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Music

Mark Adamo's "Little Women"

Composer Mark Adamo paid a visit to the Twin Cities for the Minnesota premiere of his opera Little Women. Based on the beloved novel by Louisa May Alcott, Little Women is a glimpse into the life of one New England family during the Civil War.

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Sound Irish, 2002

Flutist James Galway, perhaps Ireland's most acclaimed musical ambassador, and an engaging storyteller, reviews his long and distinguished career. We visit Ireland's noted Killaloe Festival, the picturesque summer home of the Irish Chamber Orchestra. It's held in the medieval St. Flannan's Cathedral on the banks of the River Shannon, and has garnered international acclaim. Sounds Irish includes a performance of a Corelli concerto by the ICO with musical director Nicholas McGegan conducting, as recorded at the Killaloe Festival.

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Bach's bible

Dr. Thomas Rossin, musical director of Twin Cities-based chamber choir and orchestra Exultate, recently brought Bach's bible to the MPR studios. He has done his doctoral dissertation on the discovery of this treasure and on the nearly 400 notations Bach made in the books.

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Instrumental Women: conducting business

In 1900 it was virtually unheard of for a woman to play in an orchestra—let alone conduct one. A century later, audiences are still surprised when the person who steps onto the podium is female. Instrumental Women: Conducting Business looks at the challenges facing women in the field of conducting—from education to community outreach.

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Copland: 10 x 10

Over the years, Aaron Copland has been hailed as the quintessential American composer by everyone from Leonard Bernstein, who said, "He's the best we've got," to director Spike Lee, who paid musical tribute to Copland in his films. November 2000 marks the centenary of his birth - 100 years of Copland. To mark the occasion, we've come up with 10 nuggets about 10 aspects of the composer - 100 audio clips, anecdotes, quotes, and more.

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Giving Thanks, 2001

LIKE YOUR THANKSGIVING FEAST, Giving Thanks combines traditional fare with unexpected delights. For Thanksgiving 2001, we've invited some wonderful guests to the program, including Patrick Stewart, Michael Feldman, W. S. Merwin, Katy Butler, Bill Holm, and Ellen Kushner.

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The hair-owing tale of a genius

Beethoven's music has intrigued and delighted us for 200 years, but who would have thought that his hair would endure for nearly two centuries as well? This improbable longevity is the inspiration for Beethoven's Hair, Russell Martin's skillfully written biography that weaves stories of the composer's humorous but sometimes-gloomy life with the journey a lock of his hair began after his death in 1827.

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A concert of remembrance and reconciliation

From the decimation of Nanjing, China, through the destruction of Nagasaki, Japan, to the rending of Korea at the 38th parallel, the people of Asia have experienced the horrors of war throughout much of the 20th century. To help humanity come to terms with it all, Young Nam Kim, artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota, commissioned four composers—three of Asian ancestry—to each create a work of remembrance and reconciliation. Their works were presented in Hun Qiao: Bridge of Souls, a concert that pays homage to the victims and survivors of war atrocities and to their descendants.

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You've got (Mozart's) mail

Mozart would have loved email. It would have been the perfect outlet for his frenzied, frequent, and very personal communications. His unorthodox spelling and scattershot style would have been well served by todays more immediate and chatty electronic medium. (And I have no trouble at all imagining him firing off the latest awful jokes to his father, sister, and cousin, from a laptop on the road.) Im convinced of this after reading the composers correspondence in Robert Spaethlings smart and revealing "Mozarts Letters, Mozarts Life" (W.W. Norton, 2000).

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Ransom of the Opera

When I hear Dvorák's "Song to the Moon" from Rusalka I nearly believe I can fly. To experience Beverly Sills singing "Mariettas Lied" from Korngold's Die Tode Stadt fills me with an indescribable longing. Music like this brings feelings of "other-worldliness," the idea that a place exists where harsh reality is shut out and quiet beauty rules, even in the most unusual of story lines. Ann Patchett's lovely novel Bel Canto (HarperCollins, 2001) is filled with just this kind of magic.

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