News

What does it take to make a chorus come together?  The pressure of an impending performance?  The skill and sensibility of a conductor? The intrinsic beauty of the music? WRTI’s Meridee Duddleston stopped by the Unitarian Universalist Church in Cherry Hill for a rehearsal of the Greater South Jersey Chorus as it strives for perfection.

This Saturday evening, May 18th at 8 pm, The Greater South Jersey Chorus performs Spotlight, a program of choruses and songs from opera, stage, and screen. The concert will be performed at The Roman Catholic Church of St. Isaac Jogues in Marlton.  More information about the concert.

Let us know Where Music Lives in your community! Add your ideas in the comments section here and check out our other Where Music Lives posts.

The 2013 Philadelphia Jewish Music Festival concluded with a curious 1918 silent film, The Yellow Ticket, presented at the Gershman Y in Center City, with live musical accompaniment that gave the often-grainy images a new life and renewed meaning. One of the first films about anti-Semitism, The Yellow Ticket reminded The Philadelphia Inquirer's David Patrick Stearns just how much the world has changed – and how much it has yet to change.

The renowned British conductor and early-music expert Nicholas McGegan is the conductor on Sunday’s Philadelphia Orchestra In Concert broadcast on WRTI.

McGegan, an accomplished harpsichordist and flutist, specializes in Baroque, and early Romantic repertoire. But as WRTI’s Jim Cotter reports, this doesn’t stop him from being a strong advocate for new music.

Today, J. S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos are among the most popular pieces from the Baroque era. WRTI’s Susan Lewis explores the mystery in the story of the famous concertos.   

On Sunday, May 19th, WRTI will broadcast The Philadelphia Orchestra performing three of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, his Double Violin Concerto, and his Orchestral Suite No. 3.

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.

Great news! We’ve been awarded a $50,000 challenge grant from the Knight Foundation to fund our new WRTI Music Makers series. WRTI is one of only 43 recipients to be chosen out of several thousand applicants.

We’re having fun with numbers on Now Is the Time, Sunday, May 12th at 10 pm. Four dances for piano is what Keith Carpenter calls An even number of odd pieces, and Sketches Set Seven, also for piano, is Ed Bland’s contribution to what he calleds “urban classical funk.”

Mr. Bland passed away after this show was produced, so we honor his memory with this look into his wide-ranging career.

Charles Wuorinen’s Dodecadactyl is a fun two-guitar romp through the twelve pitches, and from her set of life-rhythm-inspired Genesis works is Janika Vandervelde’s Genesis V, for four guitars. For two sopranos is the riveting Madrigal III by Sergio Cervetti, setting a text from pre-Columbian Mexico.

Woody Herman's centennial birthday is Thursday May 16th. And this Sunday evening at 7 pm, Big Band Jazz will spend an hour with some of "Woody's Goodies."