WFMT's "Critic-at-Large" Andrew Patner presents an hour-long weekly program of conversation about the arts each Monday night at 10:00 pm. E-mail Andrew
By listener request, we present the remainder of the newly-released, world première recording of the 1960/1961 work Spiegel (Mirror) by the Austrian composer Friedrich Cerha (the man who prepared the completed version of Alban Berg's Lulu and the winner of the 2011 Salzburg State Music Prize).
We feature new releases of compositions by the winners of the 2011 biannual Salzburg State Music Prize: veteran and pioneering Austrian composer Friedrich Cerha (the man who prepared the completed version of Alban Berg's Lulu) and the young, Berlin-based Spaniard Elena Mendoza.
Monday August 16, 2010
University of Illinois anthropologist and historian Matti Bunzl, a longtime member of the Illinois Humanities Council, has just been named the new artistic director of the Chicago Humanities Festival which presents its events this year in October and November.
Andrew spoke with Bunzl in early 2008 to discuss his then recent pamphlet, Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: Hatreds Old and New in Europe.
The second of a new, two-part discussion with Michael Miner (Senior Editor of the Chicago Reader) and JohnConroy (Reporter) on the topic of the police abuse trial of former Chicago policeman John Burge.
The first of a new, two-part discussion with Michael Miner (Senior Editor of the Chicago Reader) and John Conroy (reporter) on the topic of the police abuse trial of former Chicago policeman John Burge.
We present "Lincoln and Music," a favorite from our series of Abraham Lincoln Reconsidered programs--a co-production with the Chicago History Museum with generous funding from the Motorola Foundation.
Andrew features music of modern and contemporary composers Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Richard Wernick, and David Rakowski from recent recordings by Augustin Hadelich, the Juilliard String Quartet, and Chicago pianist Amy Briggs.
Continued from last week, Andrew presents the last of his two-part conversation with music with British filmmaker Phil Grabsky--[which was] first broadcast last summer when WFMT co-presented the documentary's U.S. premiere.T
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Beethoven Festival with principal conductor Bernard Haitink runs through June 20 at Orchestra Hall.
Monday May 31, 2010
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Beethoven Festival with principal conductor Bernard Haitink begins Wednesday, June 2 and runs through June 20 at Orchestra Hall. Among the supporting activities of the festival, the CSO will present a free screening of Phil Grabsky's hit film In Search Of Beethoven on Friday June 4 at 6:30 p.m.
To whet your interest in the film and the Festival, Andrew presents a re-broadcast of his two-part conversation with music with British filmmaker Phil Grabsky--[which was] first broadcast last summer when WFMT co-presented the documentary's U.S. premiere.
Andrew presents the radio premiere of a new work by the young American composer Timothy Andres.
His "Shy and Mighty," a suite for two pianos, was just released last week as a CD on the Nonesuch label. At the age of 25, Andres is also one of the performers of this intriguing ten-part composition.
In a rebroadcast by popular demand, Andrew continues his survey of the new audio collections The Spoken Word -- British and American Writers from the British Library and the BBC.
This show includes rare audio excerpts of G.K. Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolkien, Rebecca West, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, and a surprise "guest" who has been a longtime favorite of WFMT listeners.
We present a rebroadcast of the first of our series of occasional explorations of British Library CD sets entitled "The Spoken Word," with a sampling of the voices of great British writers from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Virginia Woolf.
Andrew's guest is Alaska-based composer John Luther Adams. Adams's music was recently heard on the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's MusicNOW series and his work "Dark Waves" will have its major orchestral debut by the CSO this fall.
Andrew is joined by Brooklyn composer/singer/songwriter Corey Dargel for conversation with music from his two-disc release Someone Will Take Care of Me.
Our guest is Italian conductor and Rachmaninoff champion Gianandrea Noseda, chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester, England, and music director of Turin's Teatro Reggio opera house.
Andrew's guest is British opera director Stephen Langridge, who's first North American production, a staging of Hector Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust with Susan Graham, Paul Groves, and John Relyea, is now running at Lyric Opera of Chicago through March 17.
Noseda recently made his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut leading the first-ever CSO performances of Rachmaninoff's 1895 First Symphony in D minor, Op. 13.
Andrew's guest is veteran actor Brian Dennehy, winner of two Tony Awards for Best Lead Actor in a Play for projects that originated at Chicago's Goodman Theatre.
Dennehy is currently appearing at The Goodman in an acclaimed double-bill of Eugene O'Neill's "Hughie" and Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape." The performances run through this Sunday February 28.
Andrew talks with architect and UIC architecture professor Sharon Haar and artist and UIC photography professor Doug Ischar about the idea of "queer space."
Haar and Ischar are the speakers this Thursday evening at the first 2010 Out @ CHM program at the Chicago History Museum on the subject of "Queer Spaces: Past and Present."
Andrew presents the second of a new exclusive two-part conversation with Chicago Symphony Orchestra Conductor Emeritus and WFMT artist of the month Pierre Boulez.
Mr. Boulez is leading programs of and being saluted all month by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Orchestra Hall and on tour to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Carnegie Hall in New York in anticipation of his 85th birthday this March.
Andrew presents the first of a new exclusive two-part conversation with Chicago Symphony Orchestra Conductor Emeritus and WFMT artist of the month Pierre Boulez.
In the second of our two-part conversation, Andrew speaks with conductor Emmanuel Villaume, who is in-town to conduct Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of Lehar's The Merry Widow at the Civic Opera House through January 16th, 2010.
Andrew speaks with conductor Emmanuel Villaume, who is in-town to conduct Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of Lehar's The Merry Widow at the Civic Opera House through January 16th, 2010.
Andrew's guest is French-born pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet.
He was recently in town to perform the Ravel Concerto for the Left Hand with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor Bernard Haitink and received critical and audience acclaim.
Andrew talks with young American conductor Erik Nielsen, 2009 Winner of a major grant of support from the Chicago-based Solti Foundation U.S.
The Iowa-born Nielsen, kapellmeister of the Frankfurt Opera, has worked closely with such leading conductors as James Levine and Bernard Haitink, and discusses the challenges and expectations facing new conductors today.
Our guest is Michael Morgan, Music Director for 20 seasons of the Oakland East Bay Symphony, and longtime Assistant Conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Sir Georg Solti and Daniel Barenboim. Michael was in town to conduct the Chicago Sinfonietta at Orchestra Hall. He is a candidate to succeed the Sinfonietta's founding Music Director Paul Freeman, who will retire at the end of this season.
Andrew speaks with Robert J. Richards about Darwin-Chicago 2009, an international conference taking place this weekend at The University of Chicago commemorating the 200th anniversary this year of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's The Origin of Species.
Andrew presents a new interview with Chicago Symphony Orchestra music director designate Riccardo Muti recorded just last week. Maestro Muti discusses his views on Bruckner, Verdi, and Brahms as he prepares for four performances of Brahms's German Requiem this week and next at Orchestra Hall.
We present a rebroadcast of our conversation with Chicago Symphony Orchestra Music Director Designate, Riccardo Muti. (Recorded January 14, 2009 in the Conductor's Suite at Orchestra Hall)
October 5, 2009
No program due to the length of tonight's Lyric Opera broadcast.
Poet and translator Peter Cole on Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain. Cole translated, edited and introduced THE DREAM OF THE POEM: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain 950-1492 (Princeton University Press).
With Andrew following the CSO on their tour of Europe, we revisit when Critical Thinking went on the road with the CSO earlier this year on their Far East Asia tour.
In honor of Labor Day, Andrew offers a rebroadcast of his memorial celebration of Joe Glazer, "Labor's Troubador," who died three years ago this month at the age of 88.
Andrew talks with poet and essayist Fanny Howe, recipient of the 2009 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from The Poetry Foundation, publishers of Poetry magazine. (Rebroadcast from May, 2009)
For the end (or is it the beginning) of summer - Andrew presents a new program of music of everyone from Christopher O'Riley to Nikolai Medtner, Lotte Lenya to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
Andrew speaks with author and music critic for the New Yorker, Alex Ross. Since we last talked, his book The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century has been launched in paperback by Picador and he's won a MacArthur genius award. (Rebroadcast from November of 2008)
Andrew's guest is Tashkent-born pianist Yefim Bronfman. Bronfman has two appearances coming up at Ravinia Festival: On Sunday July 5th at 5:00pm he joins Pinchas Zukerman and the Zukerman Chamber Players in the Martin Theatre for the first Mozart Piano Quartet and the great Schumann Piano Quintet. On Tuesday night July 7 at 8:00pm, Mr. Bronfman is the soloist in the Brahms Second Piano Concerto for the first Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert of Ravinia 2009. James Conlon conducts. This repeat broadcast was recorded with Yefim Bronfman in Chicago last fall when he was appearing with the CSO at Orchestra Hall
Andrew's guest is Dutch violinist Janine Jansen who finished her run with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra this weekend at Orchestra Hall as part of the Dvorak Festival.
Andrew talks with poet and critic Ange Mlinko who last month was named winner of the third Randall Jarrell Award in Poetry Criticism from the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine.
The second of a two-part interview with University of Chicago Professor Emeritus of History and of Art History Neil Harris and discuss his book The Chicagoan: A Lost Magazine of the Jazz Age from University of Chicago Press. (Rebroadcast)
Andrew's guest is Dutch mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn, who was in town recently to perform Mahler's Rückert-Lieder with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Bernard Haitink. (Matt DeStefano fills-in for Andrew)
Andrew is joined by conductor Gustavo Dudamel
to speak about the Simón
Bolívar Youth Orchestra
of Venezuela's new CD
of works of Tchaikovsky which includes his Symphony No. 5 and Francesca da Rimini.
This is in conjuction with Dudamel and the
Bolívar's music education residency in Chicago this week.
(This program's interview was recorded in January of 2009 at
Orchestra Hall in Chicago.)
A conversation with Chicago Symphony Orchestra Conductor Emeritus Pierre Boulez who is in town to conduct a number of programs at Orchestra Hall through March 9.
Andrew Patner and Matt DeStefano present more of their audio from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's 2009 Far East Asia Tour, including a press conference with CSO President Deborah Rutter and Maestro Bernard Haitink at The Egg in Beijing, as well as the second installment of conversations with musicians at a Shanghai Grand Theatre cocktail party, and some surprises along the way.
From locations in Japan, Hong Kong and Shanghai, China - happenings from the 2009 CSO Far East Asia Tour with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Includes an post-Grammy-win interview in Shanghai as well as a meeting with arts administrators in Hong Kong with CSO President Deborah Rutter. Also, audio postcards from the train in Tokyo and the Temple Street Night Market in Hong Kong, as well as a few other surprises.
Andrew is joined by Lyric Opera of Chicago chorus master Donald Nally, discussing and playing recordings of Nally's Philadelphia-based contemporary choral group, The Crossing.
Andrew's guest is internationally renowned Italian conductor Riccardo Muti, who will become the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's 10th music director in the 2010/2011 season.
Andrew's guest is Gustavo Dudamel, the phenomenal young Venezuelan conductor. Andrew had the exclusive North American interview with the next music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic when he burst onto the U.S. scene two years ago. This second exclusive interview was recorded during Dudamel's concert week with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra this month.
January 5, 2009
Andrew presents his mix of music for the New Year. This episode is not posted due to music copyright restrictions.
Andrew's guest is Gustavo Dudamel, the 27-year-old music director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela who is this week's guest conductor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The interview, a Chicago exclusive, was taped on April 3, 2007 before the surprise news on Sunday April 8 that Dudamel would become the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic beginning with the 2009-2010 season. (Rebroadcast)
Andrew continues his survey of the new audio collections The Spoken Word -- British and American Writers from the British Library and the BBC.
This show includes rare audio excerpts of G.K. Chesterton, J.R.R. Tolkien, Rebecca West, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, and a surprise "guest" who has been a longtime favorite of WFMT listeners.
Andrew speaks with author and music critic for the New Yorker, Alex Ross. Since we last talked, his book The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century has been launched in paperback by Picador and he's won a MacArthur genius award.
Andrew's guest is Francesca Zambello, stage director of Lyric Opera of Chicago's first-ever presentations of George Gershwin's PORGY AND BESS, beginning Tuesday night, November 18th, with a live opening night broadcast starting at 7:15pm on 98.7WFMT and wfmt.com.
Andrew speaks with Tashkent-born pianist Yefim Bronfman about his career.
Bronfman, who just had a great success in Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,
returns to Orchestra Hall on Sunday afternoon November 9 at 3:00pm for a program with Emanuel Ax of two-piano works by Mozart, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, and William Bolcom.
Andrew's 2005 interview with the one and only, Studs Terkel.
"It is the only interview that I know of done with Studs where he discusses in detail his passion for opera and opera singers including Rosa Raisa, Lotte Lehmann, and "his" diva, Claudia Muzio. Studs also talks about his disc jockey days in general and the music editions of The Studs Terkel Program on WFMT. We play opera scenes with Raisa, Lehmann, Muzio, and a song by Woody Guthrie as well." -Andrew
Andrew begins an occasional series of broadcasts from the new British Library CD sets entitled "The Spoken Word," with a sampling of the voices of great British writers from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Virginia Woolf.
A conversation with music with Emmanuel Villaume, who conducts the Lyric Opera of Chicago in Massenet's Manon at the Civic Opera House through October 31.
The second of a two-part conversation with New Orleans clarinetist Evan Christopher and filmmaker Valerie Shields, whose current project "Follow The Second Line" follows Evan's life, both musical and otherwise, in his own post-hurricane world. (Rebroadcast)
Andrew is joined by composer/arranger/conductor/ musician Nico Muhly for conversation with music, in an interview recorded in an eerie, concrete room in Chicago's Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center.
Andrew's guest is Robert Falls, Artistic Director of Chicago's Goodman Theatre, in the second of a lively two-part conversation with music. (Rebroadcast from May, 2007)
Andrew speaks with poet and Princeton English professor Esther Schor on her book Emma Lazarus, a part of the "Jewish Encounters" series of Nextbook and Schocken. Lazarus was one of the great women of nineteenth-century American letters and her most famous poem is mounted at the base of the Statue of Liberty. (Rebroadcast)
A program of music by the pioneering and independent 20th century Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi [pronounced gia--CHEEN-toh SHAYL-si], 1905-1988. (Rebroadcast)
(Rebroadcast) Poet and translator Peter Cole on Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain. Cole recently translated, edited and introduced THE DREAM OF THE POEM: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain 950-1492 (Princeton University Press).
Andrew will rebroadcast a 2004 interview with music with Kay Ryan who has just been appointed the 16th United States Poet Laureate. Andrew talked with Ryan when she was in Chicago to receive the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from Poetry magazine.
New recordings of vocal music from Sweden, Lorea, Kurt Weill (the first recording of the reconstructed 1928 Das Berlinerr Requiem), and Franz Schreker.
A WFMT exclusive! Andrew talks with Chicago Symphony Orchestra principal conductor Bernard Haitink about Mahler, Shostakovich, and life. Recorded in May in anticipation of Maestro Haitink's Ravinia debut with the CSO on July 16 (Rebroadcast).
Part 2 of 2: Art Institute of Chicago director James Cuno joins us for conversation regarding controversies about ownership of archeological treasures and objects. His new book Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage is available now from Princeton University Press.
Part 1 of 2: Art Institute of Chicago director James Cuno joins us for conversation regarding controversies about ownership of archeological treasures and objects. His new book Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage is available now from Princeton University Press.
For the Memorial Day holiday, a program of American piano music - Works for solo piano by Roger Sessions and Ralph Shapey from a new Bridge Records CD by David Holzman. (Episode not available for download due to copyright issues)
Part 2 of 2: The second of a two-part conversation with New Orleans clarinetist Evan Christopher and filmmaker Valerie Shields, whose current project Follow The Second Line" follows Evan's life, both musical and otherwise, in his own post-Hurricane Katrina world .
Conversation with music with Unsuk Chin. Her new piece for full orchestra Rocana, Sanskrit for "space of light," was played by the CSO and Kent Nagano April 24-29 at Orchestra Hall.
Part 1 of 2: Chicago curators and art dealers John Corbett and Jim Dempsey walk Andrew through the exhibition Big Picture: A New View of Painting in Chicago at the Chicago History Museum, 1601 North Clark Street, through August 3, 2008.
Part two of a two-part conversation with music with Pulitzer Prize-winning lyricist Sheldon Harnick, whose Fiorello! runs at TimeLine Theatre Company April 13 thru June 15.
Part one of a two-part conversation with music with Pulitzer Prize-winning lyricist Sheldon Harnick, whose Fiorello! runs at TimeLine Theatre Company April 13 thru June 15.
Andrew and museum director Anthony Hirschel have a walkthrough of the exhibit "Looking and Listening in Nineteenth Century France," now in its final week at the Smart Museum of Art at The University of Chicago.
Andrew speaks with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, who is in town portraying the role of Rosina in Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of "The Barber of Seville" through March 22.
Andrew speaks with Chicago composer Howard Sandroff and pianist Abraham Stokman about Sandroff's compositions and upcoming concerts of his music in Evanston and Hyde Park.
Andrew's guest is University of Illinois anthropologist and historian Matti Bunzl. They discuss his recent pamphlet, "Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia: Hatreds Old and New in Europe."
Part I of a two-part conversation and music with Chicago Symphony Orchestra conductor emeritus Pierre Boulez, now between weeks of his winter residency with the CSO.
Tonight's previously scheduled program featuring Alex Ross will be rescheduled. Instead, Andrew Patner is joined by Norm Pellegrini, Goodman Theatre's Roche Schulfer, and others in remembering the legendary Chicago press agent, performing arts subscription advocate, and Lyric opera fixture DANNY NEWMAN who died Saturday night at his home in Lincolnwood at age 88.
Poet and translator Peter Cole on Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain. Cole recently translated, edited and introduced "THE DREAM OF THE POEM: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain 950-1492" (Princeton University Press: pup.princeton.edu).
Part two of a conversation with acclaimed and iconoclastic Chicago architect STANLEY TIGERMAN on his career spanning five decades and the alternative design school, Archeworks, that he co-founded. Featuring music by pianist Art Tatum.
November 5, 2007
LADY VALERIE SOLTI reflects on the legacy of her husband Sir Georg Solti ten years after his death and discusses the work of The Solti Foundation and its support for young musical artists.
October 29, 2007
Part 1 of a two-part conversation with renowned architect Stanley Tigerman
Andrew samples two new releases of music by the late Ralph Shapey
[1921-2002], long the dean of Chicago composers, including a new recording by young
performers Miranda Cuckson, violin, and Blair McMillen, piano.
Renowned essayist, critic, editor, and short-story writer [and Chicagoan] Joseph Epstein discusses his new retrospective book of essays, IN A CARDBOARD BELT! Essays Personal, Literary, and Savage.
August 20, 2007 (Rebroadcast)
A program of music and conversation on the great American songwriter, composer, music historian, and essayist Alec WILDER whose centennial is being marked this year. Chicago musician, teacher, and conductor Richard Wyszynski recently presented an all-Wilder tribute concert at the Harold Washington Library Center. He is joined on the program by clarinetist Gail Schechter.
August 13, 2007 (Rebroadcast)
A program of music by the pioneering and independent 20th century Italian composer Giacinto SCELSI [pronounced gia--CHEEN-toh SHAYL-si], 1905-1988, who is currently the focus of two weeks of special concerts at this year's Salzburg Festival.
August 6, 2007 (Rebroadcast)
Through a combination of popular demand and Mr. Fleisher's upcoming Ravinia Festival concert appearance at the Martin Theatre with the Orion String Quartet on Thursday 09 August we will rebroadcast our recent Leon Fleisher interview program on this Monday 06 August from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. Chicago time on 98.7WFMT and wfmt.com.
WFMT will also broadcast excerpts of the interview during its regular broadcast schedule in the week leading up to the 09 August Ravinia appearance.
The original interview was conducted this spring in conjunction with Mr. Fleisher's receiving the Dushkin Award from the Music Institute of Chicago on May 2, 2007.
Leon Fleisher, a member of the faculty of Ravinia's Steans Institute for Young Artists, will perform with the Orion String Quartet in the Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34.
July 30, 2007
A preview of a concert this Friday at the Harold Washington Library showcasing the work of "unclassifiable" American composer, songwriter and arranger Alec Wilder.
(The free concert will be given Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 12:15pm in the auditorium of the Harold Washington Public Library, 400 South State Street, Chicago. For additional information, call 773-276-3762 or contact Richard Wyszynski, 851 North Leavitt Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60622-7116)
July 23, 2007 A program of music by the idiosyncratic 20th century Italian composer Giacinto SCELSI [gia--CHEEN-toh SHAYL-si], 1905-1988, who will be the focus of two weeks of special concerts at this year's Salzburg Festival next month.
Note from Andrew:
The composer I featured on Monday night was Giacinto SCELSI [1905-1988], an Italian who very much went his own way. The works I played, "Aion" [1961], "Pfhat" [1974], and "Konx-Om-Pax" [1969], were recorded on the French ACCORD label for the first time in 1988 under Swiss composer-conductor Jürg Wyttenbach.
Scelsi will be the focus of a major series of concerts in August, KONTINENT SCELSI, at this year's Salzburg Festival.
July 16, 2007 The second of a two-part conversation with music with American-born orchestra and opera conductor Kent Nagano. Download Interview
July 9, 2007 The first of a two-part conversation with music with American-born orchestra and opera conductor Kent Nagano. Download Interview
July 2, 2007
Andrew talks with Leon Fleisher, legendary pianist, pedagogue, and advocate for people with disabilities. Download Interview
June 25, 2007
Steve Levitt and Jimmy Tomasello, veteran guitar teachers at the Old Town School of Folk Music, join new executive director James "Bau" [pronounced as "paw"] Graves in the WFMT performance studio talking -- and plucking -- about the School's teaching programs and its spirit. Download Interview
June 18, 2007 Andrew welcomes teacher, musician, musicologist, and community organizer James "Bau" [pronounced "Baw," to rhyme with "paw"] Graves, new executive director of the Old Town School of Folk Music, for a lively hour of music and conversation. Download Interview
May 28, 2007
Andrew talks with members and directors of the Chicago Children's Choir in anticipation of the Choir's 50th Anniversary Gala Concert at the Civic Opera House and Alumni Reunion Concert at The Art Institute of Chicago
June 2 and 3.
May 21, 2007 Andrew's guest is multi-faceted conductor-arranger-composer and teacher Cliff Colnot in anticipation of the DePaul University Orchestra annual, free, spring concert Colnot will conduct at Orchestra Hall on May 30.
May 14, 2007 Andrew's guest is Robert Falls, marking his 20th anniversary as artistic director of Chicago's Goodman Theatre, in the second of a lively two-part conversation with music. Download Interview
May 7, 2007 Andrew presents an exclusive biographical interview with new Chicago Symphony Orchestra principal conductor Bernard Haitink, in anticipation of his CSO concerts May 10 to 15, and previews the new CSO-Resound release of Maestro Haitink's live recording of the Mahler Third Symphony. Download Interview
April 30, 2007
Andrew's guest is Robert Falls, marking his 20th anniversary as artistic director of Chicago's Goodman Theatre, in the first of a lively two-part conversation with music.
To download the MP3 of the interview, right-click on the link below and choose "Save Target As." (Mac users: control-click and choose "Download Linked File"). Download Part 1 of 2
April 16, 2007 and April 23
Parts I and II of a conversation with music with eminent pianist, scholar, and critic Charles Rosen who turns 80 next month. Download the Full Interview
April 9, 2007
Andrew's guest is Gustavo Dudamel, the 26-year-old music director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela who is this week's guest conductor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The interview, a Chicago exclusive, was taped on April 3 before the surprise news on Sunday April 8 that Dudamel would become the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic beginning with the 2009-2010 season.
To download MP3 of interview, right-click on link below and choose "Save Target As." (Mac users: control-click and choose "Download Linked File). Download the Full Interview
March 26, 2007 A rebroadcast of a December 2006 conversation with M. Boulez about his new relationship with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus. We'll also hear his 1992 recording of Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra with the CSO.
March 12, 2007 WHO'S AFRAID OF GYÖRGY LIGETI? The first in an occasional series of programs on modern and contemporary composers looks at the Hungarian iconoclast who died last year at 83.
March 5, 2007 Part two of a two-part commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the death of legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini — a conversation with acclaimed music writer Harvey Sachs, Toscanini's biographer and the editor and translator of THE LETTERS OF ARTURO TOSCANINI, just republished in paperback by The University of Chicago Press. The University of Chicago Press
February 26, 2007 Part one of a two-part commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the death of legendary conductor Arturo Toscanini — a conversation with acclaimed music writer Harvey Sachs, Toscanini's biographer and the editor and translator of THE LETTERS OF ARTURO TOSCANINI, just republished in paperback by The University of Chicago Press.
February 19, 2007 A special music program for the Fine Arts Circle membership drive:
I'll be replaying my one-hour 2005 Bobby Short memorial tribute program tonight after 10 pm on 98.7WFMT and wfmt.com both for something that might fit in with the current Fine Arts Circle membership drive on the station and as a memorial tribute as well to Whitney Balliett, the great New Yorker jazz and popular music critic and profile writer for exactly half a century, who died this February 1 at age 80.
It was Balliett's columns and articles, and books collecting them, that were among my important introductions as a boy to so many performers and song composers who would become my own heroes — Mabel Mercer, Alec Wilder, Marian McPartland, Bobby Short, et al. — and it was his style of writing — especially in his extensive interview/profiles — that so influenced my own style of and method for putting many of my pieces together.
I'll be doing a tribute specifically to Whitney Balliett soon, but as I get so many requests to repeat the Bobby Short show, originally broadcast shortly after Short's own death at 80 in on March 21, 2005, this seemed an appropriate step for now.
I recently re-read Balliett's classic New Yorker "Profile" of Bobby Short — "The Human Sound" from December 26, 1970, when Balliett was 44 and Short was 46 and had been at the Café Carlyle for just over two years. [I can still see the ink wash illustration in my mind's eye.] It is, of course, a beautiful piece of work. But it is also interesting in how it captures a time, the early 1970s, when the heyday of the American popular song was, in the words of one of Mr. Short's favorite songs, "so near, and yet so far." It is interesting, too, to read again of how many then-contemporary songs Bobby Short performed in those days and to contrast this with how his act developed and changed — and did not change — over the 34 years at The Carlyle :
New Yorker Profile of Bobby Short
At some point, I'll figure out how to put my own two Sun-Times profiles of Bobby Short — based on several visits with him at his Sutton Place apartment [in 1970 he was still living above Carnegie Hall] as well as his Carlyle performances — online.
February 12, 2007 Chicago author Peter M. Ascoli talks with Andrew about his new biography of his grandfather JULIUS ROSENWALD: The Man Who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced the Cause of Black Education in the American South.
February 5, 2007 The second of two programs with Irwin Weil, Professor of Russian Language and Literature at Northwestern University, on Russian poetry and music.
Dear Friends,
Thanks for listening and for your comments!
Here are details on the recording of E. Onegin used on last night's Critical Thinking program with Irwin Weil. Of course we did not hear Hvorostovsky or Shicoff as Professor Weil provided Onegin and Lensky's parts himself! But you did hear the Sicilian [!] Nuccia Focile as Tatiana and Francis Egerton as M. Triquet along w/ the Orchestre de Paris and Semyon Bychkov (who will be conducting the CSO at Orchestra Hall 22, 23, 24, and 25 February).
It is my understanding that this is regarded by many of the best of the modern complete recordings of the work.
Tchaikovsky — Eugene Onegin (1879)
PHILIPS 438 235-2 or 475 7017 [re-issue]
Orchestre de Paris/Semyon Bychkov conducting
Recorded 1992/3
Nuccia Focile — Tatiana
Dimitri Hvorostovsky — Eugene Onegin
Sarah Walker — Madame Larina
Olga Borodina — Olga
Irina Arkhipova — Filipyevna
Neil Shicoff — Lensky
Alexander Anisimov — Prince Gremin
Francis Egerton — Monsieur Triquet
Herve Hennequin — A captain
St. Petersburg Chamber Choir
Orchestre de Paris Monday January 29
The first of two programs with Irwin Weil, Professor of Russian Language and Literature at Northwestern University, on Russian poetry and music.
January 22, 2007 Andrew talks with this year's recipients of the annual Joyce Awards presented by the Joyce Foundation to artists of color creating new work with Midwest arts institutions.
January 16, 2007 The second of two programs with music with University of Chicago musicologist Philip Gossett on his new book Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera (University of Chicago Press).
January 8, 2007 The first of two programs with music with University of Chicago musicologist Philip Gossett on his new book Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera (University of Chicago Press).
December 4, 2007 This week Andrew's guest is Chicago Symphony Orchestra conductor emeritus Pierre Boulez in the first of two new conversations with music in which the pioneering composer and acclaimed conductor reflects on recent programs and his new position with the CSO.
November 27, 2007
This Monday night November 27 at 10 p.m. on 98.7WFMT Radio Chicago and wfmt.com Andrew will talk with theatre artist and opera director Mary Zimmerman about her production of ARGONAUTIKA: The Voyage of Jason and the Argonauts with Lookingglass Theatre Company and her upcoming productions at the Metropolitan Opera.
Argonautika runs through December 23 at the Water Tower Water Works, 821 North Michigan Avenue at Pearson. Lookingglass Theatre Company
November 20, 2007
Andrew will talk with poet and Princeton English professor Esther Schor on her new book Emma Lazarus, a part of the "Jewish Encounters" series of Nextbook and Schocken. Lazarus was one of the great women of nineteenth-century American letters and her most famous poem is mounted at the base of the Statue of Liberty. Nextbook Schocken Books
Listen to Andrew Patner's latest Critic's Choice commentaries online
Studs discusses his book AND THEY ALL SANG: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey.
"It is the only interview that I know of done with Studs where he discusses in detail his passion for opera and opera singers including Rosa Raisa, Lotte Lehmann, and "his" diva, Claudia Muzio. Studs also talks about his disc jockey days in general and the music editions of The Studs Terkel Program on WFMT. We play opera scenes with Raisa, Lehmann, Muzio, and a song by Woody Guthrie as well." -Andrew
To download an MP3 file of this interview, right-click on link below (Mac users control-click).
