"Spaghetti Western" is a nickname given a genre of Italian films from the mid-1960s, most famously directed by Sergio Leone, and often starring Clint Eastwood as the taciturn, gun-toting anti-hero. "Spaghetti Western" is also the title of a 20-minute Concerto for English horn and Orchestra...Episode details...
Today's date marks the anniversary of the birth of the Polish composer and conductor Andrzej Panufnik, whose turbulent 20th century life was dramatic—and romantic—enough for an AMC or Showtime mini-series.
Panufinik's biography involves resistance to the Nazis in war-torn Warsaw and struggles...Episode details...
On today’s date in 2011, the Saint Louis Symphony under David Robertson premiered a new piano concerto by the American composer Steve Mackey. The soloist was Orli Shaham, Robertson’s wife, to whom the new work was dedicated.
The new concerto had an odd title, “Stumble to Grace,” which Mackey...Episode details...
Now, it's something of a parlor game for historians of the American presidency to constantly reappraise and re-evaluate the status of past occupants of the Oval Office. For example, some recent historians have given President Dwight D. Eisenhower higher marks than others for his political...Episode details...
On today's date in 1874, the English composer Gustav Holst was born in Cheltenham. He was christened "Gustavus Theodore von Holst," and his early works were published under that name, but he removed the Germanic "von" after World War I broke out in 1914. At the Royal College of Music, Holst...Episode details...
On today's date in 1975, the Kansas City Lyric Theater opened its 18th season with the world premiere performance of a new opera by Jack Beeson entitled "Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines." As if to prove that everything IS "up-to-date" in Kansas City, even BEFORE this world premiere, this...Episode details...
On today’s date in 1958, just nine days after his death, a funeral service was held for the great 20th century British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams at Westminster Abbey in London, where his ashes were laid to rest. Now, thousands of famous people are buried at Westminster Abbey, but an actual...Episode details...
On today's date in 1930, at a recording session in Kingsway Hall in London, the British composer Sir Edward Elgar conducted the first performance of his "Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5," the last in this popular series.
Two of the previous marches had been dedicated to organist friends of...Episode details...
On today's date in the year 1179, in the German convent of Ruppertsberg near Bingen, an 81-year-old abbess named Hildegard breathed her last. The 12th century was a time of great accomplishments in art, religion, and human thought, a kind of medieval Renaissance, and Hildegard of Bingen was one...Episode details...
