Michala Petri: Recorder and Choir

Posted at 12:16 PM on May 22, 2012 by Elena See (0 Comments)

Embed | Help

Copy and paste the HTML below to embed this audio onto your web page.

Audio player code:
<iframe title="minnesota_classical_features_2012_05_22_nct_michala_petri_choral_20120522_128s_player" type="text/html" width="319" height="83" src="http://minnesota.publicradio.org/www_publicradio/tools/media_player/syndicate.php?name=minnesota/classical/features/2012/05/22/nct_michala_petri_choral_20120522_128" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen></iframe>

sponsor:

Since the very beginning, Classical MPR has championed choral music through our regional broadcasts. Now, you can listen to choral music all day and all night long with our new online choral stream!

Danish recorder player Michala Petri's newest recording is titled English Recorder Concertos — but it's not out of the question for her NEXT recording to be featured in our choral stream. Take a listen below...and make sure to visit the New Classical Tracks page with Julie Amacher to hear selections from Petri's newest release.

Comment on this post

Billy the Kid, a rediscovery

Posted at 8:07 AM on May 21, 2012 by Emily Reese (1 Comments)

The other night on Classical MPR, I had the opportunity to play a suite from Aaron Copland's ballet, Billy the Kid. It reminded me of one of my all-time favorite records made by one of my favorite musicians.

In 1993, just three years after Copland's passing, a jazz guitarist named Bill Frisell covered Billy the Kid on an album called, Have a Little Faith. Frisell included a Sousa march, a Madonna cover, Charles Ives and John Hiatt's incredibly amazing song that shares the album's title. It's a critically-acclaimed representation of Americana.

Frisell's cover (so to speak) of Billy the Kid makes fantastic example of an orchestral work that doesn't have to be orchestral. The instrumentation is sparse; he uses a five-piece band consisting of himself, clarinet, accordion, bass and drums. Frisell's trademark use of a distant, reverberant tone fits marvelously well with Copland's music.

So, if you're feeling adventurous and you'd like to hear how Frisell and his band treat Copland's ballet music, you can check it out below. If nothing else, listen to the first movement, "The Open Prairie." Also recommended, "Billy in Prison."

Comment on this post

Quodlibet

Posted at 4:44 PM on May 11, 2012 by Rex Levang (0 Comments)

A few videos, to wrap up your week. You may well have seen this one--it's been pretty popular lately. A Copenhagen orchestra, playing Peer Gynt, flash-mob style.

At the TED talks, Michael Tilson Thomas sums up the history of classical music in 20 minutes or so:

And this week, we said goodbye to Maurice Sendak. Classical music was important to him. There are designs from his pen destined to accompany the works of Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Mahler, to name just three. Tim Smith of the Baltimore Sun remembers him with this very nice appreciation of Sendak and opera, and includes this clip, in which some classically Sendakian beasts take the stage.

Comment on this post

Beautiful Classical Music Photos

Posted at 2:13 PM on May 10, 2012 by Emily Reese (0 Comments)

Photo by Nikolaj Lund

Musician and photographer Nikolaj Lund created a gorgeous slideshow of his photography of classical musicians.

The Danish Lund has his master's degree is in cello performance, so he knows his subject. Additionally, you can read more about his thoughts on doctoring photos here.

There are a fair amount of folks I didn't recognize, but there are wonderful photos of clarinetist Martin Fröst, violinist Isabelle van Keulen and trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth's all-female group tenThing.

Take a few moments to view the slides. I initially figured I'd look at the first few and move on to something else, but I got drawn in by the imagery and have now looked at all the pictures several times.

Enjoy!

Comment on this post

How to Tie a Bowtie

Posted at 11:13 AM on May 1, 2012 by Daniel Gilliam

This post is unrelated to music (mostly) and is in no way referential to our disc giveaway this week (wink wink). But if one were to need a primer on how to tie a bowtie, one should be set with the following diagram:

Crescendo Project and Classical MPR Present Roll Credits Live!

Posted at 4:12 PM on April 30, 2012 by ClassicalMPR

Are you a young professional who loves classical music? Join us for Roll Credits Live on Wednesday, May 16. It's a free event, open to Classical MPR listeners in their 20s and 30s and members of the Crescendo Project, the Minnesota Orchestra's Young Professionals Group.

To be honest, watching the recording of a disc-based radio show normally offers all the excitement of a cow looking over a fence. A couple of people playing CDs and chatting. Flash mob fodder! Of course, Guernseys have their charms, and so does Roll Credits, live at the UBS Forum. Classical MPR hosts Lynne Warfel and Bill Morelock will play film music — the classics and the new — and chat!

Enlivening the evening may be Lynne's threatened dramatic reading of President Merkin Muffley's monologue from Doctor Strangelove, in the voice of Katherine Hepburn. They will, certainly, trot out the old favorites from the Golden Age of Hollywood, when the music was better than the acting, and from today's films, when the acting is better than ... well, we can argue about that when the time comes. So if you're a movie music fan, come on Wednesday, May 16, at 6 p.m., and hang out with a couple of movie music fans, and join 'em in the pasture. Cue the Copland and the open chords!

Ticket Information

For more music and movies, visit our Roll Credits and Flicks in Five page.