Start pouring the lemonade – this is your sign to slow down and savor the best of summer! Following the course of a perfect summer day, this classical playlist captures the season’s simplest and most blissful moments: an early riser’s view at daybreak, a leisurely afternoon in the sun, a picturesque evening on the water, and a night sky filled with stars.
The Fisherman’s Song (Yi Chen)
Daphnis And Chloe, Suite No. 2: Daybreak (Maurice Ravel)
Dichterliebe, Op. 48: 12. Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen (Robert Schumann)
The Seasons, Op. 37a: VII. July. Song of the Reaper (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky)
The Seasons: IV. Summer (Thea Musgrave)
Dances in the Canebreaks (Arr. W.G. Still for Orchestra): No. 2, Tropical Noon (Florence Price)
Letniy den (Summer Day), Op. 65bis: III. Waltz (Sergei Prokofiev)
Crosswinds: 1. Blue Ridges, Dappled Sunlight, Mountain Waltz (Margaret Brouwer)
5 Songs of Sun and Shade: No. 1, You Lay So Still in the Sunshine (Samuel Coleridge-Taylor)
No tricks – this playlist is a treat. Featuring eerie art songs and arias, scary symphonic suites, and frightening film music, WDAV’s “Haunting Melodies for Halloween” Spotify playlist has you covered for the spookiest season of the year. Add the playlist to your Spotify account and listen here… if you dare.
Traditionally known as Hispanic Heritage Month, the period between September 15 and October 15 is a time to celebrate the rich historical and cultural contributions of the Hispanic and Latinx communities. We picked 5 of the countless Hispanic and Latinx artists who have made their mark on the classical music world to add to your listening queue, but don’t stop here! Listen to Concierto – WDAV’s weekly program spotlighting music by Latin American and Spanish composers and musicians – to learn about more influential artists, Sundays at 6 PM. Concierto is presented in both Spanish and English.
Are “Hispanic,” “Latino,” and “Latinx” synonymous? Not quite – though they’re sometimes used interchangeably in the United States, there are important differences between the three terms. “Hispanic” refers to those who descend from primarily Spanish-speaking countries (including Spain), and “Latino” refers to those who descend from Latin American countries, regardless of Spanish-speaking heritage. “Latinx” was introduced around 2004 as a gender-inclusive term for people of Latin American cultural or ethnic identity. At the end of the day, identity is personal to each individual!
1. Martina Arroyo
American soprano Martina Arroyo’s remarkable talent was discovered when she began to study voice as a hobby in college. Martina continued her voice training after graduation while working as an English teacher and a social worker, embarking on a legendary career after winning the Metropolitan Opera’s Audition of the Air competition in 1957. Though she built a significant following in Europe, Martina held especially close ties to the Metropolitan Opera, where she was a principal soprano for over a decade. Particularly well known for her portrayal of Verdi heroines, Martina is considered a pioneer for performers of African and Puerto Rican descent and continues to pass on her legacy through teaching and masterclasses.
Award-winning Mexican American conductor Alondra de la Parra, known for her “spellbinding and vibrant” conducting style, shows a particular commitment to the work of Latin American conductors. She was named Music Director of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in 2017, making her the first female principal conductor of an Australian symphony orchestra, and left the post earlier this year. Alondra currently serves as an official Cultural Ambassador of Mexico.
3. Ricardo Kanji
Brazilian recorder player, flutist, conductor, and luthier Ricardo Kanji, a founding member of both the Orchestra of the 18th Century and the choir and orchestra Vox Brasiliensis, has specialized in Baroque and Classical interpretation for the majority of his career. Recently, his work reflects a special interest in preserving the music of Brazil’s colonial period.
Listed as one of the 35 most significant women composers in history by the Washington Post, composer Gabriela Lena Frank’s music “often reflects not only her own personal experience as a multi-racial Latina, but also refract her studies of Latin American cultures, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a western classical framework that is uniquely her own” (from Gabriela’s personal bio). Among numerous achievements and awards, Gabriela is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a USA Artist Fellowship, and a Latin Grammy award. Outside of composition, Gabriela is a virtuosic pianist who specializes in contemporary repertoire.
Cuban American guitarist, composer, teacher, and author Ricardo Iznaola is one of the preeminent classical guitarists of his generation. Over a career spanning four decades, Ricardo has won 9 international prizes, published over 50 musical scores and 4 books, and served as Professor of Guitar at the University of Denver for 32 years. Ricardo was inducted into the Guitar Foundation of America’s Hall of Fame in 2016 and received the foundation’s Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award.
To the young ear, classical music can be tricky to figure out. A wordless concerto or a foreign language aria can feel impossible to understand, and lengthy runtimes can cause kids to squirm in their seats.
Our new Classical Kids playlist is the perfect place to start introducing children to the genre! It contains a little bit of everything—symphonic pieces, solo instrumental works, opera, art song, and choral pieces. It’s upbeat, fun, and bubbly, and all of the pieces convey a strong emotion or tell an easy-to-understand story.
Schubert tells of ill-fated trouts, Rimsky-Korsakov illustrates the frantic buzzing of bumblebees, Bernstein protests music outright, and Whitacre shares some extremely dramatic thoughts on cows.
As your children listen to this music, make it as interactive as possible. Encourage them to dance and sing along to the pieces – ask kids to make words up if it’s instrumental or in a foreign language.
They can draw a picture of what they think is happening in the music, or even write or tell you a story based on it. After they share their ideas, tell them the “real” story. Even if some details need to be left out, you can still describe the strong sisters gathering on Wagner’s mountaintop, Belcore’s hilarious boasting, and Juliette’s outburst of joy as she attends her first grand party.
Ask your kids what they like and don’t like, and find more music that suits their tastes. Sit down together and learn about the composers of their favorite pieces, about why they wrote them, about what instruments they used to illustrate their ideas. Encourage your kids’ curiosity, and allow yourself to be curious, too!
When it comes to heavenly bodies, none has provided more musical inspiration than the moon. The most frequently celebrated element of the earth’s satellite is its light, an aspect captured by composers as diverse as Beethoven and Debussy.
Numerous selections evoke the calm of night, while others imagine fanciful travel to the moon, and the wonders that await there. The phases of the moon stir the musical imagination in some of these works, as do the places from where we see it.
Most striking about this list is the number of romantic songs, from opera arias and choruses, to lieder and vintage Americana. We’re pleased to offer this contemplative sampling to observe the anniversary of the adventurous lunar landing fifty years ago.
Beethoven – “Moonlight” Sonata
Daniel Elder – “Ballade to the Moon”
Elgar – In Moonlight
R. Strauss – Moonlight Music from “Capriccio”
Otto Nicolai – Moon Chorus from “The Merry Wives of Windsor”
Debussy – Claire de lune
Stella Sung – Dance of the White Lotus under the Silver Moon
Lu Wencheng – Autumn Moon on a Calm Lake
Dvorak – “Song to the Moon,” from “Rusalka”
Frank Bridge – “Moonlight,” from “The Sea”
Offenbach – Overture from “Voyage to the Moon”
Haydn – “What a Delightful World,” from “The World on the Moon”
John Williams – “Over the Moon,” from “E.T.”
Schubert – “An den Mond” (“To the Moon”)
Joe Burke/Benny Davis – “Carolina Moon”
Mili Balakirev – “The Crescent Moon”
Richard Rodgers (arr. André Previn) – “Blue Moon”
Eric Whitacre – “Goodnight Moon”
J. Strauss, Jr. – “From Earth to Moon: Blue Danube Waltz,” from “2001: A Space Odyssey”
Brahms – “The Moon Veils Its Face”
William Walton – “Moonlight,” from “As You Like It”
Nico Muhly – “Moondrunk,” from “Three Moon Songs”
Alexandre Desplat – “New Moon,” from “The Twilight Trilogy”
