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WWUH 91.3 FM
Program Guide
May/June 2015
In This Issue
WWUH Scholarship Fund
How To Listen
WWUH Archive Now Online
Wilde Roots
Classical Music on WWUH
Sunday Afternoon at the Opera
Live, Local Happenings
Join Our List
 

Keep the Music Playing!  Support WWUH - Your Live, Local, Listener-Supported Station

 

Thank you so much for your support during our recent fundraiser!

 

     In a world of digital music services, large corporate station ownership, and out-of-area rebroadcasts, WWUH increasingly stands out as something unique.  Our programming is locally produced, our on-air staff are all volunteers, and our air studio is staffed 24/7.  

 

     The beauty of a live, local station featuring such a diversity of genres is that of discovery: by listening to WWUH, you are exposed to viewpoints and sounds that you might never hear elsewhere.  Downloadable apps give you music that's computer-selected to suit your previous listening preferences; WWUH gives you music that's host-selected to expand your knowledge and appreciation of new, different, local and global artists that you might never have known existed otherwise. 

 

     Although we are sponsored by the University of Hartford, we truly are your station, because it is through generous support from you, our listeners, that we are able to remain on the air as your public alternative station.

 

 

 

WWUH Scholarship Fund

In 2003, the WWUH Scholarship Fund was created to provide 

an annual grant to a UH student who is either on the station's volunteer Executive Committee or who is in a similar 

leadership position at the station.   

 

The future of radio is in your hands!

 

   To make a tax deductable donation,

 either send a check to:

 

WWUH Scholarship Fund

c/o John Ramsey

Univ. of Hartford

200 Bloomfield Ave.

W. Hartford, CT 06117

 

Or call John at 860-768-4703 to arrange for a one-time or on-going donation via charge card.

  If you would like more information please contact us at [email protected].

 

How To Listen To WWUH
Come as You Are... Tune in However Works Best for You
 
In Central CT and Western MA, WWUH can be heard at 91.3 on the FM dial.  Our programs are also carried at various times through out the day on these stations:
WAPJ, 89.9 & 105.1, Torrington, CT
WDJW, 89.7, Somers, CT
WWEB, 89.9, Wallingford, CT 
You can also listen on line using your PC, tablet or smart device.  We offer both Windows Media and MP3 streams here.

We also recommend that you download the free app "tunein" 
here to your mobile device.  


  
Hi tech or low tech, near or far, we've got you covered!
Never Miss Your Favorite WWUH Programs Again!
WWUH Round Logo Introducing... the WWUH Archive!

We are very excited to announce
that all WWUH programs are now available on-demand 
using 
the "Program Archive" link 
on our home page,  
 
  This means that if you missed one of your favorite shows, or if you want to listen to parts of it again, you can do so easily using the Archive link.  Programs are available for listening for 
two weeks after their air date.
 
 Enjoy the music, even when you can't listen "live"!
Wilde Roots

Dear Listener,

 

     As we finally witness the transformation from brown to green, from winter to spring, from birds that fly to birds that sing; I think this might be a good opportunity for us to celebrate the first anniversary of a new radio program here at WWUH.

 

     Wilde Roots began as an idea that includes my love for the Blues, Folk, Bluegrass and American Roots music but not limited to those genres. On May 12th of last year we began a musical journey that has so far taken us from the emerald hills of Ireland to the west coast of Africa and across the deep blue sea. We've journeyed to the muddy Mississippi, the great plains of Oklahoma and on over to West Texas. We have followed that old river from the delta and The Big Easy up to Memphis and onward to Chicago. We've traveled the great Shenandoah River Valley, up the Blue Ridge Mountains and we followed the Appalachians all the way to New England. We've explored the culture and the heritage of the people that brought their music here; the Africans, the French, the English, the Scots-Irish and so many more. We have understood that dirt-poor sharecroppers both black and white have more in common with each other than just working the land. 

 

     I want to thank you for listening, for your kind phone calls and for your support of this fine radio station. Thank you as well for your support of the vibrant local music scene that we are all so fortunate to live in the midst of.

 

     You can listen to Wilde Roots every Monday Morning from 6 until 9 right here at 91.3 FM WWUH, West Hartford or WWUH.ORG. (If you have a tablet or cell phone, TuneIn Radio  http://tunein.com works great too.) WWUH broadcasts as a community service from The University of Hartford.


Yours truly,

Greg Banks

 


 

WWUH Classical Programming - May / June 2015


Sunday Afternoon at the Opera... Sundays 1:00 - 4:30 pm

Evening Classics... Weekdays 4:00 to 7:00/ 7:30/ 8:00 pm

Drake's Village Brass Band... Mondays 7:00-8:00 pm  

    


 

May

Fri

1

Host's choice

Sun

3

Puccini: Madama Butterfly

Mon

4

Thomson: Concerto for Cello; Harbison: Concerto for Viola; Nielsen: Little Suite; Sibelius: Rakastava; Wiren: Serenade

Drake's Village Brass Band...Mark Hetzler, Trombone - American Voices Vol II: Sonatas

Tue

5

Couperin: Concerts Royaux, No. 11; Vissarion  Shebalin: Violin Concerto (1940); D. Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; Louise Farrenc: Symphony No. 3 in G minor, Op. 36; Jean-Baptiste Lully: Suite from "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" LWV 43 (1670); Anton Arensky: Piano Trio No. 2 in F minor, Op. 73 (1905); C.P.E. Bach: Sonatas for Connoisseurs and Amateurs, Zweite Sammlung Wq56 (1780), Rondo No. 3 in A and Sonata No. 3 in A

Wed

6

Norbert Burgmuller: Symphony No. 2 in D; Marcial del Adalid: Canciones; Paderewski: Piano Sonata in E Flat Minor; Grieg: Piano Concerto in A Major; Jean-Baptiste Arban: Carnival of Venice Variations

Thu

7

Carl Heinrich Graun: Montezuma - Sinfonia, Concerto for Recorder and Violin; Linley: The Tempest - Arise! Ye spirits of the storm; Brahms: Violin Sonata #3 in d Op. 108, Variations on a theme of Haydn, Piano Pieces Op 76; Tchaikovsky: Dumka in c Op 59, Symphony #6 in b, Queen of Spades Op 68: Midnight is nearing, Swan Lake Suite; Poot: L�gende for Horn and Piano

Fri

8

Pulitzer Prize winner  - 70 years ago, but still fresh

Sun

10

Wallace: Maritana

Mon

11

Harrison: La Koro Sutra; Sibelius: Karalia Music; American Music Festival Series 2 - Music for String Orchestra; 

Drake's Village Brass Band...Hollywood Epic Brass - Vince DeRosa Tribute Album

Tue

12

Field: Piano Concerto #5 in C; Schobert: Piano Quartet in f, Op. 7, #2; Rimsky-Korsakov: Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh, Symphonic Suite; Machaut: Messe de Notre-Dame

Wed

13

Franz Ignaz Beck: Symphony in B Flat Major; Philippe Verdelot: Madrigals; Anton Fils: Symphonies; Philippe Gaubert: Trois Aquarelles; Manuel Blasco de Nebra: Keyboard Sonatas; Johann Graun: Concerto for Viola da Gamba

Thu

14

Fortsch: Gelobet Seist Du Jesu Christ; J.P.E. Hartmann: Hakon Jarl - incidental music Op 40; Emilie Mayer: String Quartet in g Op. 14; Stojowski: Piano Concerto #1 in f sharp Op. 3, Solo Piano Music; Lourie: Formes en l'air; Leo Smit: Songs of Wonder; Lou Harrison: Ariadne, Serenade for Guitar; Braga-Santos: Symphonic Overture #3 Op. 20; Le�n: Bailar�n; Borodin: Symphony #2 in b

Fri

15

There were many "First Performances" on this date

Sun

17

Fall: Madame Pompadour; Boismortier: Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse

Mon

18

Sibelius: Press Celebrations Music; Cadman: Dark Dancers of the Mardi Gras; American Music Festival Series 3, Music of Gould and Barber; Gordon: Dystopia Symphony

Drake's Village Brass Band...Bernstein - Transcriptions for Wind Band

Tue

19

Weinberg: Violin Concerto in g, Op. 67; Scriabin: Sonata in e; Bruckner: Symphony #6 in A; Lauridsen: Lux Aeterna

Wed

20

Georg Wagenseil: Symphony in B Flat Major; Christoph Gluck: Symphony; Sigismondo d'India: Madrigals; Thea Musgrave: Music for Horn and Piano; 

Anton Arensky: Suite for Two Pianos, Op. 15; Renaissance Lute Music

Thu

21

New Releases. A Sampling of New Acquisitions from the WWUH Library

Fri

22

In Memoriam - Henri Dutilleux 

Sun

24

Ricky Ian Gordon: Rappahannock County

Mon

25

Memorial Day Special: Songs of Henry Clay Work; American Music Festival Series 3 - Thomson: Testament of Freedom, Hanson: Drum Taps; Fuchs: An American Place; Tower: Made in America; Gershwin: An American in Paris;

Drake's Village Brass Band...U. S. Coast Guard Band - Gardens of Stone; Gould Symphony #4 "West Point"

Tue

26

F. Couperin: Concerts Royaux, No. 12; Nikolai Rakov: Violin Concerto (1944); D. Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; Donald Francis Tovey: Clarinet Sonata in B-flat major, Op. 16; Marin Marais: Suite from Alcyone (1706); David Diamond: Symphony No. 1; C.P.E. Bach: Sonatas for Connoisseurs and Amateurs (selections)

Wed

27

David Diamond: Symphony No. 2; Alexander Agricola: Missa Le Serviteur; Vivaldi: Bassoon Concerti; Rimsky-Korsakov: Fairy Tale, op. 29; L. Bernstein: Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano

Thu

28

Gow: Lament for the Death of his Brother; Moore: Tis the Last Rose of Summer; Sgambati: Nocturnes; Jewell: Battle Royal; Dyson: At the Tabard Inn Overture, Concerto da Chiesa; Zandonai: Giulietta Son Io; Ligeti: Bagatelles for Wind Quintet; Lewkovitch: De Profundis; Ishii: Thirteen Drums; Ali-Zadeh: Impulse; Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Concerto Italiano

Fri

29

Classical Conversations - a quarterly feature 

Sun

31

Rimsky-Korsakov: The Tale of Tsar Saltan

June

Mon

1

Sibelius: Lemmink�inen Legends; American Music Festival Series 4 - Americana for Solo Winds and Orchestra;

Drake's Village Brass Band...U. S. Coast Guard Band - American Journey

Tue

2

Couperin: Concerts Royaux, No. 13; Erno Dohnanyi: Violin Concerto No. 2 (1950); D. Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonatas; Donald Francis Tovey: String Quartet in G major, Op. 23; Jean-Fery Rebel: Les Elements (1738)

David Diamond: Symphony No. 2; C.P.E. Bach: Sonatas for Connoisseurs and Amateurs (selections)

Wed

3

Ignaz Pleyel: Symphony in B Flat; Tomas Luis de Victoria: Sacred Music; Giovanni Bononcini: Baroque Trumpet Music; Friedrich Ernst Fesca: String Quartet No. 7; Francesco Barsanti: Concerti Grossi; Georg Friedrich Handel: Flute Sonatas

Thu

4

New Releases. A Sampling of New Acquisitions from the WWUH Library

Fri

5

Guitars - Guitars - Guitars

Sun

7

Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor

Mon

8

Built for Buffalo - Concertos by Hagen, Ewazen and Aguila, American Music Festival Series 5 - Symphonies of Harris and Hanson; Paine: Poseidon and Amphitrite - An Ocean Fantasy

Drake's Village Brass Band...U. S. Air Force Ceremonial Brass - Tower Music

Tue

9

Handel: Il Pastor Fido HWV 8c

Wed

10

Dvorak: Symphony No. 4; Berlioz: Nuits d'Ete; Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2; Persichetti: Concerto for Piano, Four Hands; Giovanni Bottesini: Concerto for Double Bass and Orchestra; Stanislas Verroust: Soli de Concert

Thu

11

Bonporti: Violin Concerto in F Op. 11 #5; R. Strauss: Brentano Lieder, String Quartet in A, Death and Transfiguration Op. 24; Ghedini: Mazurka, La ballerina, Minuetto, Gavotta; McKay: Americanistic Etude, Symphony for Seattle; Floyd: 3 Early Songs; Bizet: Patrie Overture Op. 19

Fri

12

Bangs, Bongs and other percussive sounds

Sun

14

Milhaud: L'Orestie d'Eschyle

Mon

15

Paine: Symphony #2; American Music Festival 6 -Riegger, Hovhaness and Hanson; Satie: Piano Music

Drake's Village Brass Band...Schwarz and the U. S. Marine Band - Above and Beyond

Tue

16

B�hme: Concerto for Trumpet & Orchestra, Op. 18; Brahms: String Quintet #2 in G, Op. 111; Sibelius: Sc�nes historiques II, Op. 66; Verdi: Requiem

Wed

17

George Enescu: Symphony No. 1; Faure: Messe Basse; Jacob van Eyck: Flute Pieces; Ernst Toch: Jeptha; Johann Quantz: Trio Sonata in C; Copland: Piano Trio "Vitbesk"

Thu

18

Holler: Improvisation on "Schonster Herr Jesu" Op. 55; Pleyel: Flute Concerto in C, Symphony in G Op. 68, Wind Sextet in E Flat; Popper: Elfentanz Op. 39, Hungarian Rhapsody Op. 68; Heuberger: Serenade for Strings Op. 7; Tubin: Sinfonietta on Estonian Motifs; McCartney: Eleanor Rigby; Lansky: Arches; Radzynski: Duet for 2 Cellos; Ferko: Caritas Abundat; Steiger: Woven Serenade; K�hnel: Sonatina no 5 in c "Serenata"

Fri

19

Music of Sergey Taneyev

Sun

21

Ching: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Mon

22

Fine: Orchestral Music; American Music Festival 7 - American Concert Band Masterpieces;

Westwood Wind Quintet play Etler and Welcher

Drake's Village Brass Band...Illinois State University Wind Symphony - Symphonies of Stamp and Maslanka

Tue

23

MacDowell: Piano Concerto #2 in d, Op 23; Haydn: String Quartet in G, Op. 33, #5: Halvorsen: Suite ancienne, Op. 31; La Rue: Magnificat Tone IV

Wed

24

Thomas Ades: Chamber Symphony; Hermann Goetz: Piano Concerto No. 1; Bernhard Crusell: Clarinet Concerto in E Flat Major; Jacob Obrecht: Missa Sicut Spina Rosam; Stamitz: Sinfonia Concertante for Viola and Violin

Thu

25

New Releases. A Sampling of New Acquisitions from the WWUH Library

Fri

26

Camille Saint-Saens receives his Doctorate - 108 Years ago today

Sun

28

Ricky Ian Gordon: "47"

Mon

29

Monday Night at the Movies. - Cheng - Montage, Great Film Composers and the Piano; Gerhardt Conducts Holdridge; Safan: The Last Starfighter

Drake's Village Brass Band...U. S. Coast Guard Band - John Wiliams for Winds

Tue

30

Martinu: String Quartet #4; Berwald: Symphony #1 in g "Sinfonie s�rieuse"; Boccherini: Cello Concerto in G, G. 480; Rubbra: Missa Cantuariensis, Op. 59


 

Thursday Evening Classics - 

Composer Birthdays for May and June

 

Composer Birthdays

 

 

May 7

1704 Carl Heinrich Graun

1756 Thomas Linley

1769 Giuseppe Farinelli

1833 Johannes Brahms

1840 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

1861 Rabindranath Tagore

1901 Marcel Poot

1907 Jef van Durme

1908 Wouter Paap

1912 Ma Sicong

1918 Argeliers Leon

1936 Cornelius Cardew

1939 Jos� Antonio Abreu

1947 Milan Slavick�

1954 Frank Halferty

1963 Mike Christianson

1975 Salim Dada


 

May 14

1652 Johann Philipp Fortsch

1707 Antonio Teixeira

1805 Johann Peter Emilius Hartmann

1816 Gualtiero Sanelli

1821 Emilie Mayer

1842 Alphons Czibulka 

1864 Eleanor Everest Freer

1869 Zygmunt Stojowski

1872 John Stepan Zamecnik

1885 Otto Klemperer 

1891 Egon Kornauth

1892 Arthur Vincent Lourie 

1892 Felix Petyrek

1895 Renato Lunelli

1898 Bonifacio Gil Garcia

1900 Leo Smit

1911 Hans Vogt

1917 Lou Harrison

1924 Joly Braga-Santos

1925 Tristram Ogilvie Cary

1926 Cestmir Gregor

1931 Alvin Lucier

1937 Peter Frederic Williams

1942 Gerald Shapiro

1943 Tania Le�n

1947 Peter Skellern


 

May 21

1633 Joseph de La Barre

1671 Azzolino Bernardino Della Ciaia

1680 Frederich Karl Erbach

1722 Wilhelm Gottfried Enderle

1841 Joseph Parry

1867 Desire Paque

1879 Pablo Luna

1888 May Aufderheide

1890 Albert van Raalte

1890 Harry Tierney

1898 Karel Haba

1905 Edward Lockspeiser

1922 Uros Krek

1924 Robert Parris

1926 Joseph Horovitz

1932 Robert Sherlaw Johnson

1937 Vladislav Igorevich Kazenin

1939 Heinz Holliger

1957 Linda Bouchard


 

May 28

1737 Josiah Flagg

1763 Nathaniel Gow

1765 Jean Baptiste Cartier

1777 Joseph-Henri-Ignace Mees

1778 Friedrich Westenholz

1779 Thomas Moore

1780 Joseph Frohlich

1798 Josef Dessauer

1830 Karoly Filtsch

1841 Giovanni Sgambati

1844 Leon Felix Augustin Joseph Vasseur

1875 Fred Jewell

1883 George Dyson 

1883 Riccardo Zandonai

1883 Luigi Perrachio

1889 Jose Padilla

1896 Marius Monnikendam

1904 Shalva Mikhaylovich Mshvelidze

1923 Gyorgy Ligeti

1923 Jir� V�lek

1927 Bernhard Lewkovitch

1930 Julian Penkivil Slade

1931 Peter Talbot Westergaard

1931 Erwin Junger

1932 Henning Christiansen

1934 Rob du Bois

1935 Derek Strahan

1936 Maki Ishii

1943 Dennis Riley

1947 Franghiz Ali-Zadeh

1955 Laurel Zucker


 

June 4

1736 Ignaz (Franz Joseph) Fr�nzl

1759 Maria Rosa Coccia

1882 Erwin Lendvai

1899 Leo Spies

1907 Marjan Kozina

1909 Paul Nordoff

1913 Bruno Bettinelli

1915 Alan Shulman

1918 Marcelo Koc

1922 Irwin Allen Bazelon

1930 Pentti Raitio

1931 Cesar Bolanos

1940 Dorothy Rudd Moore

1945 Anthony Braxton


 

June 11

1672 Francesco Antonio Bonporti 

1697 Francesco Vallotti

1704 Jose Antonio Carlos de Seixas

1740 Luigi Gatti

1829 Horace Poussard

1864 Richard Strauss

1874 Richard Stoehr

1892 Giorgio Federico Ghedini 

1899 George Frederick McKay

1904 Emil Frantisek Burian

1910 Carmine Coppola

1912 Uzbek Mukhtar Ashrafi

1926 Carlisle Floyd

1927 Josef Anton Riedl


 

June 18

1673 Antonio de Literes y Carri�n

1677 Marc Antonio Bononcini

1723 Giuseppe Scarlatti

1744 Augustin Holler

1757 Ignaz Joseph Pleyel

1780 Michael Henkel

1820 Martin Andreas Udbye

1822 Henry David Leslie

1843 David Popper

1850 Richard Heuberger

1894 Sabin Dragoi

1896 Sir George Thalben-Ball

1904 Manuel Rosenthal 

1905 Eduard Tubin

1915 Victor Legley

1915 Joan Trimble

1917 Akhmet Jevdet Ismail Hajiyev

1923 Elisabeth Waldo

1927 Simeon Pironkov

1933 Colin Brumby

1942 Sir Paul McCartney

1944 Paul Lansky

1947 Douglas Young

1950 Jan Radzynski

1950 Frank Ferko

1957 Rand Steiger

1993 Benjamin Kovacs


 

June 25

1623 Giuseppe Tricarico

1709 Francesco Araja

1735 Benvenuto Robbio San Rafaele

1796 Ferdinando Giorgetti

1860 Gustave Charpentier

1862 Vasily Georgiyevich Wrangell

1878 Jean Gallon

1880 Felix Swinstead

1889 Ethel Glenn Hier

1897 Hans Barth

1901 Adolf Brunner

1921 Peter Charles Arthur Wishart

1928 William Russo

1935 Kurt Schwertsik

 

 

 

 Sunday Afternoon at the Opera

 

Your "lyric theater" program

with Keith Brown

programming selections

for the months of May and June,  2015 

Sunday 1-4:30pm

 

Trial by Jury

 

 

 SUNDAY MAY 3RD Puccini, Madama Butterfly 

     Delayed by a Winter that wouldn't quit, it's finally cherry blossom time: time to listen once again to that alltime popular favorite of operas, Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly (1904), with its lovely "flower duet" for Cio-Cio San and Suzuki. There have been many wonderful Cio-Cio Sans in the history of recorded sound. The Irish soprano Margaret Burke Sheridan was cast in the role for the first electric recording of the entire opera in 1929. One of the most beloved of Butterflys was the Italian soprano Renata Scotto in the mid twentieth century. The stereo recording of Butterfly she made in 1966,the one with Barbirolli conducting, was the first of two she made for EMI.It was originally issued stateside on Angel 33 1/3 rpm LP discs. There's a copy in our station's classical record library that I have drawn upon twice for broadcast, first way back on Sunday, December 7,1984 and then more lately on Sunday, March 30, 2008. Another admirable soprano of recent times, the Ukrainian Svetlana Katchour recorded Butterfly in its full 1904 La Scala version for the Naxos label, capturing the sound of a production in the German city of Bremen. I aired the Naxos CD's on Sunday, September 8, 2002. 

     Today I dig back into our now-historic WWUH classical LP collection to present you with the American soprano Anna Moffo's take on Cio-Cio San in a 1963 recording for RCA Victor. This recording gives us Puccini's complete score of the work. Essentially a studio recording, it was made in the Rome Opera House. Erich Leinstorf was conducting. The Met's Rosalind Elias, an American mezzo, sang the role of Suzuki. Pinkerton was the distinguished Italian tenor Cesare Valetti. I employ those vintage RCA platters.  

 

 

SUNDAY MAY 10TH  Walllace, Maritana 

     Beyond Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas, little is remembered today about English opera in general in the Victorian era. First, you need to know there was a wealth of it. One good example of it is Wallace's Maritana (1845), enormously popular in its time, now completely forgotten. Even the tunes from Maritana  were popular on their own, like "There Is A Flower That Bloometh" or "Let Me Like A Soldier Fall." William Vincent Wallace (1812-65) was Irish by birth, spent a lot of time in London creating a series of English operas and ultimately became an American citizen. After Maritana  Wallace went on to write Lurline (1860), his third opera, conceived in the spirit of Weber's Der Freischutz, about a Lorelei-like figure. The Naxos studio recording of Lurline, with legendary opera conductor Richard Bonynge in charge, went over the air on Sunday, June 12, 2011. The plot of Maritana is ridiculous. It concerns an alluring Spanish Gypsy street singer and her dalliances with the nobility of Spain.  In 2011 Naxos reissued on two CD's the original 1996 Marco Polo release of Maritana recorded from a 1995 concert production by RTE Radio Ireland. Proinnsias O'Duinn directed the RTE Concert Orchestra and RTE Philharmonic Choir, with a cast of Irish singers. 

 

 

SUNDAY MAY 17TH   Fall, Madame Pompadour; 

Boismortier, Don Quichotte  

     The theme for this Sunday's two-part program might whimsically be titled "The French Are Funny." Part one of today's presentation isn't French at all, really. It's a Viennese operetta by Leo Fall (1873-1925), the subject of which is the illustrious mistress of king Louis XV of France. She was involved in the intrigues of the court of Versailles. Fall's Madame Pompadour, his last operetta, premiered not in Vienna, but in Berlin in 1922. Its light heart and lyrical soul remains in Vienna; the Vienna Volksoper has staged it in 1955, 1986 and  again in 2012, that third production being recorded for release through the German cpo label in 2014 on one generously timed compact disc. Andreas Schuller directs the chorus and orchestra of the Volksoper. 

      Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689-1755) wrote a lot of instrumental music in the ornate Rococo style, but he also wrote four lyric stageworks, one of which is Don Quichotte (1743). It is styled a "comic ballet" in three acts, and while there's plenty of dancing and good dance tunes in it,it is essentially a satirical theaterwork- a French baroque sendup of the Spanish author Cervantes' novel, which was satirical to begin with. The cultural resources of the Lorraine region of France made possible a studio recording of Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse. Herve Niquet directed his period instrument ensemble Le Concert Spirituel, with eleven vocal soloists. That recording was issued under the Naxos label on a single compact disc in 1996. 

 

SUNDAY MAY 24TH   Gordon, Rappahannock County  

     Ricky Ian Gordon (b. 1956) made a name for himself first as a  composer of songs, then more recently of lyric theater works in the mode of the song cycle. He has essayed one of the most traditional subjects in all of operatic literature, the ancient Greek Orphic myth. I broadcast the world premiere recording of his Orpheus and Euridice (2006) on Sunday, July 6, 2008. He has also tackled historical subjects. His dramatized song cycle Rappahannock County (2009/10) practically demands to be heard on the Sunday of the Memorial Day weekend. Memorial Day, formerly called Decoration Day, began as a special day to honor those who fought and died in the American Civil War. The songs of Rappahannock County are grouped as if they were the five acts of an opera, one act for each year of the conflict, from 1861 in succession to 1865. The location of the Rappahannock river in Virginia serves as a boundary between North and South. The lyrics of Mark Campbell are derived ultimately from letters, diaries and personal accounts of the 1860's. 

      A cast of five singers portray more than thirty different characters. They bring the period to life and express the devastating impact the war had on all who endured it. Ricky Ian Gordon's Rappahannock County premiered at the Virginia Arts Festival, with performers drawn from the Virginia Opera company. Rob Fisher directed the Virginia Arts Festival Orchestra. The recording was made in the Harrison Opera House in Norfolk, VA. Naxos Records issued Rappahannock County on two CD's in 2013 in its "American Opera Classics' line.

 

SUNDAY MAY 31ST   Rimsky-Korsakov, The Tale of Tsar Saltan 

     I always enjoy broadcasting  the fairy tale operas of Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, with their beautiful melodies inspired by Russian folk music and their lush orchestration. This one was commissioned to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of the great national poet Alexander Pushkin in 1899. The premiere staging of the opera was not ready, however, until the following year. The story presented in the opera is derived almost without alteration from one of Pushkin's fantastical tales. Rimsky's score for Tsar Saltan contains the famous "Flight of the Bumble Bee'- the fantastical, fluttery tune in the orchestra intended in the opera to accompany the scene in which the hero Prince Gvidon is magically transformed into a bumble bee so he can travel farther and faster than a human being. The performance resources employed in the Melodiya CD reissue of Tsar Saltan are Russian through and through. The recording was originally made in Moscow in 1958, so it qualifies as a historical audio document of this work. Vassily Niebolsin was conducting the Choir and Orchestra of the USSR State Academic Bolshoi  Theatre, with an all native cast of Russian vocal soloists.

 

SUNDAY JUNE 7TH   Donizetti, Lucia di Lammermoor 

     This gem of a bel canto opera takes its story from a novel by Sir Walter Scott. When I broadcast it on Sunday, June 8, 2008 you heard this well known work by Gaetano Donizetti in its French language version, titled Lucie de Lammermoor. Originally produced in Naples in 1835, the opera reached Paris in 1837. French soprano Natalie Dessay starred in the title role in a 2002 Virgin Classics CD release of the staged revival of the French version by Opera of Lyon. Madame Dessay sang Lucia again in Italian language in the concert hall of the Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg, Russia in 2010, with Valery Gergiev conducting. The Mariinsky CD's I broadcast on Sunday, May 13, 2012.

     Now you get to hear another notable soprano of our time, the German Diana Damrau as Lucia, again in a concert production of the work recorded live in performance in 2013. Jesus Lopez-Cobos conducted the orchestra and chorus of the Munich Opera. You listeners may remember Damrau's interpretations of the songs of Richard Strauss for Virgin Classics broadcast on Sunday, June 10, 2012. She recorded Lucia for Erato/Warner Classics with the Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja cast opposite her in the role of the Scottish nobleman Sir Edgardo Ravenswood. This recording restores the long cadenza with flute obbligato to Lucia's famous mad scene. (Ironically, this most famous passage from the opera was not composed by Donizetti!) Also restored to the mad scene is the part Donizetti did write for the 

spooky-sounding tones of the glass harmonica.Lucia di Lammermoor was the one specimen opera of the Italian bel canto era to remain within the international repertoire right through the succeeding half-century period of the verismo style.

 

SUNDAY JUNE 14TH  Milhaud, L'Orestie d'Eschyle  

     Although I certainly would like to air them, I confess I have never broadcast any of the fifteen operas of Darius Milhaud (1892-1974). I simply have never run across any recordings of them. There has, however, come into my hands recently a recording of Milhaud's trilogy of oratorios, all three of them intensely dramatic in their treatment of the ancient Greek myths dealing with the murderous Orestes and the cursed House of Atreus. The old stories have been handed down to us as staged tragedies  by the playwright Aeschylus. Milhaud worked on his Oresteia trilogy over the period 1913-23, employing a French translation of the Greek text by Catholic poet Paul Claudel. Milhaud's personal style of composition changed over the decade he labored on it. It begins where Schonberg's Gurrelieder  leaves off in the late Romantic style, then transitions into a neoclassical mode more like his fellow Frenchman Poulenc or maybe Stravinsky in his Parisian days, then moves on to incorporate unsettling polytonality, lots of special percussion effects and even a Gallic form of Sprechstimme vocalization. (This latter part of the trilogy was actually staged years later as an opera directed by the composer's wife.) 

     The world premiere recording of the complete trilogy was issued courtesy of the Naxos label in 2014 on three compact discs.L'Orestie d'Eschyle  requires a small army of singers and players: a symphony orchestra of Mahlerian size with enlarged percussion section, and four choruses, plus vocal soloists. Naxos gives us an American concert production of Milhaud's masterwork, originating at the University of Michigan and employing professional and semi-pro performers. The vocal soloists are all professionals. They are backed by the University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Choir and University Choir of the Ann Arbor campus School of Music, the Orpheus Singers and UMS Choral Union. Kenneth Kieser marshals all these musical resources. Two reviewers for Fanfare magazine were impressed with the Naxos release. That tough cookie of a reviewer, Lynn Rene Bayley (amazingly) wrote,  "This will surely be one of the  outstanding operatic recordings of our time" (Fanfare, Mar/Apr, 2015 issue). 

 

 

SUNDAY JUNE 21ST Ching, A Midsummer Night's Dream

     Often around the time of the Summer solstice I will feature some lyric theatrical treatment of William Shakespeare's immortal romantic comedy. Twice I have broadcast Shakespeare's complete spoken word play on Decca/Argo LP's, part of Decca's recording project of all of the Bard's plays in early stereo sound circa 1960. Then there's Benjamin Britten's opera (also from 1960), which I've also broadcast twice, plus Mendelssohn's well known Incidental music on a couple of occasions. Now, get ready for Michael Ching's opera a cappella innovation. Yes, folks: an opera for voices only, ie. a cast of solo singers and a specially prepared 'Voicestra" in place of the expected instrumental accompaniment of an orchestra. Even the percussion effects are vocalized. 

     The Voicestra consists of the twelve male voices of the contemporary music group DeltaCappella, joined by the eight female singers of Riva. Curtis Tucker directs them all. The composer of this lyric theatrical novelty, Michael Ching, has long been the director of Opera Memphis. He oversaw the original production of his opera a cappella. It was staged at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, Tennessee in January, 2011. The original cast recording of A Midsummer Night's Dream was released through Albany Records in 2014 on two compact discs. 

 

SUNDAY JUNE 28TH Gordon, "27" 

      Ricky Ian Gordon strikes again with yet another lyric theater piece on a historical subject, to be specific: gay history. The title of this opera refers to the address in Paris: 27 Rue de Fleurus, where life partners Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas dwelled, and where they hosted those salons that attracted the artistic greats of the 1920's.  Let's not forget literary innovator Gertrude Stein's connection to opera. She wrote the librettos for two operas with music by Virgil Thomson: Four Saints in Three Acts (1928) and The Mother of Us All (1946). It's perfectly fitting that a gay American composer of the twenty first century should be inspired to write an opera about a famous lesbian couple. Royce Vavrek worked up a libretto for an operatic fantasy based upon Stein's life, with Toklas playing a critical part in the proceedings. For the larger-than-life role of Gertrude Stein Gordon already had in mind the voice of contralto Stephanie Blythe, the perfect match for whom he found in soprano Elizabeth Futral as Alice B. Toklas. "27" was commissioned and premiered by Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. Michael Christie conducted members of the St. Louis Symphony. The recording of "27" was made live in performance in June, 2014 and was issued that same year on two compact discs by Albany Records. I present "27" this Sunday as special gay pride programming, keeping in mind the historic Stonewall uprising that took place in New York City's Greenwich Village gay ghetto during the last weekend of June, 1969.

 

   I obtained for broadcast that Albany CD release of "27" from Rob Meehan, former classics deejay here at WWUH and a specialist in the alternative musics of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. For many years he's been loaning me recordings from his own extensive collection of "alternative" operas.  From him I also borrowed for broadcast the Naxos CD releases of the two operas by Ricky Ian Gordon, plus the opera a cappella of Michael Ching. From my own collection of opera on silver disc I have contributed to this two month period of programming the recordings of Leo Fall's Madame Pompadour, Boismortier's Don Quichote, Wallace's Maritana and The Tale of Tsar Saltan by Rimsky-Koraskov.  The rest of the featured recordings come out of our station's ever growing audio library of classical music. As always, I thank our station's operations director Kevin O'Toole for mentoring me in the preparation of these notes for cyber-publication. Thanks also must go to Kari Mackey for her further preparation of my notes for inclusion in our WWUH Program Guide. 

 

West Hartford Symphony Orchestra
WHSO Concert Season 2014 Concert Season 


In Collaboration with the WWUH Classical Programming we are pleased to partner with the West Hartford Symphony Orchestra to present their announcements and schedule to enhance our commitment to being part of the Greater Hartford Community. 

West Hartford Symphony Orchestra

WHSO Pops Concert

Saturday, May 16, 2015

8:00 PM

West Hartford Town Hall Auditorium

50 South Main Street, West Hartford, CT 


For over ten years, the West Hartford Symphony has been providing a musical outlet for residents of West Hartford and the Greater Hartford Area. Musicians from the ages of 14 to 86 come together once a week to play a variety of pieces and perform four concerts each year. 

For tickets and information, 860-521-4362 or http://whso.org/.
Farmington Valley Symphony Orchestra

 

Concert IV: Life's Journey

Friday, May 8th, 2015 at 8pm

Lincoln Theater, University of Hartford

200 Bloomfield Avenue, West Hartford, CT

 

WAGNER

G�tterd�mmerung: Siegfried's Death & Funeral Music

STRAUSS, R

Death & Transfiguration

SHOSTAKOVICH

Symphony No. 5 in D minor

 

The Musical Club of Hartford

The Musical Club of Hartford, Inc., is a non-profit Connecticut organization celebrating its 123rd anniversary this year. Each year, from October to May, ten or more concerts are presented by performing members, featuring soloists and vocal or instrumental ensembles. These concerts take place on Thursday mornings at 10 am at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 2080 Boulevard, West Hartford, unless otherwise noted.

 For more information, visit:  
Hartford Symphony Orchestra 
The Hartford Symphony Orchestra is Connecticut's premier musical organization. The Hartford Symphony is the second largest orchestra in New England and is widely recognized as one of America's leading regional orchestras.


For tickets and more information, visit 

http://www.hartfordsymphony.org/concerts-tickets/ 

or call HSO Ticket Services at 860.244.2999.

Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts
Opened in December of 1955, Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts is the largest college-based presenting program in New England. Each season, Jorgensen events attract more than 70,000 students, faculty and staff from the University of Connecticut, as well as residents from Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Jorgensen presents 25-30 nationally and internationally acclaimed artists and ensembles annually, ranging from classical music to world music and dance, classical and contemporary dance, comedy, family programming and contemporary entertainment. 

Box Office: 860.486.4226 or 

Who Else
WWUH Radio 91.3 FM : Celebrating 45 Years of Public Alternative Radio
 
Our programming can be heard at various times throughout the day on the following stations:
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WDJW - Somers, 89.7 Mhz
WWEB - Wallingford, 89.9 Mhz.