The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert

The Philadelphia Orchestra has over 100 musicians, and as many stories - often inspiring and surprising.  WRTI’s Susan Lewis profiles Bob Cafaro, a cellist in the Orchestra since 1985, whose artistry is matched by his determination to live fully, both onstage and off.  

Radio script:

Join us on Sunday, March 1st at 1 pm for The Philadelphia Orchestra In Concert on WRTI. In this January, 2015 concert, Christoph Eschenbach, Philadelphia Orchestra music director from 2003 to 2008, returns to Verizon Hall to lead this all-German program. And the Orchestra’s principal horn Jennifer Montone plays the Richard Strauss Horn Concerto No. 1.

Former Philadelphia Orchestra music director Christoph Eschenbach has been awarded The Ernst von Siemens Music Prize for a life in the service of music. On Sunday afternoon March 1, 2015, Eschenbach leads The Philadelphia Orchestra on WRTI in a program featuring music by Strauss and Schumann.
 

This Sunday's Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcast on WRTI 90.1 FM, led by Russian conductor Vladimir Jurowski, brings us two works by J.S. Bach, performed at Verizon Hall this past February, that give us a taste of the Baroque equivalents of the symphony and the concerto - the Orchestral Suite No. 2, and the Keyboard Concerto No. 1, more modest in size, but no less ambitious in vision.

In recent years, J. S. Bach's music has been embraced by period performers, and played less frequently by big symphony orchestras. As WRTI’s Susan Lewis reports, The Philadelphia Orchestra takes a very modern - yet historical - approach to his music in WRTI's Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcast on Sunday, February 22 at 1 pm.

The broadcast also features Bach’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and music of Strauss and Mahler.

Pianist Emanuel Ax, or "Manny" as likes to be called, is one of the music world's most beloved and respected classical musicians, and has been a longtime advocate for contemporary music, while retaining his love for the great works of the past.

This Sunday, February 22 at 1 pm, on The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcast on WRTI, we'll hear him perform in two separate works - from the standard repertoire: Richard Stauss' Burleske for piano and orchestra and from the late-19th century, and Bach's Piano Concerto in D minor from the 1730s.  

The true story of a 19th-century swindler in New York City inspired not only an opera, but also a concerto. WRTI’s Susan Lewis has more on Bramwell Tovey’s Songs of the Paradise Saloon for trumpet and orchestra.

Radio Script:

Susan Lewis: Commissioned by the Calgary Opera, Bramwell Tovey became intrigued by the life of a notorious man named Alexander Keith. Both charming and deadly, Keith swindled many, and eventually planted explosives in an ocean liner, killing 80 people.  

On Sunday, February 8th, The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcast features Amsterdam-born conductor Jaap van Zweden, music director of both the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (since 2008) and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (since 2012).

In a concert first broadcast on WRTI in May of 2013, Maestro van Zweden conducts two works composed by the Russian masters Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Sergei Prokofiev that could hardly be more different in their purpose and effect.

The strings are the largest section of a symphony orchestra, and communicating among them to create a unified sound involves the conductor, the  concertmaster, and another pivotal player. WRTI’s Susan Lewis talks with The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Juliette Kang about her position as associate concertmaster, and the lure of her instrument. 

On WRTI's  broadcast of The Philadelphia Orchestra this Sunday, May 12th at 2 pm, Juliette Kang will lead the strings in a program featuring Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence, for string orchestra, and Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5.

The Philadelphia Orchestra's Principal Clarinet Ricardo Morales shows off his virtuosic skills in two very different and very challenging works on the Philadelphia Orchestra In Concert broadcast, Sunday, February 1st at 1 pm.

Debussy’s Rhapsody No. 1 for Clarinet and Orchestra and Rossini’s Introduction, Theme, and Variations for Clarinet and Orchestra, are two of three 40/40 works on today’s program. And these two performances are the first, ever, by The Philadelphia Orchestra.