Thursday, March 1, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, March 4, at 10:00 pm
Mozart: Symphony No. 41 (Jupiter)
Fauré: Pavane
Fauré: Requiem
(Bernard Labadie, conductor; Karina Gauvin, soprano; Aaron St. Clair Nicholson, baritone; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus)
Friday, March 2, at 3:00 pm
On the first Friday of the month at 3:00 pm, Georgia Public Broadcasting Radio offers the Consumer Call-in program, a live, one hour call-in where experts take calls and answer questions about consumer issues. The program, hosted by Rickey Bevington, includes experts such as Secretary of State Cathy Cox, Public Service Commissioner Bobby Baker, and representatives from the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs. The program covers a wide variety of consumer topics from how to protect your identity to dealing with unfair business practices. You can e-mail your questions and comments to consumer@gpb.org. The number to call is 1-866-RADIO-GA (1-866-723-4642).
Friday, March 2, at 8:00 pm
Guest Ron Carter
Ron Carter has set the standard for modern jazz bass players. He rose to fame with Miles Davis, but went on to play with Stan Getz, Coleman Hawkins, and Thelonious Monk. His recording work spans 2000 albums and he's had equally successful careers as a bandleader, composer and educator. He joins McPartland for standards and pair of Oscar Pettiford tunes, "Bohemia After Dark" and "Blues in the Closet."
Saturday, March 3, at 1:30 pm
Giuseppe Verdi: Simon Boccanegra
Verdi's darkest and most somber work, this opera was seldom performed for more than a century. Based on a play by Antonio García Gutiérrez, it's the story of Simon Boccanegra, a seafaring hero and member of the Plebeian political party who becomes Doge of 14th-century Genoa, and of his long-lost illegitimate daughter Amelia. Amelia's maternal grandfather Jacopo Fiesco, a member of the Patrician party whose daughter died of a broken heart after being forbidden to marry Simon, plots against his enemy Boccanegra. Fabio Luisi is the conductor.
Angela Gheorghiu (Amelia Grimaldi); Marcello Giordani (Gabriele Adorno); Thomas Hampson (Simon Boccanegra); Ferruccio Furlanetto (Jacopo Fiesco); Vassily Gerello (Paolo)
Saturday, March 3, at 8:00 pm
Dick Wallace hosts this locally produced folk music show. Playlists are available at the Music Americana archive page.
Saturday, March 3, 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 4, at 12:00 noon
Guests: Anne-Sophie Mutter and Lambert Orkis
For three decades now, Anne-Sophie Mutter has been known simply as one of the greatest violinists alive. As part of her ambitious Mozart Project, a survey of the composer's major works for solo violin, she'll be celebrating his 250th birthday with a program of Mozart violin sonatas. In her playing and in her words, there's no mistaking that Anne-Sophie Mutter feels a true kinship with Mozart. She understands this music and its creator like few people today do. Join Bill McGlaughlin when he welcomes one of the world's greatest violinists, Anne-Sophie Mutter, with pianist Lambert Orkis, in a tribute to Mozart.
Sunday, March 4, at 1:00 pm
This week From the Top is in Elgin, Illinois. We'll hear some outstanding musicians from 14 to 18 years old, including a young pianist from Wyoming performing Rachmaninoff, a teenage violinist from here in Elgin performing Lutoslawski, and a teenage flute trio from nearby Chicagoland performing music from Carl Czerny. The Elgin Youth Symphony closes the show with a wonderful performance including bagpipes.
Thursday, March 8, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, March 11, at 10:00 pm
Mozart: Serenade (Notturno)
Britten: Serenade for Tenor, Horn & Strings
Brahms: Serenade No. 2
(Donald Runnicles, conductor; Vinson Cole, tenor; Brice Andrus, horn)
Friday, March 9, at 8:00 pm
Guest John Stetch
Canadian pianist John Stetch is an internationally acclaimed solo performer, praised for his inventiveness and technical brilliance. He's explored standards, the music of Monk, and even his Ukrainian heritage in his own unique style. He performs his own "Heavens of a Hundred Days" and joins McPartland for "Blue Monk."
Saturday, March 10, at 12:00 noon - note early start time
Richard Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Young knight Walther von Stolzing is a gifted poet and composer, but his songs break too many "rules," and his application to join Nuremberg's Mastersingers Guild is denied. Cobbler-poet Hans Sachs assists him in his next attempt, to compete in the Guild's singing contest. Walther has to succeed, since the father of his beloved, Eva Pogner, has promised her hand to the winner of the contest. James Levine conducts.
Hei-Kyung Hong (Eva); Maria Zifchak (Magdalene); Johan Botha (Walther von Stolzing); Matthew Polenzani (David); James Morris (Hans Sachs); Hans-Joachim Ketelsen (Beckmesser); Evgeny Nikitin (Pogner); John Relyea (Night Watchman)
Saturday, March 10, at 8:00 pm
Dick Wallace hosts this locally produced folk music show. Playlists are available at the Music Americana archive page.
Saturday, March 10, 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 11, at 12:00 noon
Guests: Divertimento
Three string instruments playing together is a combination you don't hear often. Yet there is something delicate and satisfyingly spare about a violin, viola and cello moving intricately around one another in a continuous and constant whirl of sound. The string trio Divertimento joins Bill this week on Saint Paul Sunday. Violinist Soovin Kim, violist Michael Tree and cellist Margo Tatgenhorst Drakos play little-known trios of Beethoven and Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu, and they'll show us exactly how just three of a kind is sometimes... just enough.
Sunday, March 11, at 1:00 pm
This week, From the Top returns to northern Michigan and the campus of one of America’s premier arts schools, the Interlochen Arts Academy.
Thursday, March 15, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, March 18, at 10:00 pm
Beethoven: Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus
Beethoven: Violin Concerto
Liszt: Prometheus
Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra
(Jun Maerkl, conductor; Nicolaj Znaider, violin)
Friday, March 16, at 8:00 pm
Guest Gerald Wilson
Ellington, Ella, Basie, Dizzy - these legends of jazz owe something to the arrangements and compositions of Gerald Wilson. Though he got his start as a trumpet player with Jimmie Lunceford's big band, Wilson soon became recognized as a composer, arranger, and big band leader with a wealth of sophisticated musical ideas and a total dedication to the infinite possibilities of jazz. To honor his countless contributions to jazz, McPartland improvises a musical portrait of Wilson.
Saturday, March 17, at 1:30 pm
Charles Gounod: Faust
Gounod's opera, based on the classic play by Goethe, tells the story of Faust, an elderly philosopher frustrated by his life of science. He enters into a pact with the devil, Mephistopheles, who promises him youth and pleasure in exchange for his soul. Mephistopheles watches in delight as the beautiful, innocent, young Marguerite falls in love with Faust, and is almost destroyed by him. The conductor is Maurizio Benini.
Ruth Ann Swenson (Marguerite); Karine Deshayes (Siébel); Ramón Vargas (Faust); Hung Yun (Valentin); Ildar Abdrazakov (Méphistophélès)
Saturday, March 17, at 8:00 pm
Dick Wallace hosts this locally produced folk music show. Playlists are available at the Music Americana archive page.
Saturday, March 17, 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 18, at 12:00 noon
Guests: eighth blackbird
Great music always inspires new directions and interpretations - a freedom the six adventurers of eighth blackbird delight in every chance they get. This week eighth blackbird brings us two works that take us a few steps further. Frederic Rzewski's Les Moutons des Panurge uses hopscotch-like addition and repetition to spark ever changing patterns of sound and line: each performance of it generates an entirely new composition. And in his Fantasy Etudes, Fred Lerdahl elaborates simple themes into variations of increasing color and richness, showing us in the process how eighth blackbird's assorted textures can interact in countless different ways. The blackbirds animate both with characteristic brilliance and verve, as they do the two works that complete their program, Derek Bermel's Tied Shifts and Ashley Fure's Inescapable.
Sunday, March 18, at 1:00 pm
From The Top is at home on the stage of New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, with outstanding musicians from 10 to 17 years old, including the show’s youngest chamber music ensemble ever, performing Haydn, and a teenage pianist from Minnesota performing Liszt’s fantastic "Mephisto Waltz." NEC’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Benjamin Zander, plays Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with host Christopher O’Riley on piano, and 13-year-old Roving Reporter Caeli Smith helps demonstrate a young cellist’s proficiency with his bow - his archery bow!
Thursday, March 22, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, March 25, at 10:00 pm
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
Brahms: Academic Festival Overture
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5
(Itzhak Perlman, conductor and violin)
Friday, March 23, at 8:00 pm
Guest Helen Sung
Pianist Helen Sung is a dazzling and passionate player with a flawless technique and an exquisite touch. Originally from Houston, Texas, Sung is a graduate of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance and has played with such luminaries as Clark Terry and Wynton Marsalis. She shows off her compositional skills playing her own tune, "Hope Springs Eternally," and joins McPartland on "Someday My Prince Will Come."
Saturday, March 24, at 1:30 pm
Gioacchino Rossini: Il Barbiere di Siviglia
This comedy featuring Seville's best-loved barber, Figaro, is based on a play by Beaumarchais.
Lovely young Rosina is locked up in the house of her guardian, the greedy Dr. Bartolo, who wants to marry her for her money. The rich young nobleman Count Almaviva, who has fallen for Rosina while pretending to be a poor student, enlists Figaro's aid to rescue her. Maurizio Benini conducts.
Joyce DiDonato (Rosina); Juan Diego Flórez (Count Almaviva); Peter Mattei (Figaro); John Del Carlo (Dr. Bartolo); John Relyea (Don Basilio)
Saturday, March 24, at 8:00 pm
Dick Wallace hosts this locally produced folk music show. Playlists are available at the Music Americana archive page.
Saturday, March 24, 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 25, at 12:00 noon
Guests: Fretwork and Emma Kirkby, soprano
The songs of Elizabethan composer William Byrd marry text and music with both superb delicacy and emotional intensity. This week, one of the greatest living interpreters of Byrd's songs, soprano Emma Kirkby, joins forces with the acclaimed viol consort Fretwork for several of them, along with others by Purcell, Gibbons, and Dowland. Listen in for a truly transporting hour. "Sometimes when I hear music from this period," says Bill McGlaughlin, "I think music never really got any better. There's nothing like it."
Sunday, March 25, at 1:00 pm
This week's From the Top highlights the work of 18-year-old composer Stephen Feigenbaum, from the Boston area, and a barn-burning performance of Sarasate by 11-year-old violinist Anna Leeage from New York. We'll also hear from flutist Daquise Montgomery, 17, from Greenville, South Carolina; pianist Kerensa Gimre, 15, from Oregon; and the Walnut Hill String Quartet.
Sunday, March 25, at 8:00 pm and Sunday, April 9, at 10:00 am
Cover to Cover celebrates Women's History Month with Savannah author and writing teacher Rosemary Daniell. She joins host St. John Flynn in the studio to talk and take listener calls about her latest book, Secrets of the Zona Rosa: How Writing (and Sisterhood) Can Change Women's Lives (Owl Books, 2006). For twenty-five years Rosemary Daniell has led Zona Rosa, a women's writing workshop founded on the premise that writing can be not only a creative challenge, but also a tool for healing. In this new book she introduces us to some of the many women who have improved their writing - and their lives - through the camaraderie, constructive advice, and fun of Zona Rosa. The toll-free number to call during the program is 1-866-RADIO-GA (866-723-4642).
Thursday, March 29, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, April 1, at 10:00 pm
Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 2
Copland: El Salón México
Revueltas: La Noche de los Mayas
(Miguel Harth-Bedoya, conductor; Stephen Hough, piano)
Friday, March 30, at 8:00 pm
Guest Ray Charles
Ray Charles was one of those rare musicians whose musical style blended many genres, drawing on jazz, rhythm and blues, gospel, country, and rock and roll, to create a unique and soulful sound. On this Piano Jazz, recorded in 1991, Charles gives listeners a sense of his musical vision, playing "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" before joining McPartland for "The Man I Love."
Saturday, March 31, at 1:30 pm
Richard Strauss: Die Agyptische Helena
This opera, based on Euripedes' Helen in Egypt, tells what happens after the Trojan War to two of its main protagonists, the beautiful Helen and her jealous husband Menelaus, King of Sparta. Helen is determined to overcome her husband's rage at her infidelity with the prince of Troy and win back his love. The sorceress Aithra takes pity on the couple and decides to use her magical powers to save their marriage. This production is conducted by Fabio Luisi.
Deborah Voigt (Helena); Diana Damrau (Aithra); Jill Grove (Omniscient Seashell); Torsten Kerl (Menelaus); Garrett Sorenson (Da-Ud)
Saturday, March 31, at 8:00 pm
Dick Wallace hosts this locally produced folk music show. Playlists are available at the Music Americana archive page.
Saturday, March 31, at 9:00 pm
Harry O'Donoghue hosts this locally produced Celtic music program. Playlists are available at the Green Island archive page.
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Page updated 3/21/07