Last night, Texas Tech hosted a live taping of the radio program From the Top. The program features talented young classical musicians in performance, and includes interviews with the students in an effort to show that many classical musicians don't fit the stuffy stereotypes.
This rather informal format--musical performances interspersed with interviews, dialogue, and humor--seems to me an interesting approach to not only radio programming, but concertizing in general. Who wouldn't want to see a chamber music concert where the members of a string quartet (for instance) talked about why they chose the piece, why they chose to study music, etc. I'm not suggesting that all concerts should be this way, but it might be a good way to bring in the skeptics. One girl last night, a cellist, spoke about her love of snowboarding which has so far resulted in a broken arm and a broken leg. She delivered quite a performance of the first movement of Shostakovich's first cello concerto (limbs intact), not a stuffy piece by any means. One of the other performers played some classical guitar pieces by Barrios, then proceeded to wow us with his flamenco skills, and a Jimi Hendrix cover. He was nine years old.
Also of interest was the type of music that these students played. The concert featured five performers playing Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Lutoslawski (!), Barrios, and another composer whose name escapes me at the moment (it sounded very much like one of the Paris Conservatory test pieces for flute, probably from the 1920s). All of this music is pretty serious 20th-century music, which I didn't think most people--let alone (most) teenagers--would be interested in.
It seems like this year in particular, we have quite a lot happening musically in Lubbock, a town which usually gets passed over by big names. We've had Mark O'Connor recently, and Mark-Andre Hamelin (an alumnus of my alma mater, Temple University) will be here in October.
The program will air sometime in mid-December. Tune in and you might just hear members of the TTU Theory faculty applauding.
This rather informal format--musical performances interspersed with interviews, dialogue, and humor--seems to me an interesting approach to not only radio programming, but concertizing in general. Who wouldn't want to see a chamber music concert where the members of a string quartet (for instance) talked about why they chose the piece, why they chose to study music, etc. I'm not suggesting that all concerts should be this way, but it might be a good way to bring in the skeptics. One girl last night, a cellist, spoke about her love of snowboarding which has so far resulted in a broken arm and a broken leg. She delivered quite a performance of the first movement of Shostakovich's first cello concerto (limbs intact), not a stuffy piece by any means. One of the other performers played some classical guitar pieces by Barrios, then proceeded to wow us with his flamenco skills, and a Jimi Hendrix cover. He was nine years old.
Also of interest was the type of music that these students played. The concert featured five performers playing Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Lutoslawski (!), Barrios, and another composer whose name escapes me at the moment (it sounded very much like one of the Paris Conservatory test pieces for flute, probably from the 1920s). All of this music is pretty serious 20th-century music, which I didn't think most people--let alone (most) teenagers--would be interested in.
It seems like this year in particular, we have quite a lot happening musically in Lubbock, a town which usually gets passed over by big names. We've had Mark O'Connor recently, and Mark-Andre Hamelin (an alumnus of my alma mater, Temple University) will be here in October.
The program will air sometime in mid-December. Tune in and you might just hear members of the TTU Theory faculty applauding.