Welcome to Music for Life, enhancing the Armstrong concert experience. I'm your host, Ryan Malone. In today's episode, we will explore and preview the new concert lineup at Armstrong Auditorium for the 2019-20 season. Though last year marked our 20th anniversary season as a series, This year marks our 10th season in Armstrong Auditorium. The season will feature our most exciting programming yet, from Vivaldi's beloved Four Seasons to Rimsky-Korsakov's hugely famous Scheherazade, from a captivating quartet of tenors from Italy to an authentically amazing folk dancing company from Mexico, from a local jazz legend to a San Francisco-based male chorus, and from a father-son conductor-cellist team to a married couple that stands as one of the great piano duos of our day.
We will also talk about the approach we will take on this fifth season of Music for Life and why classical music may not have the same following as professional sports. So stick around. This exciting season preview is coming up next on Music for Life. We get excited, but we also wait.
to hear what the expert says. How often do we think it was a great spin only to find out they didn't quite make it around according to the judge's standards? I would venture to say that we even delay our internal excitement about a specific feat until we hear whether or not the expert commentators agree that it was, in fact, well executed. And add to all that that when we're seeing whatever Olympic routine it is, chances are, if it's someone from our home country, we've also heard much discussion in the lead-up to this routine. We've seen many documentaries narrated by our nation's most prominent sports announcers telling us about the journey of this particular Olympian, which brings them to that moment.
What does this have to do with music? What does it have to do with a program that is designed to present general music appreciation principles against the backdrop of a series of performances coming to a local auditorium? The answers to these questions will largely shape how we approach our discussion this year I love to watch baseball. And I was really struck this season by how much the St. Louis Cardinals broadcasters, particularly the man providing the color commentary next to the play-by-play announcer, are trying to educate us on what to expect. And they do it as it's happening. And this is happening on sports broadcasts all year around. But it certainly reminded me of the Olympics, to which I think even many more can relate. Athletics can put tens of thousands of people into seats at one time. And from a TV viewership angle, it can lock millions of eyes and ears into a single game. So I started thinking, why isn't concert music, say what most call classical music, that popular? Why isn't it attracting the same kinds of...
millions as sports. I don't want to oversimplify the answer, but I do want to take a cue from sports as we discuss the music to be performed at Armstrong this year. I thought, what if we watched a game on TV and there was zero talking? Like it was just surveillance footage of the field. If no one was explaining the game to us, how would we like that? Real fans of the sport probably wouldn't have much difference of opinion, actually, to the way they view the sport now. But in terms of connecting it to the masses, this wouldn't go over as well, I'd argue.
Now, I suppose if we heard someone talk about the game before it started and then watch that game in silence, we would get a little more out of the occasion. But sports broadcasts are based on the idea that experts are talking about it constantly as it's happening. Now, with music, when we go to a concert, we don't hear someone talking through the performance, hopefully. And for that, we're all thankful. Maybe we've heard some discussion before the concert, or we have some context for what we'll be hearing, and that helps. But other than the sheer magnetic charisma of the performer or performers, there would be nothing to keep the musical layman, so to speak, engaged in what's happening and excited when exciting things actually happen.
Now, this show, for the past four seasons, has tried to offer some context before the concerts at Armstrong Auditorium take place. And again, I won't be talking through our concerts when you get there. However, when it comes to this podcast, I've been describing the music and then just letting the music play without any interruption for the most part. This year, particularly with the classical examples, I plan to take a bit more of a sports commentator approach to the music. Though it may seem sacrilege to some for me to talk over a recording, I'm going to risk it in the event that it points the listener to the most noteworthy things happening in the music. And if the listener would prefer to hear the pieces uninterrupted without commentary, they can certainly do so at the Armstrong concerts or by listening to...
a recording of that piece online. I think this approach, again, particularly with the classical repertoire we'll discuss, will generate more excitement and more expert listeners, more Olympian-type listeners from those who tune into this program. Now, for this first episode of Music for Life's fifth season, we will give a brief overview of each event coming to Armstrong Auditorium in the 2019-20 season. I don't plan to talk as much through these examples today, since many of them will be shorter, as this episode is more about giving a bird's-eye view of the season, more or less. Opening our concert season on Thursday, September 12th, is a young, new touring group called the Four Italian Tenors. They are coming to Armstrong as part of their...
Now, on our website, we have a promotional video where you can hear all four sing a medley of some well-known Italian songs, and I'll play some of the audio from that here. In Napoli, where love is gay, when boy meets boy, here's what I say.
When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore, that's amore. When the world seems to shine like you have too much wine, that's amore, that's amore. Bells will ring tinglingling tinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglinglingling When you walk in and dream, but you know you're not dreaming, signore! Scusami, but you'll sleep back in on Napoli, let's amore!
Thank you. That was a medley of Italian hits as sung by the four Italian tenors coming to Armstrong Auditorium Thursday, September 12th. That event will mark the opening concert for our 2019-20 concert season.
After that, we are very excited to present one of the great chamber orchestras of the world, teaming up with one of the finest violin soloists on the circuit today and presenting some of the most famous violin concerti in the repertoire. On Tuesday, November 12th, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, with artistic director and violin soloist Daniel Hope, will be presenting Antonio Vivaldi's four seasons. We devoted an entire episode to this programmatic set of four violin concerti by Vivaldi, for which Vivaldi wrote four sonnets and then wrote music to depict what was happening in those poems. For this season preview episode, I want to draw attention to the second half of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra's program. They will be performing a work titled...
Vivaldi recomposed, and it was composed by a famous film score composer of our day, Max Richter. This piece is an exciting reimagining of the Baroque classic, which, recorded by Hope and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, has become one of the most successful classical recordings in recent times, reaching number one in over 22 countries. I want to play you an excerpt of this work, and this is from a different recording, though. This is André de Ritter conducting the Konzerthauskammer Orchestra Berlin. This is the first movement of the famous Winter Concerto. I think this is a great example of how Richter combines iconic elements from the original and puts a modern spin on it with variations of rhythm and orchestration.
If you're a Vivaldi's Four Seasons fan, you'll notice that sounded a lot like winter, but wasn't quite winter. That's because it was part of the film score composer Max Richter's work Vivaldi Recomposed, his modern remix, so to speak, of the first movement of that season. We heard a recording of Andre de Ritter conducting the Konzerthaus Kammer Orchestra Berlin. That work will be the second half of a program featuring Vivaldi's Four Seasons on Tuesday, November 12th at Armstrong Auditorium, and I think it will be just stunning to compare that modern incarnation next to the original. Presenting this exciting program will be the Zurich Chamber Orchestra with artistic director and violin soloist Daniel Hope.
The next concert will come three weeks later, on Tuesday, December 3rd. That evening, Armstrong presents the internationally acclaimed Lomazov-Rackers Piano Duo. Praised for precision and complete dedication from Audio Society, the Lomazov-Rackers Piano Duo garnered wide attention as the second prize winners of the 6th Biennial Ellis Duo Piano Competition, the only national competition for piano duo in the United States at that time. This duo is comprised of a husband-wife team, Marina Lomazov and her husband, Joseph Rackers. They will perform the sprightly Sonata in C for four hands by Mozart, the Brahms variations on a theme by Haydn for two pianos, as well as the dazzling variations on a theme by...
Paganini for two pianos by Viktor Lutoslavsky. They will also be playing Stravinsky's arrangement of his ballet suite from Petrushka, arranged in three movements for four hands. Here is the first of those three movements from Petrushka performed by the Lomazov-Rackers piano duo. You are listening to Music for Life. I'm your host, Ryan Malone. This is KPCG. In today's episode, we are previewing and exploring the new concert lineup at Armstrong Auditorium for the 2019-20 concert season. We've talked about some of the amazing programming coming to Armstrong this season. We just discussed the third event of the season, the Lomazov-Rackers piano duo. And we just heard a recording they made of a famous Stravinsky work. That was Russian Dance, the first movement of a three-movement suite from the ballet Petrushka, adapted for four hands on one piano by the composer.
The Lamazoff-Rackers duo will be performing at Armstrong Auditorium on Tuesday, December 3rd. On the 2020 side of the 2019-20 season, we will kick that off on Thursday, January 16th with a local trumpet legend. Multi-Grammy and Emmy Award nominee David B. Hooten has perfected his Legends of Dixieland show by performing on stage with such jazz greats as Al Hurt, Boots Randolph, Bob Snyder, and Wynton Marsalis, to name a few. The uplifting show depicts a traditional New Orleans funeral and features memorable hits such as St. Louis Blues, It Don't Mean a Thing, 5'2", Basin Street Blues, Ain't Misbehavin', When the Saints Go Marchin' In, and much more. Hooten's band consists of musicians he has performed with for years for one festival.
of evening. And let's hear an example of him playing When the Saints Go Marching In. This is from his 2014 album, Dixieland Praise. That was David B. Hooten and his recording of When the Saints Go Marching In, a work to be featured on his January 16th, 2020 concert at Armstrong Auditorium when he presents his Legends of Dixieland program.
Following that event, we have Mexico's Ballet Folklorico coming on Thursday, February 13th. Acclaimed as one of the most exciting groups presenting authentic regional dances of Mexico under the direction of Silvia Lozano, Ballet Folklorico Nacional de Mexico is an institution tasked with the dissemination, preservation, and promotion of the culture of Mexico, both home and abroad. Delighting audiences with a cornucopia of stomping rhythms, traditional whirling dances, brilliantly colored costumes, and festive songs, the company transcends cultural barriers and presents an unforgettable experience the entire family will enjoy. Then, on Wednesday, March 4th, Armstrong is excited to present one of the finest orchestras in the world under the baton of one of the most sought-after young conductors in the business today. Under the baton of Vladimir Landa, and direct from Krasnoyarsk, Russia, the Siberian State Symphony Orchestra performs as part of an eight-week U.S. tour. Founded in 1977, this orchestra quickly won a reputation as one of the best orchestras from Russia, and since 2005, under Maestro Landa's direction, it has received critical acclaim for its numerous recordings with Naxos. The orchestra will perform two orchestral favorites. The first will be the infamously difficult violin concerto by Peter Tchaikovsky, which we've talked about at some length on this program.
The violin soloist for that work will be Pavel Milyukov. The other major work performed by the Siberian State Symphony, and this ties into our Olympic figure skating reference earlier, is Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, incidentally a favorite among Olympic figure skaters, as that's likely where you've heard the work before. We're hearing the opening movement of this four-movement suite. It needs very little explanation to be enjoyed, though we'll go over the story being described in this work in a later episode, which will make it even more accessible when you know what the music is representing in the story. Here is Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
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The next concert in the season comes on Tuesday, March 24th. This one will feature cellist Julian Schwartz. In addition to being an outstanding cellist, he is also the son of the legendary conductor Gerard Schwartz, who has been to Armstrong twice before with the Mozart Orchestra of New York. This orchestra came last season with violinist Anna Kiko Myers, and we are excited to have this group back, as well as their illustrious conductor, and this time with Maestro Schwartz's son Julian as the soloist. The orchestra itself will be featured in symphonies by Haydn and Mozart, but the headliner will be Julian, performing the famed Cello Concerto in C by Haydn.
So that was a little of the Haydn cello concerto, which we will talk about more when we get to our episodes leading up to that concert in March. Again, this concert will feature cellist Julian Schwartz along with his father Gerard Schwartz at the helm of the Mozart Orchestra of New York. And the father-son theme to the program doesn't end there. We are particularly excited that Julian will team up with another father-son team for the lesser-performed concerto for two cellos by Antonio Vivaldi. The other father-son team will include my son Seth, a cellist attending college here and working in the music department for the campus, and at the harpsichord in the orchestra will be yours truly, Seth's father.
Maestro Schwartz approached me about this possibility over a year and a half ago, and we're very excited to have two father-son teams on stage, two sons as cellists, and then a father conducting, and a father in the orchestra. And not least exciting of all is this great concerto by Vivaldi. Here's a recording of the driving first movement in a recording by the Academy of Ancient Music conducted by Christopher Hogwood with cello soloists Honor Beosma and Anthony Pleath. You are listening to Music for Life.
I'm your host, Ryan Malone. This is KPCG. In today's episode, we have previewed and explored the new concert lineup at Armstrong Auditorium for the 2019-20 concert season. We've talked about nearly all the amazing programming coming to Armstrong this season. We just discussed the penultimate event of the season, cellist Julian Schwartz coming with his father, Gerard Schwartz, who will be conducting the Mozart Orchestra of New York. A highlight of this father-son program will be when Julian teams up with one of our own cellists here on the Armstrong campus to perform Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Cellos. We just heard a recording of the first movement of this wonderful concerto, performed by the Academy of Ancient Music, conducted by Christopher Hogwood, with cello soloists Honor Belsma and Anthony.
We have one more event to talk about for this 2019-20 season. Before we do, I'd like to point you to our auditorium's website, armstrongauditorium.org, where you can find more about this season, including ticket information. You can also follow Armstrong Auditorium on social media, and you can follow this program on social media at the handle Music4LifePCG. Okay, the final event of the 2019-20 season will be the world-renowned male chorus, Chanticleer, performing Thursday, April 23, 2020. Their program will represent a journey around the world, featuring sea shanties from either side of the Atlantic and the Portuguese and Spanish colonization in Asia. The program includes both folk and contemporary works from China, Japan, Korea, and Samoan culture, as well as works by Chen Yi and Grammy-nominated composer Jo Tian. Chanticleer brings the voyage to a close with a set of beautiful Hawaiian songs evocative of the limitless Pacific horizon.
To close out today's episode of Music for Life, let's hear a great example of a well-known Scottish folk song sung by Chanticleer. This is Loch Lomond. I hope you enjoy, and I hope to see you soon at Armstrong. You have been listening to Music for Life, a production of KPCG 101.3 on the FM Dial in Edmond, Oklahoma. From the Herbert W. Armstrong College campus, I'm Ryan Malone. Thanks for joining me.