News

Join us on Friday, June 14th at 6:30 PM as Jeff Duperon welcomes renowned flutist and composer Bobbi Humphrey.  Often referred to as the "First Lady of the Flute" by the critics and listeners alike, Bobbi has been playing her special brand of music to audiences around the world for over three decades.

Congratulations to John Modric of West Chester, PA, and Herbert Barndt of Pottstown, PA.  They will join other organ enthusiasts on an exclusive tour of the Longwood, Wanamaker, and Kimmel Center organs. Although the contest is over, it's not too late to experience some world-class organ performances at Longwood.

Tune in this Saturday, June 15th, after the opera, when Mark Pinto will host a special New Releases. He's stretching out and broadcasting for us Mahler's last completed symphony, the Ninth. We can't spill the beans on whose recording it is, but it's gotten raves! You will not be disappointed.

If you have the time to tune in just for this monument of orchestral literature, get to your radio or point your browser to wrti.org by about 4:15 pm.

I admit I approach any new recordings of these, my favorite Tchaikovsky symphonies, with a bit of trepidation. Over the years I’ve encountered one too many recordings, as well as concert performances, that lay on the incurable Romanticism a bit too thick. Thematic presentations are muddled and tempos are stretched so that each movement, regardless of the tempo indication, seems to plod at the same pace.

It’s as if some conductors believed that Tchaikovsky, who always wore his heart on his sleeve, needed help expressing his feelings.

The Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill has an enviable collection of art in the realist tradition, from the 1800s to the present. It also has a renowned annual juried show which, this year, as WRTI’s Jim Cotter reports, is dedicated to local, cutting-edge art. In Front of Strangers, I Sing: the 72nd Annual Woodmere Museum Juried Exhibition curated by Dona Nelson  and Rubens Genoff runs through September 1, 2013.

Classical ballet, like its sister art form classical music, is rooted in classic, older repertoire. But as WRTI's Jim Cotter reports, the region's premiere ballet company is stepping away from conventional works for a season-ending program by three living choreographers who have their own distinctive takes on the intersection of contemporary and traditional ballet.

Pennsylvania Ballet’s season ending production Forsythe & Kylián runs Thursday through Sunday at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.

This Sunday from 2 to 4 pm, The Philadelphia Orchestra renews its historic connection with the great Finnish master Jean Sibelius (Stokowski led the U.S. premieres of his last three symphonies) as Simon Rattle will conduct the final two symphonies, Nos. 6 and 7, together without interruption, from a May, 2013 concert.

Longwood Gardens hosts its first International Organ Competition on June 18, 19, and 22. WRTI’s Susan Lewis reports on this new initiative at the botanical garden that was once a DuPont family summer home.

The competition features Longwood’s 10,010-pipe Aeolian organ, a panel of distinguished judges, and live performances by the world’s top young organists. The winner receives the world's largest organ competition prize: $40,000.