POSTED February 23, 2012 — Throughout the month of March, Charlotte’s performing organizations are celebrating Russian music and culture with the first-ever Ulysses Festival, Charlotte’s Spring Festival of the Arts. Leaders envision this as an annual opportunity for collaboration and community outreach. WDAV is doing its part too: From Romance2Revolution: Music by Tchaikovsky, his Contemporaries and Heirs offers a rich variety of music by Russian composers and performers throughout the month of March, including:
- A Russian Artist Spotlight each weekday afternoon at 2:15 p.m.;
- A different complete Russian symphonic work each Monday through Thursday on the Symphony at 7;
- All-Russian editions of Choral Showcase, Sunday evenings at 6 p.m.;
- Lively features on community groups and arts organizations participating in the Ulysses Festival, airing each Wednesday and Friday at 9:30 a.m. and again on Saturdays at 11:30 a.m.
The entire celebration culminates with a live broadcast of the Charlotte Symphony’s all-Tchaikovsky concert from the Belk Theater on Friday March 30th at 8 p.m. WDAV’s Mike McKay and Matt Rogers host, and the broadcast will feature backstage interviews with CSO Artistic Director Christopher Warren-Green and solo cellist (and 2011 TED fellow) Joshua Roman.
“The Festival’s focus gives us so much to work with,” says WDAV Program Director Frank Dominguez. “We’ll showcase Tchaikovsky and the long reach of his influence through the generation of Russian composers who came after him: Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Stravinsky and beyond. Couple that with our weekly Festival features, in which we’ll stay very local. We’ll be interviewing neighbors, musicians, historians and leaders who know the region’s Russian-speaking community well. We expect to learn a lot through this cultural outreach – and we’ll share it all on-the-air and online at wdav.org.”
Initiatives like WDAV’s Romance2Revolution would not be possible without the generous support of the members of WDAV and by WDAV’s Listen Live Fund. Contributors include Cynthia Tyson, the Jane Cooke Brynn Music Education Fund, the Estate of Debra Buggie and the National Endowment for the Arts. To learn more about WDAV’s Listen Live Fund, contact director of development Rodger Clark at roclark@wdav.org or 877-333-8990.