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Music

Jamming with the SPCO

Tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano improvises with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in the U.S. premiere of "A Man Descending."

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Conscience vs. McCarthy: the political Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland has been synonymous with American music for more than 60 years. But during the McCarthy era, not even the composer of Lincoln Portrait and Fanfare for the Common Man--two WWII morale boosters--was immune from Sen. Joseph McCarthy's questions about political affiliations in the thirties and forties. Classical musical host Bill Morelock traces the activities of Aaron Copland the composer and Copland the citizen leading up to a cancelled performance and an offical grilling in 1953.

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Jeremy Walker continues his jazz mission

It's been a little over a year since saxophonist Jeremy Walker's downtown St. Paul jazz club, Brilliant Corners, closed its doors. Walker is continuing his mission of developing jazz in the Twin Cities with the new Jazz is NOW! Orchestra.

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The career path of J. S. Bach; from Arnstadt to Leipzig

Even geniuses have have not-so-great jobs like the common folk. Open Air host Bill Morelock wonders how J. S. Bach could have created so many well-crafted pieces while he labored long days in undesirable employment.

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Prospect Park Players end musical adventures

One of the Twin Cities' most highly regarded chamber music groups, the Prospect Park Players, is calling it quits this weekend after one final concert.

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Singing Hebrew along the Yellow Brick Road

For the past few years the Talmud Torah School in St. Paul has presented Hebrew language versions of popular musicals. This week they're doing a newly-translated "Wizard of Oz."

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Bob Dylan at the crossroads

The idea of writing an entire book around a single song would be considered a daunting task by most authors. Greil Marcus just thought it was a bad idea. However, after first refusing the project, Griel began to realize the cultural impact of "Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads."

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Rare keyboard surfaces in St. Paul

Next time you're poking through grandma's attic you might keep your eyes open for one of these. A rare American-built clavichord made 244 years ago in Pennsylvania has popped up in the collection of the St. Paul Schubert Club. Curators say the instrument is priceless.

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Singing "The Grapes of Wrath"

John Steinbeck's classic novel of Depression-era America, "The Grapes of Wrath," has been adapted for the stage and film. Now the Minnesota Opera is in the process of turning the Pulitzer Prize-winning book into a full-scale opera.

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Twin Cities orchestras host rare performance of "War Requiem"

The Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra will join forces for a performance of a monumental, and rarely heard work. This weekend Osmo Vanska will conduct the orchestras, and choral forces including the Minnesota Chorale, for a performance of Englishman Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem." The work, written in 1961, mixes the traditional Latin Mass for the dead with anti-war poetry by Wilfred Owen. Mary King Osterfield, 93, is a violist and teacher who lives in Moorhead. She played in the premiere of the piece in 1962. Osterfield spoke to MPR's Tom Crann.
by Tom Crann

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