WDAV

From a press release issued by Opera Carolina on July 29, 2009:

CHARLOTTE, NC -- The board of directors of Opera Carolina has approved a package of cost-saving and fundraising measures in response to the recently announced 33% reduction in support from the Arts & Science Council and current economic conditions.

Board Chair Kay Allison Norris said the recession, coupled with the $245,000 reduction in ASC support, has forced Opera Carolina to postpone its October 2009 season-opening production of Verdi's Otello and reduce the number of performances to two, now scheduled for Thursday, May 6 and Saturday, May 8, 2010.

The company will also cancel the May 2010 production of the American Premiere, Transit of Venus.

"With only three months before the season opens, the board has responded decisively with a comprehensive financial action plan," stated General Director James Meena. "We are confident that this plan will help us address the reduction in support, and continue to fulfill our company mission and goals."

Meena explained that the plan is laser-focused on strategies to reduce costs, secure funding to replace up to one-third of the income reductions, and bolster outreach and marketing efforts to reposition, rebuild and ultimately stabilize the company's programming and financial position.

"The Board carefully considered cancelling both Otello and Transit of Venus but by exploring every alternative, we have been able to secure world-renowned Tenor Carl Tanner to perform the lead in the spring production of Otello," said Meena. "While the postponement of the fall opening performance was a difficult decision, we are compelled to meet our economic challenges by bringing inventive thinking to the stage, ultimately preserving Opera Carolina's long term future. That said, we are confident that our audiences will be enthralled by Tanner's spectacular talent."

"Opera Carolina is recognized for our customer service, and our stewardship of the resources entrusted to us. Our first commitment is to our season ticket holders, who will be given options for the disposition of their tickets, including exchanges, donations or a refund for their Transit of Venus tickets," said Meena.

Steve Hershfield, treasurer of the board of directors, added, "We view this as an important adjustment that confirms our long-standing commitment tofiscal responsibility and stewardship. We will have completed our new three-year business plan by December, and an evolved strategic plan by next spring. The Board of Directors, patron leadership, auxiliary organizations and staff are committed to meeting these new challenges, just as we have met the challenges of this past year, and previous years."

Plans are well underway for the company's highly anticipated Bella Notte, the annual Fall Gala fundraising event, which will be held Oct. 24, 2009, on the set of La Bohème on the stage of the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center. The 2010 season will begin with La Bohème scheduled for Jan. 23, 24, 28 & 30, followed by Love Notes, a special concert of opera and Zarzuela (Spanish folk opera) benefiting the Hispanic Scholarship Fund on Feb. 20 at the new Knight Theater, Carmen, starring international opera diva Denyce Graves opposite the luminous Carl Tanner, slated for Mar. 13, 14, 18 & 20, and concluding with Otello, starring Carl Tanner on May 6 and 8.


About Opera Carolina
Founded in 1948 as the Charlotte Opera Association by a small group of volunteers, Opera Carolina today is the largest professional opera company in the Carolinas with an operating budget of over $3.5 million for the fiscal year 2009. The mission of Opera Carolina is to inspire the region's diverse community through the presentation of excellent Opera, Operetta, Music Theater, and Education & Outreach programs that elevate the quality of life in the Carolinas. Opera Carolina is a community resource with a commitment to artistic excellence and community service.

Opera Carolina is supported by the Arts & Science Council-Charlotte/Mecklenburg and the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency funded by the state of North Carolina, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Opera Carolina is a member of OPERA America.

Posted by Lisa Gray at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

During our recent residency at the Brevard Music Center, WDAV Program Director Frank Dominguez chatted with Henry Janiec, Conductor Emeritus of Brevard Music Center, in the WDAV broadcast RV. Produced by Jeffrey Freymann-Weyr for WDAV.

Henry Janiec, conductor emeritus of Brevard Music Center from WDAVfm on Vimeo.

Posted by Lisa Gray at 12:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

New Video! WDAV Program Director Frank Dominguez chats with David Effron, Brevard Music Center Conductor Emeritus, in the WDAV broadcast RV. Produced by Jeffrey Freymann-Weyr for WDAV.

David Effron chats with WDAV's Frank Dominguez from WDAVfm on Vimeo.

Posted by Lisa Gray at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My iPod bit the dust. At a Motel 6 in Kansas, I went to update my hallowed Road Trip playlist in order to delete "Smokin' in the Boys Room." The nostalgic novelty of that song, I had found, turns out to be rather paltry. Grating, even. But when, in room 116, I connected my digital drives and mashed "sync," I received, OMG, a stop-sign, exclamation point, "Error 1429" pop-up warning that my device was "corrupt." Well!

Now, you might think that corruption would have happened to me sooner. Say, the week before, when southern California's Mojave desert temperatures in my glove box where the iPod lives surely topped 120 degrees. And what with southern California being, you know, pretty corrupt. But no, this musical corruption was visited upon me and my iPod in Goodland, Kansas. Who knew? Lord, Lord, Lord.

Was it the Mojave Desert or "Smokin' in the Boys' Room" that gave my iPod a fever? Or maybe it was Tina Turner's classic "Nutbush City Limits." Swine flu?...

In addition to deleting the offensive tune on the Road Trip playlist, I was aiming to upload a new playlist I had selected, more recent stuff than the mostly retro Road Trip melodies, detailed in a previous post. Time to look ahead, or in this case listen ahead, my road-weary thinking now went, to shift my musical aesthetic back into the 21st century for awhile. Leave the past behind, John, even if you leave claw marks in it.

But no, my muscial muses had other ideas. Here I was with no iPod, no CDs (I had uploaded them all to my Mac and then given them away to loved ones), and no prospects this day of a satisfying radio experience (on a 400-mile driving day at 80 mph across Kansas, no stations, such as they are and what there are of them, last for more than three songs). So, I dug into the cavernous depths of the Comet's voluminous trunk. A Mountain Dew's worth of sweat, a bumped noggin, and a couple of choice cusswords later, I found the prize I sought. Carefully wrapped in a shop rag underneath the spare tire were two zippered foam-rubber-and-nylon boxes of cassette tapes, most of them dating to a 1989 cross-country trip in this very same car. I opened one and peeped inside to see what I had packed.

In Kansas, I listened to extant cassettes from days of yore. And listened, and listened, and listened. Sixteen cassettes is not a lot when you are driving across the high lonesome prairie, which, I swear, expands in the heat.

Some of the tapes were store-bought (how quaint!) but the best of them I had recorded myself, on my first real stereo in my first real apartment. Recorded them from vinyl albums, kids, with a diamond-tipped stylus on my strobe-lit, pride-and-joy Pioneer turntable and Toshiba receiver. See, boys and girls, that's how we "transferred music files" back in the day. Put that in your earbuds and smoke it.

Here are just a few of my thoughts that day:

• Eric Clapton's album Pilgrim is a beautiful expression of the many facets of stupefying loss and pain---but maybe not the best thing to be listening to all by yourself when you are many hundreds of miles from anybody who loves you in the middle of, as noted, Kansas.
• The dance mix of Jody Watley's "I'm Looking for a New Love (Baby)" is a good antidote for the pain and loss thing.
• Jeannie C. Riley's "Harper Valley P.T.A." is a gem of a 1968 one-hit-wonder. It was also , by the way, transposed into a festive 70s made-for-TV movie starring Barbara Eden in a killer mini-skirt. If I ever decide to do some really bad drag, I'm getting white go-go boots and channeling both of them.
• If Vern Gosdin's gospel country rock rendition of "Way Down Deep" does not make your speedometer gain at least 10 miles per hour, there is something wrong with your car.
• Linda Ronstadt sounds just a little bit whiny sometimes, bless her heart.
• Merle Haggard's name is perfect, for Merle Haggard.
• Was that really true, that 70s story about Rod Stewart and the emergency room?
• And so on.

The lifesaver selection in the pile of cassettes was a compilation of a couple of Hal Ketchum albums, digital versions of which I had already enjoyed several times this trip, but which were now trapped impotent in the sickly iPod. But joy of joys, what once was lost now was found, an analog blast from the past. The cassette's yellowed label was hand-lettered in my sister's careful cursive, a long-ago stocking stuffer. Bless you, Sister.

Ketchum usually gets lumped in with country music classification, which is not wholly incorrect. But for my money, he is in a category by himself, an exquisite lyricist whose catchy, original, unhurried melodies he delivers in a rich, mellifluous tenor, with just enough vibrato emotion and even an occasional, sparing, but pitch-perfect soar into falsetto. Hal Ketchum is, in other words, ideal road music. Imagine, if you will, the sound of a long, thin aerial whipping through hot highway wind, and this:

"No Easy Road"
Don't know where, don't know when, this road I'm on is gonna end/It's been my friend, it's been my sin, my next of kin./Traveled high, traveled low, rain still falls, the wind still blows, one thing I've learned, one thing I know, there ain't no easy road....

or this:

"Mama Knows the Highway"
Mama knows the highway by the song/When she hears a good one, she always sings along/She don't ever worry 'bout what's gone, she says good country music, never steer you wrong.... She can tell Wyoming by the wind, she can tell another trucker by the rig that he's in/She knows where the real South begins.... She can gauge a café just by looking at the sign, little ol' places always share the grand design....

Or the 1999 tune "Long Way Down" from the album Awaiting Redemption, prescient to our own times in a macroeconomic sort of way, even though it's really about something else entirely, something very personal and specific and at the same time universal:
Got a silver Eldorado settin' just outside the door/She'll burn a little rubber if you put her to the floor/Times are getting tough so we don't run much anymore/Look out son, it's a long way down.... Remember my amigos, you are talking to a man who has lived a whole lot longer than anybody planned/As I stand here now before you, with the past at my command, look out son, it's a long way down.

I even briefly considered trying to track ol' Hal down. At my next Motel 6, I Googled him to a spread outside of Nashville where he lives with his wife and kids, says Wiki. But, I never have been good at figuring out what to say when I meet famous people---I mean, what, "I just love your work!"?---and I figured he would take me for some kind of stalker fan weirdo, so I decided that we should remain imaginary friends. But here's big thanks, Hal, for the musical moments sublime.

Um, by the way, you didn't by any chance corrupt my iPod on that "Long Way Down"?...

Posted by Lisa Gray at 8:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WDAV's Jennifer Foster sat down with Brevard Music Center Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor Keith Lockhart to chat about the inspirational role Brevard plays in the lives of classical music students. Watch the video here!

Keith Lockhart Chats with Jennifer Foster from WDAVfm on Vimeo.

Posted by Lisa Gray at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On loan, WDAV's mobile broadcast studio makes its way to stage right, Whittington-Pfohl Auditorium. Live Broadcasts from WDAV's Camper Van Beethoven on Friday and Sunday!

Posted by Jennifer Foster at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

JULY 22, 2009 - WDAV 89.9 Classical Public Radio is logging quite a few miles this summer in pursuit of the best classical music being made at the Carolinas' summer music festivals. In May, WDAV took its listeners to Charleston for all 17 days of Spoleto Festival USA. Last week, WDAV spent time at Greensboro's Eastern Music Festival. This weekend, the 37-foot long WDAV Broadcast RV, affectionately known to staffers as "Camper Van Beethoven," makes a stop at the picturesque Brevard Music Festival in the mountains of western North Carolina.

WDAV's on-air and online coverage from Brevard includes two live broadcasts directed by Keith Lockhart, Artistic Advisor and Principal Conductor at Brevard in the summers and known around the world as the charismatic conductor of the Boston Pops. On Friday, July 24 at 7 p.m., WDAV presents a live broadcast of Lockhart conducting the Transylvania Symphony Orchestra - one of Brevard's acclaimed student ensembles. The all-American program features the Violin Concerto by the Brevard Festival's composer-in-residence William Aldridge, as well as Gershwin's An American in Paris, the beautiful Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland's moving and timeless Lincoln Portrait, narrated by WDAV Program Director Frank Dominguez. The concert will be hosted from stage by WDAV's Jennifer Foster.

Frank and Jennifer are back on Sunday, July 26 at 3:00 p.m. for another WDAV full-length live concert broadcast - this time of Lockhart, Effron and Janiec: TOGETHER!, which features the Brevard Music Center's three living Music Directors, Keith Lockhart, David Effron and Henry Janiec. On the program are Janiec leading the Brevard Music Center Orchestra in Richard Strauss' tone poem Don Juan, Effron conducting the Symphony No. 6 by Dmitri Shostakovich, and Lockhart conducting the Russian master Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony No. 6.

"It's both fitting and an honor that WDAV - a listener-supported service of Davidson College - should present the first-ever broadcast from the Brevard Music Center..." notes General Manager Benjamin K. Roe. "...since the idea of Brevard as a summer music institute was born in Davidson 73 summers ago. Now we're coming to Brevard to do as Keith Lockhart suggests: to 'dig deeper into the rhythms of this place.' We'll share the experience with listeners across the Carolinas on 89.9 FM and around the globe via wdav.org."

Listen When You Like
WDAV listeners will certainly want to hear all of these stirring performances as they happen - live - via their radios at 89.9 FM, their iPhones via the Public Radio Tuner or via live streaming from their computers at www.wdav.org. The WDAV website features slideshows, podcasts and on-demand mp3 recordings of all the Summer Music Festival concerts and interviews - accessible anytime, anywhere. Look for the "Festivals" tab at www.wdav.org.

During WDAV's summer festival residencies, fans can receive regular updates from WDAV by subscribing to its blog and friending WDAV on Facebook - both easily done from the WDAV website homepage. Listeners can also follow WDAV on Twitter at www.twitter.com/wdav.

About Brevard Music Center
For 73 years, Brevard Music Center has given students the opportunity to better understand and prepare themselves for the professional world of music. Founded by James Christian Pfohl in 1936, the summer band camp for boys began on the Davidson College campus. It moved permanently to Brevard in 1944. BMC has since matured into one of this country's finest summer institutes and festivals. Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, BMC welcomes to its 150-acre campus each year students, ages 14 and older, and 60 distinguished faculty artists for an intensive seven-week program of study and performance.

About WDAV 89.9 Classical Public Radio
Celebrating its 31st year on the air, WDAV 89.9 is a listener-supported public radio service of Davidson College. WDAV serves a 22-county region centered in the Charlotte, NC metro area and ranging from Rock Hill, SC to Galax, VA. Listeners receive the highest quality original classical-music programming, as well as promotions spotlighting the activities of regional arts organizations and artists of all disciplines. To listen to WDAV live online 24 hours a day, visit www.wdav.org.

Posted by Lisa Gray at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thank you to Greensboro's Eastern Music Festival, which hosted WDAV last week on the campus of historic Guilford College. We heard outstanding performances from students, faculty and guest performers, as well as insightful interviews with Artistic Director Gerard Schwarz, composer-in-residence Bright Sheng and many others. Hear it all again on our Audio Archives and watch our videos too.

This week, listen for music, interviews and more from Brevard Music Center, home to another of this country's great music institutes. On Friday evening, we'll bring you a live broadcast of Keith Lockhart conducting the Transylvania Symphony Orchestra - one of BMC's acclaimed student ensembles - in an all-American program. Read all the details here!

Posted by Lisa Gray at 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As you probably know, WDAV has hit the road again - this time to bring you live broadcasts from Greensboro's prestigious summer-music institute, the Eastern Music Festival. Midday host Jennifer Foster began our coverage yesterday, and continues today with more music, interviews and insights from EMF. On Saturday morning, from 8 a.m. to noon, you'll hear Frank Dominguez broadcasting live from historic Guilford College, where EMF is held.

If you heard selections worth a second listen -- or if aren't able to listen live -- have no fears! You can listen anytime, anywhere. We've posted free audio files of all our EMF coverage. Just visit our WDAV at Eastern Music Festival page to listen to any interview or music selection. And then come back to the Classical Musings blog here to let us know what you think!

Posted by Lisa Gray at 7:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Jennifer Foster at Work from WDAVfm on Vimeo.

Posted by Rachel Stewart at 7:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Fun at the Eastern Music Festival from WDAVfm on Vimeo.

Posted by Rachel Stewart at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted Friday, July 17, 2009 -- This evening at 6:00 p.m., ten piano students from the Eastern Music Festival perform at Millennium Stage at The Kennedy Center. A free live webcast of the performance can be viewed here.
Meet the students, and preview the selections each will play.

Robin Jenkins performs SCHUMANN: Sonata in G minor, Op.22 (So rasch wie moglich)

A native of House Springs, Missouri, pianist Robin Jenkins has been a top prizewinner in several national and international competitions, including the Fite Family Competition, the Lennox International Young Artists Competition, and the regional MTNA Yamaha Competition. She has soloed with the Washington University, Webster, Alton, Belleville, and University City Symphonies, as well as with the St. Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra at Powell Hall. Former teachers include Jack Winerock and Zena Ilyashov. Robin currently studies under Alvin Chow at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Daniel Anastasio performs MOZART: Sonata in D Major, K.576 (Allegro)

Daniel Anastasio is an Arts and Sciences sophomore at Cornell University, where he studies piano with Xak Bjerken. He has studied the piano since the age of five, and currently lives in San Antonio, Texas. He performed with the San Antonio Symphony as a winner of its 2007 "Future Stars" Competition, and was also a soloist with Youth Orchestras of San Antonio. He was Student Leader of the Junior Tuesday Musical Club in San Antonio and received the 2005 "Bowman Award" as first place winner of that club's annual competition. Daniel attended the Tanglewood Institute's Young Artist Piano Program for three summers and is attending Eastern Musical Festival for a second summer. He enjoys playing chamber music and jazz in addition to his solo work.

Yuiko Ohoka performs LISZT: Sonetto 104 del Petrarca

Yuiko Ohoka started studying the piano at the age of six in Japan. She moved to the United States in 2001 and continued her study with Ms. Nancy Daggett Jensen, Ms. Yumi Tayama, and Dr. Gwendolyn Mok, who is the chair of the music department at San Jose State University. Yuiko has just finished her freshman year at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she is currently studying with Mr. Yoshikazu Nagai.

Grace Ma performs MUCZYNSKI: Desperate Measures (Paganini Variations) for Piano, Op.48

Grace Ma is 17 and currently resides in Phoenix, Arizona. She attends Desert Vista High School as an upcoming senior. She has won several competitions such as first place in the 2004 MTNA Junior Competition and the Stravinsky International Competition. She has played piano for 13 years, and she also enjoys writing, reading, and spending time with her friends.

Stephanie Chan performs CHOPIN: Etude in C-Sharp Minor, Op.10 no.4

Stephanie Chan, age 20, began studying piano at the age of six. She has just completed her second year at the University of Houston's Moores School of Music, where she is pursuing a degree in piano performance under Mrs. Nancy Weems. In May 2007 she appeared on the national radio show From The Top, which showcases young musicians from across the country. Stephanie has performed with numerous orchestras as winner of their young artists competitions, and she has worked with such renowned pianists as Steven Kovacevich, Olga Kern, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Antonio Pompa-Baldi, and Peter Frankl.

Jeong Eun Choe performs CHOPIN: Etude in G-flat Major, Op.10 no.5

Jeong Eun Choe, 19, began her piano studies at age six. She has been recognized in numerous competitions and festivals including the NW Chopin Festival, Seattle Young Artists Music Festival, Washington Music Educators Association State Competition, and the MTNA Washington State Competition. Jeong also performed with Skagit Valley Symphony and Seattle Symphony. Jeong currently attends the Eastman School of Music as a student of Nelita True.

Chien-Lin Lu performs SCHUMANN: Fantasy in C Major, Op.17 (Massig.Durchaus energisch)

Chien-Lin Lu, a native of Taiwan, began studying piano at the age of 7. He moved to the States in 2002 and later attended Interlochen Arts Academy and studied with Yoshikazu Nagai. He is now a senior at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, studying with Angela Cheng. Chien-Lin has received numerous awards from competitions in both Taiwan and the United States, including Taiwanese Vienna Music Education Association Competition, Chinese American Education Association Piano Competition, Lennox Young Artists International Competition, Ft. Collins Symphony Orchestra National Young Artist competition, and Crescendo Music Awards Competition. In 2006, he was a Gilmore Fellow and performed in Ingrid Fliter's master class. Chien-Lin has also performed in the master classes of Stephen Hough, Angela Hewitt, Martin Katz, MingQiang Li, and Nelita True. In 2008, Chien-Lin was awarded the Rudolf Serkin Prize for excellence in piano performance.

Kara Huber performs JOAN TOWER: From No Longer Very Clear Holding a Daisy and "Or Like a...an Engine"

Originally from Oakland, Illinois, Kara Huber is a senior at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Frank Weinstock . Beginning piano lessons at the age of five, Ms. Huber also spent two years as a scholarship student at the Interlochen Arts Academy. Her most recent accomplishments include the Steinway Scholar at Eastern Music Festival, New York Piano Competition, and appearances with the Eastern Music Festival Orchestra and Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra. While working towards a career as a concert pianist, Ms. Huber is also the pianist for the CCM Orchestras and Contemporary Music Ensemble as well as accompanist for vocalists, instrumentalists, and ballet classes.

Christopher Goodpasture performs LISZT: Valse-Impromptu

A Los Angeles native, Christopher Goodpasture is currently entering his junior year as a scholarship recipient of the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California where he has continued his studies with Norman Krieger and Dr. Stewart Gordon. A frequent performer and recitalist, he has won awards in several local, national and international piano competitions, including top prizes in the American Fine Arts Festival and the Los Angeles International Franz Liszt Competition. Christopher has given critically acclaimed performances throughout the state of California, and, most recently, debut performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City. He has received reviews in both the San Mateo Journal and the Washington Post. Christopher returns to Eastern Music Festival for his second summer.

Fang-Wei Hsu performs LIEBERMANN: Garygoles, op.29 (IV. Presto feroce)

Fang-Wei Hsu, born in Taipei, Taiwan, began her piano studies at the age of six. Following years of study, she attended the Interlochen Arts Academy for her high school education and continued her piano studies with Yoshikazu Nagai and Michael Coonrod. She will attend the Eastman School of Music this fall.

Chan, Goodpasture, Choe, Anastasio perform SOUSA arr. Mack Wilberg: Stars and Stripes Forever.

For more, visit the Kennedy Center's website.

Posted by Lisa Gray at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WDAV is broadcasting live this week from the Eastern Music Festival held at historic Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. Our staff is already there setting up our studio-away-from-home and conducting interviews with musicians, composers, faculty, and students. Here are some photos from our first days at the Festival.

EMF Artistic Director Gerard Schwarz with WDAV's Jennifer Foster and Ben Roe.

Posted by Lisa Gray at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Video greeting from from the campus of Guilford College from WDAV's mid-day host, Jennifer Foster, who invites you to tune in for live coverage of the Eastern Music Festival Thursday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on 89.9 WDAV, and online at www.wdav.org

Posted by Jennifer Foster at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's 9:30 at night in Palm Springs, Calif., and I realize I have had the Southern California classical radio station, KPSC 88.5 FM, on the radio all day. OK, I set it for the dog, truth be told, since classical music on WDAV 89.9 FM is what they play for him at Camp Wagging Tails back home, and what I play for him at my condo while I am at work, on account of his mild (now) separation anxiety. Dulcet tones soothe the savage beast. Seems to work. And besides, who does not want to awaken from their afternoon nap to the sound of applause, hello? Especially now for him, in Dodger's desert dog-days of summer 2009: too many hard, loud, freaky hours of SoCal freeways in an un-air-conditioned, 42-year-old Comet, with no roof to speak of? Who signed him up for this? OK, I did, against my better judgment. But all is well.

But maybe, just maybe, the dulcet tones of classical music soothe me, too (leaving aside the possibility of my own savagery and beastery). I mean, even reentering the AC atmosphere of my room from the desert's 114 degrees, I haven't even thought about turning on the television news channels, and the channel-surf crap behind them, all day long. My great, big TV on the wall is mute, bless its tiny, little heart.

I am no classical music connoisseur, I assure you---although I am able to spell connoisseur on the first try. But there is something going on more elemental here, and more timeless, something that only, well, time itself will tell about the music of our own centuries. Satellite "classic" rock, indeed. Snif. Sometimes I just want a solid rendition, from sixty years ago with vinyl scratches intact, or from right now live tonight in pristine digitation, of Mozart's Requiem, played, please, to me in a hammock on a screen porch during a loud, scary thunderstorm of the variety that has scared the beJesus out of, and into, humankind for many a moon. And baby, get me a beer while you're up, it dudd'n git any bettern'iss....

So, you tell me: Does Dodger, pictured here below, look like a day of classical music---okay, with a healthy smattering of Hollywooodish stuff, it's Palm Springs---at an adult volume has done him wrong or right, here at bedtime at the ACE Hotel in Palm Springs? I mean, he is not even supposed to be on the sheets, y'all, it is written in the rules that I signed on to with my credit card.

Ask him if he cares.

P.S. Late-breaking 22:19 PDT: Him making happy dog-dreaming squealy noises.

Posted by Rachel Stewart at 12:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We ended our San Diego stay, a petite week, by one more festive visit to Dog Beach before heading up the coast. Sure enough, exiting the accursed I-5 to the Pacific Coast Highway, we saw signs to Doheny Park and Laguna Beach, and the Beach Boys started belting out "Surfin' Safari." I did not plan it, honest, my playlist did it on its own. I kept the volume a tad down for fear of being considered uncool by California standards, but beefed it back up when I saw a restored woody with a rehabbed surfer at the wheel headed back down PCH to Doheny. What are North Carolina license plates in Orange County, Calif. worth if you can't play your tourist music as loud as you want, hmm? Anyway, I put some 20-year-old ghosts to rest in Laguna, then got caught in Pageant of the Masters traffic, thence sucked up toward L.A. before deciding to barrel east on the 10, to the welcoming hospitality of John Gilmore, M.D. '69 & Cie in Palm Springs.

John Gilmore, M.D., Davidson '69, and Dodger's new best friend Antonio pose with the ripe grapes at ACE, me everso charmingly retro Palm Springs home.

Next noon, after Dodger and I had discovered the municipal dog park for a 100-degree attempt at a romp, John and his friend Antonio picked me up in John's Hyundai SUV, unfancy but sleek and, O, blessed air conditioning! After a midday tour of some of Palm Springs' history and Hollywood seductions, we headed to Nan's at The Parker (the hotel where Robert Downey, Jr. was busted for coke the first time, I was informed). I had lox and bagels and caviar like I have never had---well, okay, I have never had it at all---then a quick tour of the spa area, where Antonio, a bodyworker, used to work. The spa area was sadly empty, a sign of our times, but I did have a moment to recline in the sumptuous lobby and examine each element of the most careful, simple, and elegant design of a public space I have witnessed, courtesy of Jonathon Adler. Each chair cost more than all my furniture together, I feel sure.

Then, we went to the movies, that old Southern remedy to beat the heat that anybody whose mama did not raise a fool just knows, no matter what part of south they end up in. John's a West Virginia native, went to med school there after Davidson, and in his final year, did a cross-country trip somewhat analagous to mine now, only not so much. He did medical externships along the way in Boston, at Mayo, in Colorado, and in New Mexico, before finishing up and moving to Colorado for residency, then on to doctoring gigs in Hawaii and then San Francisco before being recruited to HIV/AIDS medicine in Palm Springs 10 years ago. Now he splits his time in private practice between HIV/AIDS medicine and internal medicine ("pediatrics for grown-ups").

After the movie, Away We Go, highly recommended, we drove down Bob Hope Boulevard and saw more sights of the rich and famous. We even drove right up to the gate of the Betty Ford Clinic and peeped, but all I saw was some ducks. They were sitting in a little circle. Maybe it was group.

So now I'm back home at the ACE, doing laundry in between dips in a tepid pool lined by misters---water misters, to keep cool, like everywhere here in the summer---that really do work quite well. Another Saturday night....

On my most recent trip back from the coin-op room, I saw this little contraption, which the handyman pointed out not only is quite green, but helps keep off the old spare tire. I can just picture physical plant and IT staff at Davidson tooling around campus on one of these!

Posted by Rachel Stewart at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you intend to be one of classical music's next great players, you don't spend your summers flipping burgers or hanging out by the pool. You commit to an intensive multi-week summer music institute where you put in long days rehearsing a packed repertoire and performing with the world's best musicians and conductors. North Carolina is host to two of the country's most prestigious summer music festivals, and in the coming weeks, WDAV 89.9 Classical Public Radio will broadcast live from both the Eastern Music Festival in Greensboro, N.C., led by Artistic Director Gerard Schwarz, and the Brevard Music Center in Brevard, N.C., directed by the charismatic Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart.

"This is the next generation of classical music stars," says WDAV General Manager Benjamin K. Roe, "led by the finest teachers, composers and conductors in the world. And in our own backyard! These are two of the most celebrated locations in the country for aspiring musicians, and we're proud to be broadcasting from these great institutions for the very first time. It's a fitting summertime follow up to our live broadcasts from Spoleto."

Now in its 48th season, the Eastern Music Festival (EMF) takes place at historic Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C. WDAV will broadcast from the college's Bonner Center for Community Learning Thursday through Saturday, July 16 - 18. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday and Friday and 8 a.m. to noon on Saturday, WDAV will feature performances from the festival and interviews with its students, professional instructors and conductors. Hosts Jennifer Foster and Frank Dominguez will chat with such festival luminaries as EMF and Seattle Symphony music director Gerard Schwarz and Bright Sheng, one of the foremost composers of our time and composer-in-residence this summer at EMF. The intensive and far-reaching musical activities at EMF, including chamber concerts, faculty and student recitals, and the innovative "two orchestra" student-training program will also be the focus of WDAV's acclaimed Saturday afternoon (3-5 p.m.) live-performance series Carolina Live, now available for on-demand listening.

Tucked away in the mountains of Western North Carolina, the Brevard Music Center is another classical music proving ground for aspiring musicians. The Center is led by Artistic Director Keith Lockhart, who also conducts the Boston Pops Orchestra and the Utah Symphony. "As an alumnus of Brevard Music Center, I can testify personally to the profound impact this place can have on a young musician," Lockhart observes. "Life decisions are made here."

During the week of July 20-26, WDAV's listeners will hear music, features, and interviews direct from the picturesque Brevard campus, leading up to the Festival's "WDAV Weekend." On Friday, July 24 at 7 p.m., WDAV will present a live broadcast of Keith Lockhart conducting the Transylvania Symphony Orchestra - one of BMC's acclaimed student ensembles - in an all-American program featuring Gershwin's An American in Paris, the beautiful Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber and Aaron Copland's moving and timeless Lincoln Portrait, narrated by WDAV program Director Frank Dominguez. The concert will be hosted from stage by WDAV's Jennifer Foster.

Frank and Jennifer will be back on Sunday, July 26 at 3:00 p.m. for another WDAV full-length live concert broadcast: The Three Maestros, featuring the Brevard Music Center's three living Music Directors: Harry Janiec, David Effron, and Keith Lockhart. The program features Strauss: Don Juan, Op. 20; Shostakovich: Symphony No. 6 and Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6, "The Pathetique."

Listen When You Like
WDAV listeners will certainly want to hear all of these stirring performances as they happen - live - via their radios at 89.9 FM, their iPhones via the Public Radio Tuner or via live streaming from their computers at www.wdav.org. The WDAV website will feature slideshows, podcasts and on-demand mp3 recordings of all the summer festival concerts and interviews - accessible anytime, anywhere. Look for the "Festivals" tab at www.wdav.org. During WDAV's summer festival residencies, fans can receive regular updates from WDAV by subscribing to its blog and friending WDAV on Facebook - both easily done from the WDAV website homepage. Listeners can also follow WDAV on Twitter at www.twitter.com/wdav.

About Eastern Music Festival
Now in its 48th year, the Eastern Music Festival & School is recognized for its prodigious contributions to the field of American music and its commitment to nurturing talented American and international youth through a collaborative learning process. The program brings together a cross-section of America's most sought-after artists with pre-professional students in a five-week schedule of 100 concerts and music-related events. Music Director Gerard Schwarz heads a distinguished list of participating artists scheduled for 2009, including Peter Serkin, Sarah Chang, Horacio Gutiérrez, Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg and Xavier Phillips. To learn more about the 2009 EMF concert schedule and to purchase tickets, visit www.easternmusicfestival.org.

About Brevard Music Center
For 73 years, Brevard Music Center has given students the opportunity to better understand and prepare themselves for the professional world of music. Founded in 1936, BMC has since matured into one of this country's finest summer institutes and festivals. Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, BMC welcomes to its 150-acre campus each year students, ages 14 and older, and 60 distinguished faculty artists for an intensive seven-week program of study and performance. Learn more and purchase tickets at www.brevardmusic.org.

About WDAV 89.9 Classical Public Radio
Celebrating its 31st year on the air, WDAV 89.9 is a listener-supported public radio service of Davidson College. WDAV serves a 22-county region centered in the Charlotte, NC metro area and ranging from Rock Hill, SC to Galax, VA. Listeners receive the highest quality classical-music programming, as well as promotions spotlighting the activities of regional arts organizations and artists of all disciplines. To listen to WDAV live online 24 hours a day, visit www.wdav.org.

Posted by Lisa Gray at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We left the Grand Canyon for Vegas---300 miles at temps up to 114 at the Hoover Dam and no AC in my dam (sic) car. The prospect of enlivening music was a salve, for distraction if nothing else, the icey bandana on my neck long dessicated. I cued my iPod roadtrip playlist, and finally, finally, on the third rendition of the Eagles, "Already Gone," it dawned on me that I had somehow mashed a button that played the same friggin' song over and over, and I did not know which button. I was booking it down the macadam trying to beat the heat (ha!), and my Pioneer instruction manual was in the trunk. So I reverted once again to my aforementioned and simple-minded "Caliente/F.M." vintage 1989 compilation cassette, since there was no radio I could find out in the tumbleweeds and dust devils. By the time I got off I-40 at Seligman, Ariz., for an 85-mile detour on old Route 66, I was tired of even that personal favorite playlist.

Happily, Seligman is a comfy, kitschy little 66 town with vintage 50s and 60s melodies---even some 30s and 40s Depression-era folk music---wafting from the kind-hearted ticky-tack "cafés" and auto garages-cum-souvenir stores.

Then onward, from Seligman to Kingman near the Nevada state line, where I picked up a country station, some feller sangin' about how it turned him "awn" to be some "wawman's" "mayan." Bully for them. (Truth be told, I felt right at "hawm" for a tad bit.) But happily the Vegas NPR station kicked in soon and I was all sucked up in the U.S. Supreme Court and firefighter affirmative action issues in New Haven, Conn. Lord, that seemed far away from where I was. But I had not read a newspaper for a week, so news of the world was welcome.

So I made do with NPR to Vegas. Even though it wasn't music, it sustained me in an irascible sort of way. News generally hacks me off, even if I haven't heard any for a week. Miles on, I stopped at a lonesome Texaco for a bag of ice, and Dodger reflected my 110-dgree mood in the only shade avalable, by the pump.

Now, I like NPR. Listen all the time. But it is not music, unless you count those snippets of esoteric, world-music, bangy, screechy, dissonant things they splice in between news segments in the morning when I am only but trying to assimilate my caffeine. Please.

Later, at my brother's house one afternoon, an archival BeeGees greatest hits I unearthed provided beat for my exercise routine, but found its limits mighty quick.

Junior high all over again

So here's what I propose: WDAV announcer, producer and work buddy Jennifer Foster, will you please compile me a personal mp3, iTunes compatible, to download for the road? Just a few of you and your inimitable WDAV colleagues' classical favorites---the only stipulation that they be loud, so I can hear them in a 70-mph wind. No hurry, but the change of pace would be ab fab.

Posted by Rachel Stewart at 8:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)