Arts Desk

Throughout the week

Listen to WRTI's Arts Desk features for a daily look into the world of music, arts, and culture. Listen to brief features throughout the day!

This Is Elizabeth DeShong's Secret to "Singing it All"

By • Aug 19, 2019
Kristin Hoebermann

With wide ranging repertoire and a variety of roles, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth DeShong has been described by Opera Magazine as someone who can truly "sing it all." She talked with WRTI's Susan Lewis about finding the human element in every work.


The Story of the Composer Who Wrote Suspenseful Music for Alfred Hitchcock's Films

By • Aug 13, 2019
MGM Studios/Getty Images

Alfred Hitchcock created films filled with mystery, danger, and suspense—with music playing a major role. 

This Is How Canadian Composer Stacey Brown Found Inspiration For Her Work, Perspectives

By • Aug 12, 2019
Stacey Brown

A sculpture created by her composition teacher inspired Stacey Brown’s work for orchestra, which explores the way we experience art and life. As WRTI’s Susan Lewis reports, it’s all a matter of perspective,


Classical Album of the Week: Barbara Strozzi & the Women Composers of the Baroque

By Heather McDougall • Aug 5, 2019

August 5, 2019. It’s not every day we have an opportunity to mark a 400th anniversary, even in classical music circles. This week, we’re excited to celebrate the work of Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677)—one of the most important composers of 17th-century Venice.

Classical Album of the Week: Blue Hour

By • Aug 5, 2019

August 12, 2019. Summer nights feel especially precious now that we’re well into August, and summer twilights seem especially magical. The "blue hour"—that last period of day when the sun has set, but residual light gives the sky a soft, bluish shade—this time and mood is captured in a recent album of the same name by clarinetist Andreas Ottensamer and pianist Yuja Wang.

This Is Why Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Joyce DiDonato Are Drawn To Chausson's 19th-Century Song Cycle

By • Aug 5, 2019
Hugo Kerr/Unsplash

Ernest Chausson's Poeme de l'amour et de la mer is a 19th-century song cycle about love, loss and the sea and illustrates the way music and poetry can move us.

Classical Album of the Week: The LA Philharmonic Plays Movie Music by John Williams

By • Jul 24, 2019

July 22, 2019. Two musical forces of nature join together in a live performance of fantasy, adventure and romance. Our WRTI Classical Album of the Week and Film at Five weekday feature combine in this powerful Deutsche Grammophon album, Celebrating John Williams.

What's Hot? Classic Films Projected With Their Orchestral Scores Performed LIVE

By • Jul 23, 2019
The Mann Center for the Performing Arts

In the first part of the 20th century, live music accompanied the otherwise silent movies. As WRTI’s Susan Lewis reports, today, concerts that pair projections of popular films, such as The Lord of the Rings, with live performances of their scores, showcase the music and the imagery in a whole new light.

Why Is Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto So Irresistible?

By • Jul 21, 2019
Wikimedia Commons

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky—who wrote such lush, sweeping melodies for strings—composed one violin concerto. But in it, he put a world of emotions. WRTI's Susan Lewis has more.

This Is The Music That's Traveled To The Moon

By • Jul 19, 2019
NASA

As we mark the 50th anniversary of the July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing, let's look at the role of music in lunar spaceflight—from music used to wake up space travelers, to astronauts' personal playlists, to music representing life on Earth.

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