of a new album of live, orchestral performances of the composer's music, which helped defined the the classic Warner Bros. cartoons.
Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews Up Popped the Two Lips, one of two new records by composer, saxophonist and flutist Henry Threadgill. Threadgill recorded the album with a new sextet called Zooid.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new recording of the London Symphony Orchestra playing the composer's Adagietto, from his Fifth Symphony.
Pianist Ursula Oppens. She's widely regarded as one of the leading interpreters of new music. Many contemporary composers, like John Adams, have written works for her.
