© 2024 WRTI
Your Classical and Jazz Source. Celebrating 75 Years!
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
 
ALERT: there will be maintenance throughout the evening to upgrade the infrastructure for HD-2 and the audio stream. As a result, there may be intermittent outages.

The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert on WRTI: Gershwin, Dvorak, and Barber for July 4th Weekend

Join us on Sunday, July 4th at 1 PM on WRTI 90.1, and Monday, July 5th at 7 PM on WRTI HD-2 to hear a Philadelphia Orchestra concert from 2017. It's works by American composers born and trained in the U.S.A, and a Czech master who wrote some of his most enduring compositions while living in the States. The American conductor James Gaffigan, who is chief conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and now Principal Guest Conductor of the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra & Opera in Norway, conducts George Gershwin's Promenade (Walking the Dog), and teams up with pianist Jon Kimura Parker for a performance of Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F.

Antonín Dvo?ák spent two-and-a-half years in America after being recruited by a visionary patron to head a music conservatory in New York City; we’ll hear one of his compositions dating from that time, his Suite in A Major, the "American."

And to conclude the concert, the powerful and masterful First Symphony by a composer claimed by Philadelphia as one of its own, Samuel Barber. Born in West Chester, PA, and trained at the Curtis Institute of Music, he would go on to become one of the great composers of the 20th century.

Written while Barber was still in his 20s, and not long after graduating from Curtis, his Symphony No. 1 is a one-movement masterpiece.

BM_PO_180110_KimuraParker.mp3
Pianist Jon Kimura Parker talks backstage with WRTI's Bliss Michelson.

During intermission back in November, 2017, WRTI’s Susan Lewis spoke backstage with conductor James Gaffigan, and Bliss Michelson met with pianist Jon Kimura Parker.

Read detailed program notes from the concert.

PROGRAM

Gershwin: Promenade (Walking the Dog)

Gershwin: Piano Concerto in F

     Jon Kimura Parker, piano 

INTERMISSION

Dvorak: Suite in A (“American”)

Barber: Symphony No. 1

The Philadelphia Orchestra

     James Gaffigan, conductor

Gregg Whiteside is producer and host of The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcasts, every Sunday at 1 pm on WRTI 90.1, streaming online at WRTI.org, and on our mobile app!Listen again on Mondays at 7 pm on WRTI HD-2.

Gregg was the host of WRTI's morning drive show from 2012 until his retirement from WRTI in January, 2021. He began producing and hosting The Philadelphia Orchestra In Concert broadcasts in 2013, joining the Orchestra in Hong Kong for the first-ever live international radio broadcasts from that island in 2016, and in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for two historic broadcasts in 2018. You can still hear Gregg as host of the Orchestra broadcasts every Sunday and Monday on WRTI.