The SPCO

Berlioz's gentle, sublime oratorio tells the story of Christ's birth and the holy family's journey across Egypt. It is a rarely performed masterpiece, one of only a handful of Berlioz works written for chamber orchestra.

He acts, he sings, he writes scripts and he does a pitch-perfect Minnesota accent - the life-of-the-party everyone wants on her guest list, Triple Espresso's Dane Stauffer joins us with a playlist of gems.

Mark Russell Smith is the interim director of the greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies (GTCYS). Smith spoke to Steve Staruch about the ins and outs of programming works for a youth orchestra.

Nilsson is a name many of us know in the cities - the three sisters grew up in Anoka and learned to play violin from their father soon making the concert stage their careers. Kristina, Elsa and Jenny Lind have a brother, Eric, who also played - but he practices fewer scales these days and has replaced it by practicing law. But Eric has a great insider's view of listening to classical music.

Maria Schneider, a Grammy-award winning composer and arranger, was in St. Paul the last week of September recording her new album with the SPCO, as well as conducting her Carlos Drummond de Andrade Stories.

This week, we are celebrating the beginning of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's broadcast season -- Mondays at 8 p.m. -- with five exclusive recordings.

Bach wrote his six Brandenburg Concertos for the Margrave of Brandenburg, Christian Ludwig, possibly hoping to secure employment in the margrave's court. Lacking the necessary virtuosic players, the margrave never heard the concertos, and the manuscripts weren't published until 1850, one-hundred years after Bach's death.

As the summer festival season gets underway, here's a performance that garnered whoops and hollers from the audience. In the Regional Spotlight this week is an August 2011 performance from the Alexandria Festival of the Lakes. Members of the SPCO and Minnesota Orchestra collaborated on the fiery Brahms Piano Quartet Op. 25.

William Roos is an income tax resource specialist and says he's jealous of our work at Classical MPR because Congress does not constantly change the rules about music.

Mark Russell Smith is the director of Orchestral Studies at the University of Minnesota Music School. From the moment he plans a concert, through giving insights to the audience from the podium to actually presenting the score, Mark brings an enthusiasm and commitment to a concert that makes the event unforgettable.