Program Highlight

From the Top oboist Zachary Allen plays The Door of No Return, Sun 4/7 @ 5pm

Classical 91.5 WXXO-FM

Published March 25, 2024 at 12:05 PM EDT

The Door of No Return (Ouidah) is a sonata for solo instrument & piano by composer Althea Talbot-Howard, that charts the abduction of slaves by rival nations from elsewhere in the African continent; the march to the Slave Coast; the sometimes-lethal journey across the Atlantic; and forced labor on the island of Antigua. It also recognizes the work of late Congressman John Lewis in the Civil Rights movement. He visited the Door in 2019.

Young black man wearing a tuxedo, holding his oboe in front of red foliage — 17-year-old oboist **Zachary Allen** from Skokie, Illinois is a Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship winner

4/7 Alex Laing co-hosts a program with some artists from the Merit School in Chicago. We’ll hear duo-pianists Luke Magee and Elio Gaviria perform an arrangement of It’s Lovely Here and Floods of Spring by Rachmaninoff; flutists Anika Veda performing musical portraits by Valerie Coleman; oboist Zachary Allen plays The Door of No Return by Althea Talbot-Howard; violinist Emma Servadio plays Three Romances by Clara Schumann; and pianist Son Duong plays music of Chopin. Composer Althea Talbot-Howard speaks about this work.

4/14 This week we hear violinist Joshua Lee perform music by Nathan Milstein; pianist Hannah Lui plays Rachmaninoff; cellist Abraham Kim plays Barber; violinist Jacqueline Rodenbeck plays a Rag by William Bolcom; oboist Hannah Cho plays music by Poulenc and the Westwood Symphony Orchestra performs Shostakovich.

4/21 Cellist Noah Chen performs music of Dvorak; The Bone Rangers (Owen Riordan, Deaglan Sullivan, Padric Sullivan, Calleigh Riodan, tn) perform music by David Faleris; pianist Xuanyan Jessie Gong plays Rachmaninoff; violinist Jeremy Foster plays J.S. Bach; and a trio of cellist Samuel DeCaprio, violinist Gergana Haralampieva and pianist Thomas Weaver perform a work by young composer Taki Salameh.

4/28 In recognition of Earth Day (April 22) we hear music inspired by nature presented by oboist Minoo Jang; pianist Julia Zhou; composer/pianist Winston Schneider; harpist Viviana Alfaro; and cellist Jiin Yun.