Thursday, March 2, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, March 5, at 10:00 pm
Robert Pound: Irrational Exuberance
Beethoven: Symphony No. 4
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Major
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2
(Michael Morgan, conductor; Christopher O'Riley, piano)
Friday, March 3, at 3:00 pm
Host Mike Savage is joined by Secretary of State Cathy Cox, Public Service Commission Chairman Robert Baker, and a representative from the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs, to answer listeners' consumer questions. The number to call is 1-866-RADIO-GA (1-866-723-4642).
Friday, March 3, at 8:00 pm
Guest Kitty Margolis
Kitty Margolis is considered one of the most innovative, dynamic, and inventive singers in jazz today. A native of San Francisco, Margolis has recorded and performed with some of the biggest names in the business, including Joe Henderson, Lionel Hampton and Elvin Jones. Her imaginative improvisations, dynamism, and inventive scat bring listeners into her world with emotion, intelligence and wit, as you'll hear when she joins McPartland for "I'll Remember April."
Saturday, March 4, at 1:30 pm
Charles Gounod: Roméo et Juliette
French composer Charles Gounod fell in love with the story of Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers at the age of nineteen, when he attended a rehearsal of Berlioz's dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette. Decades later, Gounod set out to create an operatic version of the story, concentrating on the passionate love affair at its heart. In a letter to his wife, Gounod admitted that writing about the young lovers made him feel twenty years old again. The opera was an enormous success from the time of its premiere in 1867, and is acclaimed as one of the greatest musical treatments of Shakespeare's tragedy. Bertrand de Billy conducts.
Natalie Dessay (Juliette); Ramón Vargas (Roméo); Katharine Goeldner (Stephano); Stéphane Degout (Mercutio); Kristinn Sigmundsson (Friar Laurent)
Saturday, March 4, at 8:00 pm
Dick Wallace hosts this locally produced folk music show. Playlists are available at the Music Americana archive page.
Saturday, March 4, at 9:00 pm
Harry O'Donoghue hosts this locally produced Celtic music program. Playlists are available at the Green Island archive page.
Sundays, beginning March 5, at 6:00 am
GPB adds a new program to our schedule this month, the Deutsche Welle Festival Concerts, a 26-week series of broadcasts from music festivals across Europe. This month, host Rick Fulker presents performances from the 54th ARD International Music Competition held in Munich in September 2005, and from the 2005 Beethoven Festival held annually in the great composer’s home town of Bonn, Germany. We’ll hear performances featuring Yakov Kreizberg conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Kurt Masur leading the Orchestre National de France, Paavo Järvi and the German Chamber Philharmonic, Bremen, and Marek Janowski with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra.
(Replaces the Sunday repeat of Weekend Performance Today)
Sunday, March 5, at 1:00 pm
This edition of From the Top was recorded at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College in New York City, and is presented by Young Audiences, Inc., America's leading producer of live educational programs in the arts. The program features special guest artist Joshua Bell as well as extraordinary young musicians from around the country, including 18-year-old flutist Emi Ferguson from Brookline, Massachusetts; the AYM Piano Trio from Chicago's Midwest Young Artists; and soprano Lauren Libaw, age 17, from Pasadena, California.
Sunday, March 5, at 4:00 pm
Guest Michael Smith
Thursday, March 9, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, March 12, at 10:00 pm
Osvaldo Golijov: Ainadamar
(Robert Spano, conductor; Dawn Upshaw, soprano)
Friday, March 10, at 8:00 pm
Eldar Djangirov
Eldar Djangirov made his first appearance on Piano Jazz when he was just ten years old. His young voice reflected his family's recent migration from Kyrgyzstan, but his fleet fingers showed a deep love for Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson. Although he's still too young to order a beer, Eldar drinks deeply from the well of his musical predecessors, as you'll hear when he plays "Nature Boy" and Monk's "Ask Me Now."
Saturday, March 11, at 1:30 pm
Giuseppe Verdi: La Forza del Destino
Verdi's The Force of Destiny was based on the Spanish play Don Alvaro, ó La Fuerza del Sino, by Angel Pérez de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas. It is a tragedy of ill-fated love, war, mistaken identity, and implacable revenge. The lady Leonora loves Don Alvaro, though her father the Marquis disapproves. When Alvaro accidentally kills the Marquis, the lovers are separated and forced to flee. Leonora's brother Don Carlo pursues the pair for years, through war and peace, determined to avenge his father's death and his sister's dishonor. Gianandrea Noseda conducts.
Leonora: Deborah Voigt (Leonora); Ildikó Komlósi (Preziosilla); Salvatore Licitra (Don Alvaro); Mark Delavan (Don Carlo); Juan Pons (Fra Melitone); Samuel Ramey (Padre Guardiano)
Saturday, March 11, at 8:00 pm
Dick Wallace hosts this locally produced folk music show. Playlists are available at the Music Americana archive page.
Saturday, March 11, at 9:00 pm
Harry O'Donoghue hosts this locally produced Celtic music program. Playlists are available at the Green Island archive page.
Sunday, March 12, at 1:00 pm
Though the beaches of Maui are beautiful, there is something even more amazing in this episode, recorded at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center. Listen to breathtaking performances by 16-year-old guitarist Guillaume DeZwirek and violinist Zoe Martin-Doike. We'll also hear pianist Aimi Watanabe, 16; double bassist Kathryn Schulmeister, 16; and pianists Luke Harvey and Kevin Hong, both 12.
Sunday, March 12, at 4:00 pm
Guests Anais Mitchell and Jonathan Byrd
Thursday, March 16, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, March 19, at 10:00 pm
Beethoven: Overture to Egmont
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5
(Robert Spano, conductor; Jonathan Biss, piano)
Friday, March 17, at 8:00 pm
Guest Joanne Brackeen
Joanne Brackeen is a virtuoso pianist, master composer, and all-around brilliant musician. Often called "the Picasso of jazz piano," Brackeen shatters convention with her visionary spirit. In her hands, the history of jazz is created and recreated, as she floats seamlessly between traditional and free styles. Like McPartland, Brackeen has been a trailblazer for women in jazz. The two old friends get together on McPartland's "Ambiance" and Coltrane's "Giant Steps."
Saturday, March 18, at 1:30 pm
Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky: Mazeppa
Tchaikovsky's opera was inspired by Alexander Pushkin's epic poem Poltava, itself based on the true story of the Cossack chieftain Mazeppa and his effort to carve out an independent kingdom of Ukraine. Mazeppa's rebellion was crushed by the Russian Tsar Peter the Great at the battle of Poltava in 1709. Against the backdrop of political intrigue and upheaval, Tchaikovsky tells the story of Maria, daughter of the Cossack Kochubei, who is in love with her father's friend Mazeppa and runs away with him, over her father's objections. Kochubei retaliates by telling the Tsar of Mazeppa's planned betrayal, but the effort backfires when the Tsar refuses to believe him and imprisons Kochubei instead. All ends badly for Maria when her father is executed and her husband defeated in battle. Mazeppa flees after shooting Andrei, the young man who has loved Maria unrequitedly for years. Valery Gergiev conducts this production of Tchaikovsky's overlooked masterpiece, which makes its debut at the Metropolitan Opera this month.
Olga Guryakova (Maria); Larissa Diadkova (Lyubov); Oleg Balashov (Andrei); Nikolai Putilin (Mazeppa); Paata Burchuladze (Kochubei)
Saturday, March 18, at 8:00 pm
Dick Wallace hosts this locally produced folk music show. Playlists are available at the Music Americana archive page.
Saturday, March 18, at 9:00 pm
Harry O'Donoghue hosts this locally produced Celtic music program. Playlists are available at the Green Island archive page.
Sunday, March 19, at 1:00 pm
From the Top is at home on the stage of New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall in Boston this week, for a show featuring Ania Filochowski, an 11-year-old violinist who just moved to the U.S. from Poland, and a trombone quartet from Chicago. Also, pianist Nathan Bello, 18, from Oregon; and composer/pianist Neara Russell, 17, from Wisconsin, performing her own "Lemonade Pie, Mother's Favorite Fruit."
Sunday, March 19, at 4:00 pm
Guest Cliff Eberhardt
Thursday, March 23, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, March 26, at 10:00 pm
Guillaume Connesson: A Glimmer from the Dark Age
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23, K. 488
Debussy: Ibéria
Ravel: La Valse
(Stéphane Denève, conductor; Lars Vogt, piano)
Friday, March 24, at 8:00 pm
Guest Jimmy McPartland
Chicago trumpet legend Jimmy McPartland would have turned 99 this month. In addition to playing with the early greats, like Bix Beiderbecke and Fats Waller, McPartland is also responsible for introducing a young English pianist named Margaret Marian Turner to the American jazz scene. The rest is history. The McPartlands get together for one of Jimmy's favorite tunes, "St. James Infirmary," in this classic Piano Jazz program.
Saturday, March 25, at 1:30 pm
Giuseppe Verdi: Luisa Miller
Verdi's fifteenth opera was based on the German play Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love) by Romantic poet Friedrich Schiller. The drama tells the story of Luisa, daughter of an old soldier, Miller. Luisa is in love with Carlo, who is actually Rodolfo, the son of Count Walter. Rodolfo loves Luisa in return, but he is betrothed to Duchess Federica, whom his father wishes him to marry. Maurizio Benini is the conductor.
Luisa: Barbara Frittoli (Luisa); Irina Mishura (Federica); Neil Shicoff (Rodolfo); Carlos Alvarez (Miller); James Morris (Count Walter); Phillip Ens (Wurm)
Saturday, March 25, at 8:00 pm
Dick Wallace hosts this locally produced folk music show. Playlists are available at the Music Americana archive page.
Saturday, March 25, at 9:00 pm
Harry O'Donoghue hosts this locally produced Celtic music program. Playlists are available at the Green Island archive page.
Sunday, March 26, at 1:00 pm
From the Top is "All-Philadelphia" this week. Coming from the Perleman Theatre in Philadelphia's new Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, this episode features young musicians studying at the Settlement Music School and Temple Music Preparatory Division. Performers include: harpist Madeline Blood, age 13; cellist Nicholas Bodnar, 15; the Weinstein Woodwind Quintet; the Settlement Music School Chamber Orchestra, a 23-member string orchestra, conducted by David Rupp; violinist Robyn Bollinger, 13; and the Temple Music Prep Violin Nonet.
Sunday, March 26, at 4:00 pm
Guests johnsmith and Tom Kimmel
Sunday, March 26, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, April 9, at 10:00 am
This month St. John Flynn is joined in the studio by Jonesboro native Karin Slaughter, who’ll be talking and taking listener calls about her latest Grant County thriller Faithless (Delacorte Press, 2005). The victim was buried alive in the Georgia woods - then killed in a horrifying fashion. When Grant County pediatrician and medical examiner Sara Linton and her ex-husband, police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, stumble upon the body, both become consumed with finding out who killed the pretty, impeccably dressed young woman. The toll-free number to call to take part in the program is 1-866-RADIO-GA (1-866-723-4642).
Thursday, March 30, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, April 2, at 10:00 pm
Bach: Magnificat
Brahms: Symphony No. 2
(Robert Spano, conductor)
Friday, March 31, at 8:00 pm
Guest Jackie Terrasson
Berlin-born and Paris-bred, Jackie Terrasson is one of the most talented and intriguing young pianists on the jazz scene today. Always creative and unpredictable, Terrasson draws on influences ranging from Bud Powell to French popular melodies. He demonstrates his compositional skills, playing his own "Fifty Nine," and has Marian grooving on "Caravan."
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Page updated 3/29/06