Sunday, May 1, at 1:00 pm
Texas beckons and From the Top comes a-calling, as the show broadcasts from Dallas this episode. The program will feature young musicians from around the country, including the Texas Boys Choir and the 2004 Junior Division Gold Medal Winner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.
Sunday, May 1 at 10:00 pm, and Monday, May 2, at 8:00 pm
Gershwin: excerpts from Porgy and Bess
Dawson: Negro Folk Symphony
(Robert Spano, conductor; Spelman and Morehouse College Glee Clubs)
(Program that was pre-empted on Thursday, April 28, heard at a special time)
Thursday, May 5 at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, May 8, at 10:00 pm
Tan: Concerto for Water Percussion
Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth)
(Robert Spano, conductor; Thomas Sherwood, percussion; Nancy Maultsby, mezzo-soprano; Anthony Dean Griffey, tenor)
Saturday, May 7, at 1:30 pm
Mozart: The Magic Flute
La Petite Bande, one of the world's foremost Baroque instrumental ensembles, takes a slight leap forward into the classical world of Mozart, giving us a chance to hear a truly magical opera performed with a precision and clarity often lost in today's world of gigantic opera houses, and pits full to overflowing with modern, symphonic orchestras. Sigiswald Kuijken conducts this program from the International Baroque Festival in Beaune, France.
Isolde Siebert (Queen of the Night); Suzy Le Blanc (Pamina); Christopher Genz (Tamino); Cornelius Hauptmann (Sarastro); Stephen Genz (Papageno); Marie Kuijken (Papagena); Philip Defrancq (Monostatos)
Saturday, May 7, at 8:00 pm
Harry O'Donoghue hosts this locally produced Celtic music program. Playlists are available at the Green Island archive page.
Sunday, May 8, at 1:00 pm
In this special edition of From the Top, host Christopher O'Riley catches up with some of the show's favorite musicians to see what they're doing these days. Pianist Stephen Beus (18) from Othello, Washington, plays Barber's Sonata. Now at Juilliard and is expecting to attend the Van Cliburn competition this year, he spent two years on a mission for the Mormon church. Violinist Nicole Ali (12) from Mendota Heights, Minnesota, plays Rehfeld's Spanish Dance. She's currently a freshman at Harvard and received a very substantial grant for her innovative stem cell research. Clarinetist Jeffrey Brooks (16) from Ellensburg, Washington, performs Poulenc's Sonata for Clarinet & Piano, 3rd movement. Now married (to another clarinetist), working as a free-lance clarinetist and living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Jeffrey discusses how music can bring one through the best and most difficult of times. Guitarist Rebecca Brown (9) from Chicago, Illinois, performs two Renaissance pieces: Packington's Pound and Giuliani's Allegro. Since performing on our program, Rebecca played a large supporting role in the hit feature film, "School of Rock" starring Jack Black.
Thursday, May 12 at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, May 15, at 10:00 pm
Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust
(Charles Dutoit, conductor; Atlanta Symphony Chorus; Susanne Mentzer, mezzo-soprano; Gregory Kunde, tenor; Willard White, bass-baritone; Christopher Feigum, bass-baritone)
Saturday, May 14, at 1:30 pm
Bizet: Carmen
The enticing, Spanish atmosphere of Bizet's every-popular Carmen often makes us forget that it is, after all, a French opera. This production from Les Chorégies in Orange, France, featuring the Radio France Philharmonic, reminds us of the opera's true roots. Myung-Whun Chung conducts.
Béatrice Uria-Monzon (Carmen); Roberto Alagna (Don José); Ludovic Tézier (Escamillo); Nora Amsellem (Micaëla); Catherine Dune (Frasquita); Karine Deshayes (Mercédès); Nicolas Cavalier (Zuniga)
Saturday, May 14, at 8:00 pm
Harry O'Donoghue hosts this locally produced Celtic music program. Playlists are available at the Green Island archive page.
Saturday, May 14, at 9:00 pm
Dick Wallace hosts this locally produced folk show. Playlists are available at the Music Americana archive page.
Sunday, May 15, at 1:00 pm
From the Top comes from its home venue this week, Jordan Hall in Boston. Audiences will meet a 13-year-old pianist who is already a medical student, and hear a trio from the Juilliard Pre-College Division perform a work by Astor Piazzolla. Also, a young tuba player from Washington goes for his first Ferrari ride.
Thursday, May 19 at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, May 22, at 10:00 pm
Stravinsky: Petrushka
Ravel: Alborado del gracioso
Mozart: Symphony No. 39
(Charles Dutoit, conductor)
Saturday, May 21, at 1:30 pm
Handel: Alcina
Alcina, a sorceress, lives on an enchanted island where she has a nasty habit of turning folks who displease her into wild animals. That is, until she seduces the wrong guy, a knight named Ruggiero who foils all her spells and releases her victims -- with a little help from his girlfriend. This production, coming to us from Pollack Hall in Montréal, features Les Violons du Roy, conducted by Bernard Labadie, and a cast of Canadian all-stars.
Karina Gauvin (Alcina); Christine Brandes (Morgana); Krisztina Szabó (Ruggiero); Marie-Nicole Lemieux (Bradamente); Nathaniel Watson (Melisso); Benjamin Butterfield (Oronte); Shannon Mercer (Oberto)
Saturday, May 21, at 8:00 pm
Harry O'Donoghue hosts this locally produced Celtic music program. Playlists are available at the Green Island archive page.
Sunday, May 22, at 1:00 pm
From the Top travels to the Savannah Musical Festival. On the program, violinist Jack Stulz, age 16, from Columbus, Ohio, plays the Allegro from Corigliano's Sonata for Violin and Piano. Pianist Connie Kim-Shen, 13, from La Crescenta, California, performs "Toccata" from Episodes, Op. 36 by Pancho Vladigerov. 18-year-old tenor Jermaine Jackson from Lawrenceville, Georgia, sings "When I Have Sung My Songs" by Ernest Charles. The 15th Street Trio from Illinois (Stephanie Jewell, 14, violin; Harris Paseltiner, 18, cello; Ellena Kim, 18, piano) plays the third movement from Rebecca Clarke's Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano. And 17-year-old alto saxophonist Kaelah Caldwell from Athens, Georgia, plays a movement from Creston's Sonata, Op. 19.
Thursday, May 26 at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, May 29, at 10:00 pm
Sibelius: Symphony No. 6
Sibelius: Symphony No. 7
Beethoven: Violin Concerto
(Cecylia Arzewski, violin)
Friday, May 27, at 3:00 pm, and Sunday, May 29, at 10:00 am
Recorded at a meeting of the Georgia Historical Society in GPB's Atlanta studios earlier this year, this special progam examines the lives, loves, and legacies of the Founding Fathers. GHS moderator Stan Deaton is joined by a distinguished panel of historians for a lively debate on George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin.
Saturday, May 28, at 1:30 pm
Ponchielli: La Gioconda
This production from the National Opera of Ukraine in Kiev proves that even in a nation gripped by historic political upheaval, there's still time for opera -- in this case a bang-up production of a lurid blockbuster. Ponchielli's masterpiece, a drama of politics, passion and murder, is so over-the-top sensational that you can't help but love it -- one of opera's greatest "guilty pleasures." Volodymyr Kozhukhar is the conductor.
Tetyana Anisimova (La Gioconda); Anzhelina Shvachka (Laura Adorno); Liudmyla Yurchenko (La Cieca); Sergy Magera (Alvise Badoero); Dmytro Popov (Enzo Grimaldi); Igor Mokrenko (Barnaba); Dmytro Kuzmin (Isèpo);Vasil Kalibabyuk (Zuáne)
Saturday, May 28, at 8:00 pm
Harry O'Donoghue hosts this locally produced Celtic music program. Playlists are available at the Green Island archive page.
Saturday, May 28, at 9:00 pm
Dick Wallace hosts this locally produced folk show. Playlists are available at the Music Americana archive page.
Sunday, May 29, at 1:00 pm
The beautiful Moody Concert Hall at the University of Alabama is the site for this week's From the Top. Audiences will meet a trio of violin-playing siblings, and a young organist from California who performs Bach's Trio Sonata #1. Also on the show, a piano duo whose combined age is 22 performing a work written by the younger of the two (he's only 10!).
Sunday, May 29, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, June 5, at 10:00 am
Tune in for a special edition of the program this month. We'll be focusing on a classic of American fiction, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Columbus, Georgia, native Carson McCullers. Joining host St. John Flynn in the studio to talk and take calls about the book considered to be McCullers' finest work is Virginia Spencer Carr, author of the acclaimed McCullers biography, The Lonely Hunter (reprinted by University of Georgia Press, 2003). Published in 1940, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is the story of deaf-mute John Singer, who becomes the confidant of various misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s, each of them yearning for escape from small-town life. It is a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated. The toll-free number to call to take part in the program is 1-866-RADIO GA (1-866-723-4642).
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Page updated 4/28/05