Host Bill McGlaughlin takes us on a musical journey to Brazil to hear how composers were inspired by their travels. (Week of June 17)
Week of June 3, 2019 - Let Me Tell You A Story, Part II
More music from composers telling us stories. From Otto Nicolai's overture to the Merry Wives of Windsor based on Shakespeare's play to Cole Porter singing Anything Goes from his 1934 hit musical. Stories told and feelings expressed through music go far back in history and to the core of our human spirit.
Week of June 10, 2019 - The Spanish School
Borrowing our title from the storied Spanish Riding School in Vienna, home of the Lipizzaner
horses, this program explores the wealth of musical output from Iberian composers. Following a
lineage from the 18th century on to those creating new music today, we consider the Spanish
School as a living tradition, blending the values of the past with the passion of the present. From
the guitar to the piano and every instrument in between, this week features selections from Pablo
de Sarasate, Andres Segovia, and many other Spanish composers and performers.
Week of June 17, 2019 - Ports of Call, Part I
For the next two weeks, Exploring Music will present sounds from composers' backyards and hear their journaling voyages to distant lands: from the bird calls in the Amazon jungle expressed by Brazilian composers, to the distant bells ringing as a composer approaches a safe harbor. Listen, for example, to Italian composer Ottorino Respighi's famous Pines of Rome, and then travel with him to Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he wrote Brazilian Impressions, an orchestral suite with strange and beautiful sounds.
Week of June 24, 2019 - Ports of Call, Part II
This week Exploring Music continues traveling with composers around the world. Listen to them express the sounds of their native land and paint musical pictures of their travels. We will hear music of homesick George Gershwin in Paris, Charles Ives floating down the Housatonic River in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, and Ella Fitzgerald and her friends on the “A” train in New York City.
