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2002

April 12: Saint 0laf Choir

For nearly a century, the St. Olaf Choir has enthralled audiences around the world with extraordinary musicianship, a poetic acumen for phrasing and text, and its own rich and distinctive sound. Bill McGlaughlin welcomes the celebrated ensemble and its conductor, Anton Armstrong, into the Saint Paul Sunday studio this week for a special Easter program spanning five centuries. We'll hear music of Palestrina, Billings, Gretchaninoff, Copland, and two of the choir's former conductors: founder F. Melius Christiansen and noted living composer Kenneth Jennings. (more)

May 11: The Harp Consort ("Missa Mexicana")

Old & New: The Hispanic Baroque knit together often-dizzying contrasts of its culture and beliefs into works of great beauty and vitality. This week on Saint Paul Sunday, Andrew Lawrence-King and the Harp Consort give us a vivid musical taste of that world in "Missa Mexicana," a program juxtaposing an exuberant 17th-century Mass setting by Spanish-born composer Juan Gutierrez de Padilla, chapel master of Mexico's Puebla Cathedral, with the Latin-American and African folk dances that in part inspired it. It's a lively Baroque fusion of the Old World and the New. (more)

April 27: Shifrin/Sherry/McDermott (CMSLC)

Lease on Life: Whether we're 6 or 60, we all need a fresh start from time to time. This week on Saint Paul Sunday, we hear a work that gave the 58-year old Johannes Brahms a new lease on life. After having vowed to retire, Brahms heard a performance by clarinet virtuoso Richard Mühlfeld. So moved was he that he took up the pen again and composed a clarinet trio---his sole venture in the form. This week Bill McGlaughlin welcomes a brilliant threesome drawn from the ranks of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center to play it. In addition to Mühlfeld's trio, clarinetist David Shifrin, cellist Fred Sherry, and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott also perform Aaron Jay Kernis's "Trio in Red," a work that charts distinctly different emotional territory. (more)

April 20: Gottlieb Wallisch, piano

Full Pallete: The acclaimed Viennese pianist Gottlieb Wallisch visits Saint Paul Sunday this week for a program that searches his instrument's subjective and coloristic possibilities to their fullest. First we'll hear a Mozart fantasy that ventures beyond its familiar classical confines into stormy Romantic territory; next an evocative sound-picture of moorish Spain by Debussy; and finally Robert Schumann's dazzling Carnaval, a coded panoply of the composer's loves, theatrical passions, and alter egos. Mr. Wallisch inhabits each work with the virtuosity for which he is warmly noted. (more)

August 14: Los Romero

September 19: Renée Fleming, soprano; Richard Bado, piano

Jewel Song: Whenever she lifts her voice, American soprano Renée Fleming commands a beauty of tone, an intelligence, and a presence that are hers alone. She is truly a singer for our time. This week on Saint Paul Sunday, Bill McGlaughlin welcomes Ms. Fleming and her long-time friend and collaborator Richard Bado for a program that draws freely from her rich stylistic palette. We'll hear two songs of Richard Strauss; arias by Puccini, Catalani, Gounod, and André Previn; and several American works, including Harold Arlen's "Over the Rainbow," and a timely new song by Gene Scheer that recalls poignant memories of war. (more)

September 12: Emerson String Quartet

Converging Lines: For over a quarter century, the Emerson String Quartet has led audiences into profound encounters with the composers central to its repertoire. This week on Saint Paul Sunday, the renowned ensemble gives us peak examples of four—Haydn, Beethoven, Bartók, and Shostakovich—and flavors the mix with an American twist: music by Charles Ives and doublebass virtuoso Edgar Meyer, who joins the Emerson in a performance of his own "Quintet for String Quartet and Doublebass." (more)

August 15: The Ahn Trio: From Haydn to Jim Morrison

Ahn-Plugged: From Haydn to Jim Morrison, whatever music the Ahn Trio performs it does so with equal parts artistry and flair. And as these celebrated sisters point out, why shouldn't classical music be fun? It's all about the music when the Ahn Trio stops by the Saint Paul Sunday studio this week to play the last trio of a master, two pieces by living composers and a special arrangement of a different kind of "classic"—"Riders on the Storm." (more)

August 08: The Dorian Wind Quintet

Musical Gifts: Hailed by TIME magazine as "one of chamber music’s most sparkling and eloquent ensembles," the Dorian Wind Quintet joins Bill McGlaughlin in the studio this week for a program that shows us why. After performing music of Anton Reicha, "the father of the wind quintet," the fivesome offers three imaginative new variations on his beloved E-flat Major Quintet-works written by living composers specifically to celebrate the Dorians' forty years together as an ensemble. Along with anniversary variations by Richard Rodney Bennett, George Perle and Lee Hoiby, we'll also hear charming music of Darius Milhaud and Lalo Shifrin, all played with the quintet's customary virtuosity and verve. (more)

August 01: The Sixteen

Heaven and earth: Out of the cultural upheaval of 16th-century Europe emerged choral music of otherworldly power and calm. This week on Saint Paul Sunday, Bill McGlaughlin welcomes the celebrated British ensemble The Sixteen and its conductor Harry Christophers for polyphonic Renaissance works by Palestrina, Victoria, and Byrd. The program juxtaposes three sensuous "Song of Songs" settings with ethereal liturgical works—music the Sixteen sings with all its famed artistry and warmth. (more)

July 25: Miami String Quartet and Nokuthula Ngwenyama, viola

New Frontiers: How has the New World enlivened those traditional forms it inherited from the Old? This week violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama and the Miami String Quartet offer some delicious clues. The centerpiece of the program is Mozart's first viola quintet, written when the composer was just 17, but prophetic of the richness to come. Movements from two more works—Antonín Dvořák's Opus 97 viola quintet, written during the composer's three-year stay in the United States, and Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera's first quartet—observe a European musical language in distinctly North and South American styles. (more)

July 18: Jon Kimura Parker

Generous Spirit: Great classical music weaves its spell on multiple layers at once, and it's the rare artist who animates both its particulars and its larger expanses with equal aplomb. This week on Saint Paul Sunday, host Bill McGlaughlin welcomes renowned Canadian pianist Jon Kimura Parker for a joyous Beethoven sonata, Maurice Ravel's quietly revolutionary "Jeux d'Eau," and a stunning new fantasy on Harold Arlen's music for the "Wizard of Oz" composed for Mr. Parker himself. (more)

July 11: Pieter Wispelwey, cello; Dejan Lazić, piano

Kaleidoscope: A human voice, a beam of light, a fiery village dance? Whatever impressions the cello stirs in you, cellist Pieter Wispelwey and pianist Dejan Lazic add their own brilliant luster. This week on Saint Paul Sunday, the acclaimed duo brings to life three distinct faces of the instrument: music from the late eighteenth, middle nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. Along with sonatas of Beethoven and Zoltán Kodály, we’ll hear Chopin’s little known Grande Polonaise Brillante for Cello and Piano in C Major. The mix is irresistable. (more)

July 04: REBEL

Italian Inspiration: The irresistible charm and originality of Italian music, whether openly embraced or officially banned, left an enduring impression on composers throughout 17th and 18th century Europe. This week on Saint Paul Sunday, the acclaimed ensemble REBEL joins Bill McGlaughlin to explore this remarkable influence as it was variously revealed by Vivaldi, Telemann, Purcell, and others. Listen to the performance in for what the Los Angeles Times calls "astonishingly vital music making." (more)

June 27: Avalon String Quartet

Inspired Exchange: Owing to its intimacy and self-direction, chamber music at its best is always a give-and-take process. The Avalon String Quartet, Bill McGlaughlin’s guests this week on Saint Paul Sunday, lend dazzling musicianship to this chemistry, one that glows both within their close circle and through ongoing collaboration with several master ensembles of our day, including the Juilliard, Emerson, and Vermeer string quartets. Having recently completed a two-year quartet residency at the Juilliard School, the quartet was immediately engaged to be artists-in-residence at Indiana University at South Bend where they serve as full-time string faculty. Its emerging presence on the American music scene signals the arrival of an exhilarating new voice. (more)

March 14: Edgar Meyer, doublebass; Mike Marshall, guitar & mandolin

Back Porch Harmony: Sometimes all we really need is to sit on the back porch and listen to friends play music. This week on Saint Paul Sunday, we get that chance when two of America's musical treasures, doublebass virtuoso Edgar Meyer and mandolinist and guitiarist Mike Marshall, bring us several of their own compositions and arrangement. It's a vivid quiltwork of classical and other styles. Tune in and pull up a chair. (more)

December 21: Lyra Concert; David Douglas, violin; Ellen Hargis, soprano

September 14: King's Singers

August 31: Michala Petri, recorder; Lars Hannibel, guitar

August 17: Eroica Quartet

August 03: Kalichstein/Laredo/Robinson Trio

July 27: Robison-Lubambo-Baptista Trio

July 25: Guarneri String Quartet

July 20: Lang Lang

July 13: Jorja Fleezanis, violin; Cyril Huve, forte piano

June 22: Hesperion XXI

May 25: Marilyn Horne and Friends: Dina Kuznetsova, soprano; Troy Cook, baritone; and Brian Zeger, piano

This week, Bill McGlaughlin welcomes one of America's most beloved musical artists and one of the greatest singers of our time. Marilyn Horne visits the Saint Paul Sunday studio with three noted associates of the Marilyn Horne Foundation, an institution dedicated to the presentation of promising young singers in song recitals. Soprano Dina Kuznetsova, baritone Troy Cook, and pianist and foundation board member Brian Zeger come together to perform a varied and beautiful program of classical song. Along the way, we'll hear more about the recital as a vocal art form and the unique riches it offers our cultural life. (more)

February 23: Paul Coletti, viola; Phillip Bush, piano

December 29: Grieg Trio

November 03: Kronos Quartet: Burman, Vrebalov and Osvaldo Golijov

Life Stories: For nearly three decades, Kronos Quartet has shown us the range and power of music of our own time. Dubbed "classical music's own Fab Four" by Rolling Stone, this group continues to draw musical inspiration from around the globe and from the depths of human emotion.

We'll journey along with Kronos and discover just what in the world they've been up to lately, from the film music of India to Mexican rock-and-roll, from gypsy tunes to a haunting memorial. Listen in for performances that reveal the ongoing curiosity and daring of Kronos Quartet. (more)

September 08: eighth blackbird features David Schober, Zohn-Muldoon, Albert

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird: When American poet Wallace Stevens wrote his "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird", little could he have known that some 70 years later the enigmatic and beautiful lines of the poem's eighth stanza would be adopted, in spirit and name, by six brilliant young musicians. Happily, eighth blackbird—an Oberlin-trained sextet of violin, cello, flute, clarinet, piano, and manifold percussion—did just that. This week Bill McGlaughlin welcomes eighth blackbird into the Saint Paul Sunday studio for a program of three works composed especially for them. Movements from Thomas Albert's kaleidoscopic setting of the poem "Thirteen Ways" conclude the program with poignant evocations of Stevens's imagery and thought. (more)

September 01: David Finckel, cello; Wu Han, piano

August 18: Christian Tetzlaff, violin; Tanja Tetzlaff, cello

August 04: Leif Ove Andsnes performs Debussy, Liszt, Brahms

At first blush, Leif Ove Andsnes's press kit lends the impression that he's an Olympic skier: one critic lauds his "steely nerves," while another places him "at the top of the tree, even in his hazardous profession." Then, too, Andsnes is from Norway, where skiing is second only to walking. But this week on Saint Paul Sunday we'll discover that the heights Andsnes masters with such breathtaking artistry aren't snow-capped —they're pinnacles of the piano repertoire. A regular soloist with the world's major orchestras and recipient of the Irving S. Gilmore Keyboard "genius grant," Andsnes will play a Brahms intermezzo, Debussy's Estampes ("Engravings"), and an excerpt from Liszt's "Years of Pilgrimage" cycle. (more)

July 28: Hugo Wolf Quartet

July 14: Eroica Trio

June 02: Brentano String Quartet

April 28: Leila Josefowicz, violin; John Novacek, piano

February 24: Frederic Chiu, piano

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