Two of our favorite guests return to Crossover this week. In their own ways they create classical concert experiences...but they endeavor to take it further than that.
Our first returning friend is Maestro Stephen Gunzenhauser, conductor and music director of the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra. We discuss the orchestra's current season offerings, and all of the ways the ensemble tries to make the concert experience more interesting for the audience. For example, Lancaster's next concerts, on October 31, and November 1 and 2, will be Halloween themed with the Lancaster Symphony Chorus providing an extra haunting sound! The entire orchestra will be dressed for the occasion, and the audience is urged to also don their scariest costumes.
Later in the program, we speak to another maestro of sorts. Pianist extraordinaire, host of Keyboard Conversations, and good friend Jeffrey Siegel stops by to survey his new season of programs at the Kimmel Center, presented by the Friends of Keyboard Conversations.
Siegel calls his programs, "concerts with commentary," where he converses with the audience about the works to be heard, then plays each work in its entirety. Each of the programs is wrapped around a general theme. For instance, his next program, Gershwin and Friends on Monday, October 27, includes conversation about, and music from Gershwin, Copland, Bernstein, MacDowell and more.
This is Jeffrey Siegel's 10th anniversary season presenting these programs at the Kimmel, and his 45th Keyboard Conversation season overall.
Crossover airs Saturday morning at 11:30 am on WRTI-FM, with an encore Friday evening at 7 pm on WRTI-HD2. Both airings can be heard on the All-Classical web stream at wrti.org.
