WRTI is proud to share this year’s NEA Jazz Masters Tribute Concert on Thursday, April 22nd at 8 PM. NEA Jazz Master Dee Dee Bridgewater (2017) and actor Delroy Lindo will co-host the 2021 presentation, with opening remarks from the Second Gentleman of the United States, Doug Emhoff.

April 19, 2021. The Grammy-winning Catalyst Quartet uncovers music and the stories of the people who wrote it in its new recording series, UNCOVERED. The first volume focuses on music by late 19th-century English composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

April 12, 2021. Trigger warning: If having too much fun listening to music tends to send you spiraling out of control, take caution with Emmet Cohen’s Future Stride. With his natural feel and an ability to draw from a massive store of repertoire, it’s easy to see—and hear—why Cohen’s been a fast-rising star for a while now.

April 12, 2021. Sergei Rachmaninoff considered The Philadelphia Orchestra his favorite American ensemble, and our Classical Album of the Week reveals why.

Before stepping down 10 months ago at age 75, the San Francisco Symphony’s (SFS) Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) owned the longest active tenure of any music director of a major American orchestra; he’d held the position since 1995. Though he’s played piano, composed, and conducted at an elite level since his teenage years, Tilson Thomas has always been more than the classical music wunderkind who grew up to become the great maestro. There was a piece of himself he’d inherited, a piece that hadn’t necessarily been ignored but hadn’t been foregrounded in his work either.

A new video features 11 original musical works by young composers spanning a range of styles and visuals—reflections from the year of the pandemic, including loss, grief, love, and hope for renewal. Created by Philadelphia Orchestra Principal Bassoonist Daniel Matsukawa in association with Musical Mentors Collaborative (MMC), the project also invites new submissions; it’s all part of an effort to help us connect and find our way through times of turmoil.

The recorder is a great introduction to early music, which is one reason why Piffaro, The Renaissance Band is resurrecting its Recorder Fest for students online on Sunday, April 18th at 7 PM, which will include performances of two past winners and three finalists from the 2020 competition.

April 5, 2021. West coaster George Kahn is one of those melodic, easy-swinging pianists that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. He’s not edgy, nor experimental; he appropriates liberally from the Great American Songbook. He’s unabashedly straight-ahead, which, in this day and age, might be a revolutionary act in itself.