WRTI Spotlight

Join us on November 24th and 25th during jazz hours for a splendidly "standard" Thanksgiving; we'll page through the Great American Songbook to celebrate one of the great American holidays. From Gershwin and Porter compositions to tunes that the jazz giants made standard, the music will be the perfect companion to your Thanksgiving feast.

Two young musicians from our community will be featured on FROM THE TOP on Sunday, November 20th at 2 pm: 18-year-old trumpeter Jacob Hernandez and 16-year-old violinist Amy Semes. Don't miss it!

Join us for a very special edition of From the Top! The show broadcasts from the Ocean City, NJ Music Pier (recorded this past August 30th), featuring Jacob Hernandez from Philadelphia, and Amy Semes from Broomall.

Nadia Boulanger is well known to musicians, being the Parisian teacher of many American composers, most notably Aaron Copland. But her younger sister, Lili, excelled as a composer despite battling sickness most of her life. She eventually succumbed to Crohn's Disease at the much-too-young age of 24.

Program:

Join us for...An Unforgettable Day at the Opera!

Listen between 6 am and 6 pm on Saturday, November 12th

You're invited to a spectacular 12-hour day of opera featuring beloved arias, choruses, and ballet excerpts culminating in a historic Met Opera recording of Verdi's IL TROVATORE at 1 pm with tenor Franco Corelli and soprano Leontyne Price. Hosted by WRTI's Rolf Charlston, Jill Pasternak, Jack Moore, Jim Cotter, and Susan Lewis, this special day will also showcase some wonderful thank-you gifts, and include some fun surprises.

Milan's La Scala...London's Royal Opera House...Barcelona's Gran Teatre de Liceu. Enter our Opera Around the Globe Contest on WRTI's Opera Day, November 12th between 6 am and 6 pm, and you could win 10 tickets to the Bryn Mawr Film Institute's live screenings of four operas from these revered opera houses, and more!

Here are the Contest Details...You Could Win:

WRTI presents a weeklong celebration of The Philadelphia Orchestra's Music Director Designate Yannick Nezet-Seguin. Join us each day this week, from November 7th to the 11th, to hear Yannick's recordings of music by Mahler, Beethoven, Debussy, Bruckner, and more. We'll also hear from the maestro himself! He'll be in the WRTI studios sharing his musical philosophy and his vision for the Philadelphia Orchestra. It's a unique, Yannick week of music. Don't miss it!

Join us for an eery morning and afternoon of music on October 31st, including Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, Danse Macabre by Saint-Saens, Liszt's Totentanz, Dukas' Sorcerer's Apprentice, and more...guaranteed to be spooky and scary!

Happy Halloween!

Watch and Listen: Edvard Grieg's "In The Hall of The Mountain King" from Peer Gynt

Forget Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain and Chick Corea's Spain. There's a whole other world of so-called "flamenco jazz" out there that lives unrecorded, often inside quaint, tiny rooms (in caves, quite literally) on the mountainside near Granada. There and in other cool Andalusian clubs, nightly musical experiments are taking place, where flamenco palos mix with other jazz influences.--from NPR

Superstar Hungarian pianist and composer of the 19th century, Franz Liszt (October 22, 1811 - July 31, 1886) was an enormous figure in the history of Western music, revolutionizing people's ideas about what was possible on the piano. The German poet Heinrich Heine coined the term "Lisztomania" to describe the intense frenzy of Liszt's fans during a performance. Yes, he was a precursor to the modern-day rock star! Take a listen to an interesting story from NPR about Liszt's impact on the classical music world - 200 years after his birth!