On today’s date in 1891, a small group of music patrons gathered at one of New York’s docks to greet the Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who had been invited to America to take part in the grand opening of a new music hall. Back then, it was just called “The Music Hall,” but over time...Episode details...
John Birge is the new host of 'Composers Datebook,' the award-winning program about this day in classical music history. A well-known name at Classical Minnesota Public Radio, he will take over from retiring and longtime host John Zech on May 1.
Today’s date marks the anniversary of the first performances of two 20th century chamber works.
On April 25, 1931, Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s String Quartet No. 1 received its premiere performance by the Brosa Quartet at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Accepting the...Episode details...
“In an ideal musical world,” says Joan Tower, “a composer should have a friendly, creative, and ongoing working relationship with performers for whom she writes.”
For Tower, who has emerged as one of the most successful American composers of her generation, a friendly, creative, and ongoing...Episode details...
On today’s date in 2004, the Utah Symphony and conductor Keith Lockhart premiered “Three Latin-American Dances” by the American composer Gabriela Lena Frank. Just a few days later, the same forces recorded Frank’s music for a compact disc release, to be sandwiched between Bernstein’s Symphony...Episode details...
Today is Earth Day—an annual event started in 1970 by then-Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin as an environmental teach-in.
Senator Nelson wasn’t the only one concerned back then, either: the Czech-born composer Karel Husa had noticed dead fish floating on a lake located near a power plant....Episode details...
On today’s date in 1937, one of Aaron Copland’s least well-known works had its premiere performance. This was an opera written for high school students, New York’s Henry Street Settlement Music School, to be exact, and entitled “The Second Hurricane.”
In his memoirs, Copland recalled that at the...Episode details...
Religious music, like the religious experience itself, comes in all shapes, forms, moods, and colors.
On today’s date in the year 2002, for example, this setting of the Song of Isaiah had its premiere performance at the Milwaukee Art Museum during a concert by the Present Music ensemble. The...Episode details...
In the 19th century, Richard Wagner composed a cycle of four operas collectively titled “The Ring of the Nibelungen,” lasting 16 hours in performance. In the 20th century, another German composer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, wrote a cycle of seven, collectively titled “Light,” which runs about 29...Episode details...
