An exploration of the Baroque and the never-ending legacy of Bach, through Mendelssohn, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Steve Reich, and The Doors’ Light My Fire.

With this instrument, the composer was able to set aside his forte piano and write more expressive and emotional music, beginning with the Waldstein Sonata.  New instruments and new technologies have inalterably changed music many times, but the pace of change quickened in the 20^th century, with the record player, the computer, and the Internet.

The Exposition Universelle was where Debussy first heard gamelan music, and “world” music became a part of Western European classical language.  Composers before and after Debussy frequently turned to vernacular sources for inspiration, whether Brahms, Mahler, and Bartók incorporating folk melodies, Copland and Gershwin using the rhythms of Latin dance, or Steve Reich quoting West African drumming.

Stravinsky’s completely original instrumentation and rhythms, and his use of dissonance, have made this work one of the most important of the 20^th century, not to mention the riot and ensuing scandal that caused this Paris premiere to be one of the most shocking in all of performance history.

This tone poem by Sibelius was his last major work before thirty years of silence, during which the world waited for an eighth symphony that never came.  Sibelius in his time was seen as a nationalist along the lines of Grieg, but we now hear his music as radical and astonishingly prescient.

This article signaled Stalin’s displeasure with Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and led to the composer’s “redemption” in his Symphony No. 5.  This program will explore Shostakovich and the sometimes mutually beneficial, sometimes terrifying, relationship between music and the totalitarian state.

A few days after the tragic events of 9/11, I received via email a remarkable letter written by William R. Harvey, an 18-year old violinist studying at Juilliard.  William had been asked to perform at the Armory in New York, where soldiers who were working at Ground Zero went to unwind before they went back to the site of the disaster. William wrote the letter after he left the Armory and sent it to his family and a few friends. 

I wasn't the only person who read the letter because it “went viral” and was read by tens of thousands of people all over the world.  In the letter, William says, "I've never understood so fully what it means to communicate music to other people," and he said the experience will forever change how he views his role and responsibility as a musician.  Shortly after we received the letter we contacted William and he recorded the letter in its entirety for WFMT.  Towards the end, we mixed William’s performance of Amazing Grace under his voice. 

The end result was a seven-minute piece entitled, “Playing for the Fighting 69^th.”  It aired on WFMT the week after 9/11 and was heard in its entirety on All Things Considered on the one-month and one-year anniversaries of 9/11. 

In fact, the experience William had that day at the Armory really did change his life: he founded a non-profit organization called Cultures in Harmony (culturesinharmony.org) that “forges connections across cultural and national barriers through the medium of music” and he has performed classical music in such places as Moldova, Tunisia, Cameroon, Qatar and other locations around the world. Last year, William accepted a position on the faculty of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music in Kabul, and he now teaches there on a full-time basis. 

Last week, as a follow-up to the piece we produced 10 years ago, we spoke by telephone with William in Kabul. What this amazing young musician said about his experiences these past 10 years is moving, thought provoking  and inspirational and we’ve added it to the original piece, “Playing for the Fighting 69^th.”

The Bioneers are proud to present a 1-hour special which will be available September 8, 2011,  free of charge to all stations.

Natural Magic: The Earth Hospitality Enterprise
“Natural Magic” is a new one-hour special from Bioneers Radio that explores the time-tested processes, relationships and recipes that have allowed life to flourish during 3.8 billion years of evolution. Our guides are scientific and social innovators known as “the bioneers.” Luminaries featured include globally renowned biologist and educator David Suzuki, best selling author and environmental entrepreneur Paul Hawken, biomimicry master Janine Benyus, clean energy expert Amory Lovins and author and climate leader Bill Mckibben. They say the solutions to our environmental challenges are largely present – if we just ask nature. They herald a revolution from the heart of nature – and the human heart.
 
What life does is create conditions conducive to life. Scientists call it the “Gaia hypothesis”—the idea that the entire symphony of living things self-regulates the Earth’s conditions to make the physical environment hospitable for them, just as our bodies know how to regulate themselves. Yet at this critical moment, for the first time in history, humanity has the capacity to destroy the conditions conducive to life on a global scale.

We’re celebrating Jazz Appreciation Month and twenty seasons of JALC Radio with innovators young and old, keeping the jazz flame bright.   

For Jazz Appreciation Month this April, Jazz at Lincoln Center Radio presents the SF Jazz Collective interpreting the ebullient songbook of Stevie Wonder.
Iconic compositions like "My Cheri Amour", "Superstition", "Do I Do", " and "Sir Duke" are rediscovered by the group the New York Times described as the "superbrain for what serious jazz sounds like now."

The SF Jazz Collective is Stefon Harris (vibes), Edward Simon (piano), Miguel Zenon (alto sax), Matt Penman (bass), Eric Harland (drums), Avishai Cohen (trumpet), Mark Turner (sax), and Robin Eubanks (trombone).

This hour-long program is FREE to all stations beginning April 1 through April 30.