Sunday 25 January 2009: Messiaen for Beginners Part 2

Eric Tomb continues his self-education in the music of Olivier Messiaen. In the first half of the program he plays the Turangalila Symphony, featuring the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Thierry Fischer, pianist Roger Muraro and ondes martenot player Jacques Tchamkerten.

In the second half of the program he presents Messaien's last work Eclairs sur l'au dela (Illuminations of the Beyond) performed by the Orchestre de l'Opera Bastille conducted by Myung-Whun Chung.

To hear the first half of this program, click here.

To hear the second half, click here.

To see more options, click here.

You can also get the entire program at the Classical Edge page at kvmr.org.

Sunday 18 January 2009: Messiaen for Beginners Part 1

Eric Tomb introduces the music of of Olivier Messiaen, whom he is just beginning to appreciate. In the first half of the program he presents the American organist Jon Gillock performing Messiaen's two major organ works from the 1930s, Diptyque (1930) and Les Corps Glorieux (1939) on the grand organ of the Church of La Sainte-Trinite, where Messiaen was organist from 1931 until his death in 1992.

In second half of the program he presents Messiaen's most famous work Quartet for the End of Time, which was first performed in a German prisoner of war camp in 1941. It's performed by Gil Shaham, piano; Paul Meyer, clarinet; Jian Wang, cello; and Myung-Whun Chung, piano.

To hear the first half of this program click here.

To hear the second half, click here.

To see more options, click here.

You can also get the entire program at the Classical Edge page at kvmr.org.

Sunday 11 January 2009: Gold Country Piano Institute's Gala Concert

Eric Tomb introduces a complete recording of the Gold Country Piano Institute's Gala Concert, which took place on 22 June 2008 at the Miners Foundry in Nevada City. The concert featured the young Polish pianist Marta Kucbora performing J S Bach's English Suite #2 in A minor; Fryderyc Chopin's Barcarolle in F-sharp Major, Op 60; Isolde's Liebestod from Act III of Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (arranged by Franz Liszt); and Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Sonata #8, Op 84.

To hear this program, go to the Classical Edge page at kvmr.org.

Sunday 4 January 2009: Wet Ink, the 9th Festival of New Music

Eric Tomb introduces a complete recording of the Nevada County Composers Cooperative's Wet Ink: The 9th Festival of New Music, which took place on 24 June 2008 at the Amaral Family Festival Center at the Nevada County Fairgrounds. The concert included work by Jerry Grant, Ludi Hinrichs, Derek Keller, Jay Sydeman, Mikail Graham and Menlo Macfarlane, Mark Vance, and Randy McKean. To hear this program, go to the Classical Edge page at kvmr.org.

Sunday 7 January 2007: Jay Sydeman's Archive

On 7 January Eric Tomb talked with composer Jay Sydeman about the archive of his fifty years of music he's been creating. He's made several CDs of this archive and he and Eric have begun uploading it to an internet site where everyone can access it (there have been some minor technical problems: the site whould be available in the next week or so). Tonight they listened to a recording of Jay's Kennedy Memorial, which was performed by the Boston Symphony Ortchestra in 1965. Tapes of the performance, which Jay had completely forgotten about, recently resurfaced and he cleaned them up for this broadcast.

To hear this program, click here.

To reach the online Sydeman Archive, click here.