Haydn Variations Score

Friday in the 10 o'clock hour, we're hearing the Haydn Variations of Brahms. Use this link to download a free score!

http://www.free-scores.com/download-sheet-music.php?pdf=2032

A Memorial to Phil Blum

Philip Blum (1932-2009)

In 1955, Phil Blum played for Fritz Reiner and Janos Starker. He had been a member of the Chicago Symphony cello section ever since.

A Tribute to Phil Blum, CSO cellist 1955-2009

Weilerstein Trio

Here's a fun interview with cellist Alisa Weilerstein.
(Source: http://www.cello.org/Newsletter/Articles/weilerstein/weilerstein.htm)

A Ballet for Martha

Appalachian Spring was commissioned for dancer and choreographer Martha Graham with funds from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation. Mrs. Coolidge, who was no relation to Calvin Coolidge, provided the funding for the construction of an auditorium at the Library of Congress, in addition to endowing a concert series that was to be (and continues to be) free to the public. "A Ballet for Martha" was premiered in the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library in 1944. Graham christened it "Appalachian Spring." Here is a web address to view the rehearsal score Copland provided for the dancers' pianist. The Coolidge is an intimate space. The original score called for 13 instruments: double string quartet, bass, flute, clarinet, bassoon, and piano


http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.200153917/default.html

In Loving Memory

The Memorial Service for Philip Blum took place on the stage of Orchestra Hall. Occupying the space of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, attendees faced the darkened hall. So many people wanted to play for Phil, it was impossible to accommodate them. It was decided the members of his section would provide the music. With their backs to the empty house, they played Bach arrangements in groups of four. At first people milled about. Gradually, it was the voice of the cello that caused a uniform stillness. At the conclusion of each piece, players carried their instruments away and four others took their place. Everybody needed to play for Phil. The cellos enveloped us in the most exquisite poetry, while filling our hearts with loss. In the last of these quartets, Phil's life-long colleague, Lenny Chausow, took his seat after years of retirement.

In some ways, a performer's repartee with the audience was absent. The cellists' eyes darted from one another to negotiate phrases and cut-offs, but it felt like the person for whom they played was not in the room, at least not in a physical sense. They were burying one of their own.

At the edge of the stage, under a spotlight, was Phil's cello leaning against his chair with his bow across the seat. A burst of white roses took his place.

I didn't know Phil Blum as an artist. He was my husband's godfather. In more recent years, a friendship that had started in high school between Phil and my father-in-law, had grown more distant perhaps, but Phil was part of the fabric of my life. I attended the weddings of his son and daughter. I remember when one of the young couples was told they couldn't have children. I remember when children came anyway. I know his brother Rich, a wag/violist from the Pro Arte Quartet. I remember the old stories: a road trip to Colorado, life in the Service, the time my husband, as a youngster, got to room with Phil on a CSO tour. Even with little contact, one learns to love someone from afar, just because his ups and downs are a topic at the dinner table.

I'll never forget my first impression of Phil. His daughter's rehearsal dinner was at Bub City, a rollicking Country Western Bar on Weed Street. Phil looked the part, all decked out in cowboy boots, collar unbuttoned, a large gold chain around his wrist. He was a longhair--a completely different sort of guy from my rather formal in-laws. At CSO concerts, Phil's mop of steely hair and that gold chain peaking out at the cuff always made me smile.

And then there was the cancer. We would get frantic phone calls from my in-laws, "time has run out." And then months later, we would look down at the stage to see Phil back in the cello section. One by one his peers retired, but Phil's odyssey with sickness and remission went on for twelve years. At times he lost his mop and his color went ashen, but Phil kept playing. It seemed improbable--impossible--as months turned to years, that Phil kept playing.

Phil Blum was the most unassuming person. He was quiet, but grinned a lot. He seemed completely unaffected by his talent. He loved his home in Michigan. He was a regular around the card table in the musicians' lounge. Yet there are few great performers of the last half-century who have not shared the stage with Phil Blum. He was the last of the Reiner era. He inspired his colleagues, not by bluster or by posturing, but by quietly doing his job at an exceptionally high level?and that he did for fifty-four years.

Somehow the cello playing at the memorial service said more than all the heartfelt words. Every time the music started again, the people, his colleagues--everyone wept openly. They say it was the cello that kept him going. I've known Phil's life had turbulence. There were dark and despairing times in which he walked along the edge. But the sweetness and joy expressed at that memorial service left no doubt: Phil Blum departed this world as he had played in it: with grace, dignity and love all around.

West Side Story

This is a fantastic companion to our Friday morning broadcast of excerpts from West Side Story. Check out this link for a view of music in Bernstein's hand as well as notes written by Jerome Robbins.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/westsidestory/rumble/

There's another connection between this performance and the Library. It so happens the Kreisler Guarneri del Jesu lives there. Joshua Bell is said to be "in love" with that instrument and stops by the Music Division to play on it from time to time.

Fountains of Rome

Triton Fountain (Second Movement of Respighi)


Trevi Fountain (Third Movement of Respighi)

Gershwin Self Portrait

This comes from the collection at the Library of Congress.

Everyday Music

These days, you can almost partition your time by the music that's playing. Take our family Labor Day weekend, for example. We decided to go camping in Western Wisconsin. Vic chose the Shostakovich Seventh for driving music. Gregory boasted to little brother, "You don't even know what this music is." He tapped and hummed and drummed his way up the Northwest Tollway. Mr. Bernstein was really grooving when the dog threw up in my lap. We disagreed whether the ear-crushing CSO had contributed to the dog's distress, but turned it down a bit and got almost to Madison.

Next Vic chose the Mahler Eighth. It's a highly complex piece that opens as if it had started an hour before. Vic was talking to me about the integration of Goethe's tale, when Gabe got inspired. It must be said, Gabe whistles in the piccolo range. It flowed from his lips, LOUD and SHRILL, as if he were on a mountaintop--except it wasn't a mountaintop; it was the narrow confines of a car. Fortunately, he was watching the cornfields, and couldn't see me laughing.

The approach to the Wisconsin Dells, minus Joshua Trees, looks something like the road to Vegas. The scenery is raucous with billboards: "Bob Bartlett's Exploratorium!" "Shows Nightly!" "World's Largest..." One had to wonder how often, if at all, the Mahler Eighth had been soundtrack to such a sight. (In fact it brought back a memory of traversing Puerto Rico and finding Mahler on the radio. Suddenly as the Caribbean lay at our feet, Chicago was a lot closer: they were presenting our own orchestra and a voice from a few desks over, my colleague Peter Van de Graaff).

Back in Wisconsin, I started to ask Vic a camping question when he hushed me. Trying not to sound testy, he asked if it could wait until the music was over, 1,000 performances later. I could see he and the noisy boys were in for a few battles.

After many miles of 'farm belt meets Vegas,' Vic broke the silence, "Here come the harps. They've been sitting there all this time and these are their first notes."

Now pinks and purples streaked the sky above the towering corn stalks. I watched the GPS on my iPhone, praying the Symphony would end before we passed the last Starbucks.

At the campground, we pitched our tents among outsized RVs and Packer fans. The Packer party's boombox went from Van Morrison to Jimmy Buffet. An Illinois contingency sneaked some Adele onto the playlist, which was cool. The following night, however, they glutted us with Country. It kind of worked while we were perfecting Jiffy Pop. I'm sorry to say, I don't have much use for Country music.

One song left a deep impression on my boys. It was exuberant, joyful, sung by a girl-next-door whose "heart and home...are just south of the Mason Dixon line." I thought, "Is this FOR REAL? People toast marshmallows to this?!" My twelve year old said, "Mom, isn't that the line the slaves had to cross to be free?" I probably should have stopped my boys from ridiculing that song for the rest of the trip, but I didn't.

The next morning, we packed up to Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony. It drew a few looks from fellow campers; but what a powerful statement, and so majestic out of doors.

Traffic coming back was abominable. I sang along with a lot of Police songs. We passed through Woodstock where Harold Ramis filmed "Groundhog Day." It's a cute town with Victorian architecture, dining and antiques. They're currently running an exhibition of painted carousel horses. Within the square is a network of speakers, which charmed walkers with a Brandenburg Concerto. Very sweet.

Excerpts from Summer Camp Journal

Day 1
Isiah told me he could "play any song on the trumpet."
I said, "Really? But, this was not something you could do two weeks ago."
He said, "Maybe I could. I just didn't know it."


Day 2
I barely remember the 7:00AM Revellie played on a trombone. After breakfast, the kids must have played their morning warm-ups. The band must have rehearsed. But I slept through the whole thing. Faintly, I noticed the camp bell ringing around 10:30AM, "Junior Rec!" (This is the crafts session for the younger campers). Moments later, an al fresco horn lesson began beside the paper-thin walls of my tent.

What an unusual instrument. Hearing a beginning player exaggerates qualities--the pinched tones vibrating through the coiled pipe--that you wouldn't notice in the hands of an experienced player. It seems an unlikely object for producing the pure, lyrical lines we know so well. It says a lot about a great horn player.

Anyway this is how my day began, with my friend Lisa Taylor coaxing horn tones out of a kid. The sounds are heartening and inspiring; something like spotting a fledgling: scruffy, wobbly, months from having adult plumage, but determined to try that new pair of wings. Wonderful. Next came coffee.


Day 3
Vocalise by Sergei Rachmaninov. Marcus has been coming here for several years. He plunges right into the middle of the pack, though the others figure out pretty quickly he's different. His speech is monotone, very precise and never colloquial. Today he played through the Vocalise on viola with piano accompaniment. This is how his heart speaks to others.

About Those Ring Shows

We've been working on a little in-house project with the Ring of the Nibelung programs, which we made several years ago for Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin. Here's a little behind-the-scenes account of those programs:

The Ring isn't exactly sacred, but it is a topic we approached with enormous care. The Ring of the Nibelung is among the most studied musical works in human history. This single week of Exploring Music produced more listener emails than any other; many listeners citing years and locales of Rings attended like medals of honor. Thank goodness for Bill McGlaughlin. His generous spirit and impeccable scholarship shepherds this series into seemingly unbounded territories. Each week, his insatiable love for music takes him through heaps of books, scores and recordings; and he's not afraid to pick up the phone, either. In this case he went to Peter Allen, longtime host of the Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts, whose insights and suggestions were indispensable.

Serendipity played a role in these shows. As it turned out, my husband and I had tickets to the Lyric Opera of Chicago Ring Cycle. I worked on these shows by day and attended performances by night. It was total immersion?an invaluable guide to the construction of these programs.

And what of Wagner? In all honesty, when Maestro Davis closed the cover on the final page of Gotterdammerung, I was ready to do it all over again. A special thanks to Bill Siegmund and Jesse McQuarters for their tireless work on these programs. Many, many thanks to the late Sir Georg Solti, to Mr. Peter Allen, to Lyric and especially to Bill McGlaughlin for all they do to bring music into our hearts.

Noel Morris, Producer

Something about the Savage Beast

On Friday, my younger son took up the cello.

I suggested today that my older son, who plays violin, play side-by-side with him. Younger brother exploded. One was outraged; the other rejected. I tried to diffuse the scuffle by redirecting each to another task.

With some trepidation, I went to Walgreens.

When I got back, the two were absorbed in trying to improvise a Bach Cello Suite. Now they're tackling Pachelbel.

Attack of the JumboTrons

Noel 1

I adore Mahler. But, I don't really get Das Lied. Hopefully this will be the night.

Noel 2

It's a very complex piece. You almost have to study it--wow! Great video. Conlon looks good. It's cool to hear him say something about the music.

(music starts)

Noel 1

Looks like a horn solo coming up.

Noel 2

Amazing. Nails it with such calm. What a great player.

--Gosh. T.'s lost a lot of hair.

Noel 1

Don't get distracted.

Noel 2

Ha! M. must be roasting up there. Look at him tugging at his shirt.

Noel 1

It's gotta be hot under those lights.

Noel 2

Look how small and two-dimensional the orchestra looks in real life.

Noel 1

I really need to concentrate.

Noel 2

Remember watching the JumboTron at the last Dead show?

Noel 1

I know. Can't take my eyes off TV screens.

Noel 2

--Like at a bar...when you don't even care what's on, but you stare at it anyway?

Noel 1

Hrmph. I can't remember what I just heard.

Noel 2

Look! The chin rests scrunch up their faces so they all have double chins.

Why does D. sit sideways when she's not playing?

Noel 1

I'm trying to concentrate.

Noel 2

Oh my gosh. M.'s got an itchy nose. He's not going to--

--(phew) Just a scratch.

Noel 1

I'm closing my eyes.

Brahms Violin Concerto Manuscript

Another treasure of the Library of Congress...they (or we the American citizenry) own the autograph manuscript of the Brahms Violin Concerto. You can see that Brahms labored over this piece, changing his mind and crossing things out often. He consulted with violinist Joseph Joachim who took great liberties at suggesting changes. Joachim's bright red ink and notated suggestions can be seen throughout the manuscript. Check it out:


http://www.loc.gov/preserv/bachbase/bbcmusic.html

Frederick the Great flute

Did you happen to catch the flute piece by Frederick the Great today during Lisa Flynn's show? It just so happens the Library of Congress has one of the King of Prussia's own flutes. Check it out:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/dcmhtml/0916.html

Everyone's a Philosopher

The nametags waited as we arrived. Every guest wore one, each with the appellation: Philosopher. Ink martinis flowed. Patrons and writers mingled, all beneath the banner "Everyone's a Philosopher."

This simple turn of phrase strikes at the essence of the Neighborhood Writing Alliance, recognizing the interchangeability of the ordinary and the extraordinary. Street kids--folks who have inhabited Chicago for thirty, forty, fifty years--are finding new meaning to their lives, not by changing them, but by writing about them. These writers wear their years like a mask. It's only through the act of writing about them that the human spirit shines. Suddenly the soul behind the mask has newfound dignity, some feeling the admiration of others for the first time in their lives. This was their night. People from across Chicago gathered to celebrate and honor her homegrown treasures.

I didn't know about the Alliance. An uninitiated representative from WFMT, I got a lump in my throat at the mention of Studs Terkel: the twinkly-eyed man who padded around our station for so many years.

My teenaged son glanced at me.

There isn't a life at WFMT that Studs didn't alter. I heard the Alliance invoke his name again and again. He so defiantly elevated people, looking for the story in everyone. He gave voice to the "forgotten man." Any time we hear a minute of Studs, he teaches us to listen to those voices, too. This is his legacy. We spend our lives competing with others for material comfort. Listening goes against our nature. As often as Studs whops us over the head with his message, he startles us with it. He causes us to be still. He makes us listen.

Louise Frank, Producer of Best of Studs Terkel, tells me Joan Baez will be his guest this week. Louise writes that Studs had carried a portable tape recorder to Ravinia for this interview. She has lovingly cleaned up the audio on these shows. Studs takes it from there. Chicago offers a lot on a Saturday night, but you probably can't do much better than listening to Studs at 7PM on his radio home, WFMT.

Out of the Ashes

My 13-year-old has a mind of his own. There are many things I'd like to do differently and many lessons still unlearned. But I don't have the stomach to rag on him all the time, either. Goodness knows, he gives plenty of ammunition: "Pick up the wrapper." "Yes, pick up BOTH socks." "You've never worn this shirt from Grandma. Please quit stuffing it in the dirty clothes."

Somewhere we have to balance all these negative things with positive ones. We have to choose our battles or there would be no room for a happy home. So when an intelligent, articulate person insists he wishes to see Oliver Stone's "Platoon," I cave. War is all around us. I can't justify shielding him from the human condition, if he so clearly desires to see it for himself.

Where am I going with this? The score to that film just breaks your heart. My son talked and talked about that music after the screening. He was surprised I had it in iTunes and asked for an MP3. Next thing you know, he's tired of playing violin etudes and asks to see the sheet music. We actually do have a score to Adagio for Strings at our house. He's been playing through it. It's possible he might even learn Barber's original Quartet version to play with some other kids.

I resisted the temptation to tell him all about Samuel Barber. He didn't latch onto that piece because mom thought it was good for him. It's his connection to love and explore in any way he likes. It is amazing to witness.

Afternoon Music Quiz Update! Shhhhhh!

Here's a little hint about next week's Afternoon Music Quiz: all our questions will pertain to a single subject. As always, we'll offer a lovely prize to the listener who can phone in the correct answer.

While it wouldn't be fair to tell you the nature of next week's topic (woof!), I did let my friend Larry in on the secret (left). I have a feeling George Preston has been talking to his pal Walter (right).

---But that's neither here nor there.

Do tune in to George's afternoon program from 3-7PM. And don't forget to listen for the Quiz each weekday around 4:30PM.

Mozart Does Party

Are we spoiled or what? With the Chicago Chamber Musicians we have a resident group who routinely plays great works on WFMT and all around town. On Wednesday evening, they were gathered as the house band for their gala benefit. My dear friend and colleague Bill McGlaughlin emceed. He called it "hausmusik:" referring to an era when humans weren't cloistered by white wires sprouting from their ears.

In a room filled with merry music-lovers, CCM played the party music of old Vienna. We heard a couple composers named "Strauss," a little Beethoven and Mozart--yes, even they knew how to party. It was a sound you might associate with P.O.S.H. accommodations on a steamship--just a couple violins, a viola, a bass and some pairs of winds. Of course, these artists don't arrive through the service entrance. As Bill noted, it was a treat to hear these sentimental fripperies played with the care and commitment of great players. In the music he detected a hint of sadness, as if the composers were saying, "good times are fleeting."

Indeed they are. But thanks to CCM's regular presence on WFMT, we get to cheat that notion a little bit. Next up: Quintet Attacca on Monday evening at 8 on Live from WFMT.

"LA TRIVIATA" TRIUMPHS

I surely hope that you were listening to 98.7 WFMT yesterday afternoon between 5 and 6! WFMt's new Game Show, "La Triviata," made it inaugural appearance, broadcast live from Marbles The Brain Store, 55 West Grand Avenue, downtown in Chicago. We had three stellar teams of panelists - musical experts all - from Chicago Opera Theatre (General Director Brian Dickie, director Andrew Eggert, and trustee David O'Connor), Elgin Symphony Orchestra (assistant conductor Stephen Squires, principal trumpet Ross Beacraft, and Esecutive Director Jullie Griffin) and our Stars of Chicago Universities team (Dr. Philip Gossett, U of C, Dr. Stephen Alltop, Northwestern, and Dr. Lee Kesselman, College of DuPage). Thanks to each and everyone of them for their talent, hard work and enthusiasm in helping us create this new show.

The questions - some musical identification of singers, players and composers, some multiple choice, and some "lightning rounds" of quick answers - were challenging and also really fun. Noel Morris created our two musical montages with a great variety of musical styles and types. I had fun choosing the music for the singer, instrumentalist and composer rounds (which also involved editing them into VERY short clips from many styles and types of music, and many different instruments and voices). And I enjoyed working with our Music Director andi Lamoreaux and our Program Director Peter Whorf in creating our multiple choice questions and lightning rounds.

My co-producer, and brilliant computer guru, Matt de Stefano did HOURS (!) of work in adapting Game Show software to our needs, and coming up with all the various sounds and musical cues. And he handled all the on-the-spot sound cues throughout the entire hour. Our newest announcer George Preston was a masterful host, bringing style and skill and just the right sense of fun to the program. Eric Arunas was, as always, an amazing audio engineer, and our Operations Manager Don Mueller, who put in more hours on this project that ought to be allowed, was the glue that held it all together.

Thanks so much to the owners and staff at Marbles The Brain Store for their sponsorship of the program, and for their kindness and patience in working so closely with us for two days right in their store. And it was a pleasure to work with WFMT's account executive Jennifer Frankel to make it all go smoothly. Steve Robinson, WFMT's general manager, was the executive producer and idea man behind the whole project. I was honored to help produce this show with all my wonderful colleagues. And I hope you had as much fun with "La Triviata" as I did.

Carolyn Paulin, WFMT Producer and Program Host

Listening Challenge

My little slice of our 'match of the music-lover,' WFMT's new game show, La Triviata, is to create an audio onslaught of core repertoire. The challenge for the contestants: identify as much of the music as possible. It's kind of fun.

One disclosure: it turns out some very fine brains are wired to recall what they're hearing in three seconds or less, and some very fine brains are not. For this particular challenge, the highest honors went to our Program Director, Peter Whorf, who has an uncanny ability to tick off the name of a piece after barely a note.

In choosing the musical excerpts, there were a number of considerations. In pitting opera folks against orchestral folks, I had to take care not to favor one genre over the other. Also, I didn't want these to be so easy that our panels were likely to tie the round. I figured the string player might have the greatest advantage, because strings are central to both opera and symphonic music, not to mention the chamber world. Just for such a contestant, I added some choice vocal excerpts.

The Game starts at 5:00 this evening (Thursday, April 16th)! If you miss the broadcast, you can try your own ears at these listening tests starting tomorrow.

Rachel Doesn't Just Rock

Recently, I received an invite via Facebook, to the debut performance of Rachel Barton Pine's new "thrash/doom metal band," Earthen Grave. That sounds pretty exciting to me. Rachel is one of the more experimental musicians I know. She once endeared herself to a veritable hermit for the chance to play his collection of unpublished, antique manuscripts. She sought out Scots fiddler Alasdair Fraser for some pointers on folk technique. She's an all-around scholar on everything violin, and does it with taste and a superior musical intellect.

Though rock music runs deep in my soul, "thrash/doom metal" is a little outside my experience. So here's the Wikipedia definition:

Thrash metal (sometimes referred to simply as thrash), is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized by its fast tempo and aggression. Thrash metal songs typically use fast, percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work.[1] Thrash metal lyrics often deal with social issues using visceral and blunt language, an approach which partially overlaps with the hardcore genre.

ArtsJournal.com recently reported that Heavy Metal listeners are far more likely to listen to Classical Music than to Country Western or other lighter types of music. Certainly, we're no strangers to fast tempos, aggression or shredding-style gestures...think of Rite of Spring or Shostakovich's 4th Symphony or Beethoven's Grosse Fuga. Social issues, blunt language?Salome's pretty out there, at least in concept. Blue Beard's Castle, which we'll soon discuss on Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin, is really disturbing, if not disturbed.

The Who's lead singer, Roger Daltrey, used to sing, "I hope I die before I get old."

Well, he didn't. Paul McCartney really did turn 64. That's proof enough that age can no longer predict musical taste. I'm willing to bet most WFMT listeners have many different genres on their iPods. Still, it's rare to meet a performer so driven as Rachel to stretch boundaries. In a way, she's challenging all of us to appreciate the artistic merit of many types of music and jettison the barriers that our culture imposes on musical expression.

If going out to a bar to hear Earthen Grave is too racy for you, check out Rachel on 98.7 WFMT Monday, April 6 at 4PM. She'll be sitting down with George Preston with a variety of recordings. And did I mention this hard rocker is playing Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ at Rockefeller Chapel on April 7th?

--But don't worry, she still knows her way around a Guarneri violin. With Rachel Barton Pine, a deep commitment to Classical repertoire is only the beginning.

La Triviata: The WFMT Game Show!

You may have heard that WFMT is debuting it's very own classical music game show (to take place via an April 16th live broadcast at 5:00pm (CST) from Marbles The Brain Store's downtown Chicago location.

It's been a lifelong dream of mine to have my hand in the creation of a game show. I am thrilled and honored to be involved with "La Triviata: The WFMT Game Show!" from the development stage. Really, I'm a game show junkie--my all-time favorites are (click for videos) The 25,000 Pyramid, The Price Is Right, Jeopardy! and an obscure one--Press Your Luck.

Here's where we stand (without spoiling any of the surprises):The assembly of our buzzer system is almost complete and should arrive sometime this week! I'm predicting many challenges in rigging this up and assigning our own buzzer sounds to them. I love me a frustrating, technical challenge!

Carolyn Paulin and I are working out the kinks in the show's formatting. She (and a few other contributors) are working hard to challenge our contestants in writing/creating trivia and music identification questions, among other surprises.

Noel Morris has been an absolute force in creating audio clues--I can't say more about that now, but I am REALLY looking forward to that round of the show.

Peter Whorf has been coming up with some great questions that may be used in some sort of a lightning round...

WFMT's "New Kid in Town," announcer George Preston is excited to host (and we're excited to hear him)!

I'm currently working on preparing theme music, sound effects, and general technical aspects of the show. The debut is only 3 weeks away and there is so much to do to polish this up. It's so exciting to be asked to create something from scratch with virtually no creative boundaries, and I can't wait 'till we go live on the 16th. We hope you'll love what you hear!
Feel free to send suggestions our way. You may just hear yours in the show's debut!

I saw Tony Curtis this morning

The hostess explained he was being interviewed and that we could move to another table if it bothered us. My first thought was, "She can't mean the Tony Curtis--I didn't think he was still alive."

But there he was: a big guy in a cowboy hat sitting before some TV guy and a cameraman. My husband and I spent breakfast rattling off all the TC films we could think of: Spartacus, Some Like it Hot, The Great Race. Then we whipped out our iPhones for more info.

Ever the radio producer, my next thought was, "I wonder if he's got a musical connection."

Well. There's some brilliant screenwriting in Some Like it Hot. Compare that film to Francis Ford Coppola's triptych--remember the cold-hearted killer who loves his cat and plays with his grandchildren? Mario Puzo's Godfather is a classic struggle of good versus evil, but Coppola juxtaposes these things within each character, forcing us to decide whether or not to cheer for the evil guy. The three films run around nine hours.

Billy Wilder, on the other hand, condenses the whole drama of The Godfather into seconds by staging a banquet of mobsters under the banner "Italian Opera Lovers." (It must be said that Coppola's use of Art of the Fugue during the murder sequence makes for one of the all-time greatest scenes. But its message is duplicity.) Some Like it Hot uses music to say that when Mimi dies, these ruthless, motley thugs are just as inconsolable as the rest of us. Think of it: these guys are like us----? That's some punch. With the mere mention of Italian opera, Billy Wilder lays it all out there and steams ahead with his farcical romp.

I'm not sure how the title, Some Like it Hot, specifically pertains to this story; but 50 years later, that script in the hands of Jack Lemon, Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis still sizzles.

A Tale of Two Orchestras

This past week we traded orchestras with New York. As Philharmonic graced the stage of Orchestra Hall, what do you suppose the resident orchestra was up to? Carnegie Hall, of course. It brings to mind a story.

My friend Pete plays trombone, teaches at Indiana, Northwestern and Roosevelt Universities. He frequently subs for the New York Philharmonic, as well as the Chicago Symphony. Several years ago, when the Philharmonic was preparing for a stop in Chicago, Pete was returning from having played with them in Asia. He said he casually mused to the guys, "Wow. That's a little bold to take the Mahler Fifth to Chicago, isn't it?"

Indeed it is. During the Solti era, the Mahler Fifth Symphony became the CSO's signature piece. Crowned by the soaring virtuosity of trumpeter Adolph Herseth, the CSO set the gold standard for orchestral playing with that piece. If you recall the six championship seasons of Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, the CSO had been its own dream team for fifty seasons. For New York to play the Mahler Fifth in the CSO's own living room-that's audacious. At least, that's what Pete was thinking. But the guys of the New York Phil saw it differently: "He was our Music Director," they said.

-Ahh. Of course that's true. Gustav Mahler moved to New York City to lead the Opera and ended up spending a few seasons at the Philharmonic.

And so the New York/Chicago rivalry goes.

That New York Philhamonic concert is one I'll never forget-not because they played a Symphony by one of their own-but because of the unlikely convergence of musical titans. Dotting the box seats were Pierre Boulez (another former New York Philharmonic Music Director), then-CSO Music Director Daniel Barenboim, his gifted wife and pianist Elena Bashkirova, Christoph von Dohnanyi, who was in the midst of a production at Lyric Opera, and of course Lorin Maazel: the man on the podium. Much of the CSO was scattered throughout the audience. Adolph Herseth himself, who had retired by then, was there; as was violinist Rachel Barton Pine.

The collective hours of practice time in that room is mind-boggling. The knowledge and working relationships those people had had was a veritable encyclopedia of Western Classical Music for the last hundred years, at least. And the musicians of the New York Philharmonic were equal to the task.

It was a glorious night. After the concert, old classmates and colleagues, section mates and fellow artists reconnected and raised their glasses for the love of music. It's almost impossible to quantify the commitment and achievement, the spirit for reaching and reaching out that the music engendered. I only know I'd hate to face this economic crisis without it.