Chamber Music at Gleason's Gym?

Chamber Music at Gleason's Gym?

From: Lawrence Lanahan
Length: 00:03:50

From Weekend America: In the red corner, a cello. In the blue corner, an alpine horn. A new chamber music series has been launched at a famous New York City boxing gym. Read the full description.

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Piece Description

There's a new chamber music series in New York City and the venue has been the home of some of the most legendary names in the game: Muhammad Ali, Riddick Bowe, Roberto Duran, Mike Tyson. The series is called "Strike!" and it takes place at famous Gleason's Gym under the Brooklyn Bridge. The audience walks back and forth between rings, from three-minute exhibition bouts to ten-minute fugues. Lawrence Lanahan visited an installment of the concert series for American Public Media's Weekend America back in December 2006.

Broadcast History

Broadcast nationally on the December 16, 2006, episode of American Public Media's Weekend America. See http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/about/list.php for stations.

Transcript

AMB: Gym

N: Gleason?s Gym is tucked in among the cobblestone streets in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. Over a hundred world champions have trained here since it opened in 1937?Muhammad Ali, Riddickk Bowe, even Mike Tyson. For the last 26 years, Bruce Silverglade has owned the Gym.

AX, Bruce Silverglade: I?ve been requested many times by the people that train here to have music playing, and I?ve always chosen not to do that. I?m a traditionalist, an old-timer in the sport of boxing. You don?t need music to do it.

N: A cellist named Dan Barrett got him to reconsider.

AX, Dan Barrett: I had trained when I was about 19, and I had heard about Gleason?s, which is the Juilliard or the Vienna Conservatory of boxing.

N: Barrett stopped by Gleason?s one day and asked Silverglade what he?d think of chamber music concerts at the gym.

AX, Bruce Silverglade: This is a differe...
Read the full transcript

Timing and Cues

Host intro from Alex Cohen:

(AMB: Gonna Fly Now, theme from Rocky) This week the new Rocky movie comes out because, really, we needed a sixth in the series. When you think of Rocky or any boxer really, this is the kind of music that comes to mind, right? Gonna get pumped, gonna knock that sucka out themes. So it surprised me when I heard about this gym in Brooklyn, New York, that?s launching a new concert series because instead of playing anthems like this one, or my personal Rocky Fave, Eye of the Tiger, they?re going in another musical direction. Reporter Lawrence Lanahan has the story.