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People talking pickle! Dinking Around is a podcast hosted by passionate pickleball enthusiasts that combine humor, banter, and insightful analysis to cater to both dedicated players and casual fans. Each episode features in-depth discussions about the latest pickleball news, interviews, and engaging segments with a special guest. Like the great PB&J sandwich, this podcast is about the delicate dance of being comedic but informative leaving the listeners wanting one more bite (listen).
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Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.
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Synopsis American composer Henry Brant is famous for his avant-garde “spatial” music — works that require groups of musicians stationed at various points around a performance space. But hard-core film music buffs might also know Brant as a master orchestrator of other composers’ scores for Hollywood productions in the 1960s. On today’s date in 1995…
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By American Public Media
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By American Public Media
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Synopsis Drop the name “Pleyel” among classical music aficionados and one might say, “Oh, yeah, Pleyel. He was a French piano maker. I think Chopin liked Pleyel pianos.” Another might add, “He was a composer, too, but … I don’t think he was really French…” Another might add, “Didn’t he have something to do with Haydn?” Well, they’re all right. Igna…
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Synopsis Back in 1714, today’s date fell on a Sunday, and, if you had happened to be attending a church service at the German Court of the Duke of Weimar, you might have heard some new music by the Duke’s court composer and organist, Johann Sebastian Bach. It’s possible that Bach’s Cantata No. 21 received its first performance that day: its first p…
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Synopsis On today’s date in 1980, a week-long festival, New Music America, came to a close in Minneapolis with a concert at that city’s Guthrie Theater. The program included the premiere of High Life for Strings, composed by David Byrne, a musician best known for his work with a rock band called The Talking Heads. Byrne later recalled, “When I part…
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Synopsis It’s summertime, the livin’ is easy, and all across the country music festivals large and small are getting underway. In addition to the big symphonic festivals at Ravinia and Tanglewood, there are smaller ones devoted exclusively to the intimate art of chamber music. These festival often offer young, emerging composers the chance have the…
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Synopsis In 1944, French composer Darius Milhaud was in California, teaching at Mills College in California, and received a commission to write a piece suitable for school bands. With a world at war, the Jewish composer had found safe refuge in the U.S., and so eagerly accepted the commission for a number of reasons. Milhaud, confined to a wheelcha…
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Synopsis On today’s date in 2002, a high-profile musical event occurred at Philadelphia’s new Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. The city was hosting the 57th National Conference of the American Symphony Orchestra League, and the Philadelphia Orchestra was celebrating its 100th anniversary with eight new commissions, all to be premiered in the …
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By American Public Media
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By American Public Media
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Synopsis Contemporary composers may bemoan that their newly-composed opera or concerto might languish unperformed for years. “Haydn was lucky,” they whine, “His stuff got played right away!” Well, it’s true that Haydn did have his own orchestra at Prince Esterhazy’s estate and got his music played while the ink was still wet. But even Haydn had to …
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Synopsis For some composers, what made them popular in their own day is not always what makes them popular today. Take, for example, Italian Baroque composer Tomaso Albinoni, who was born in Venice on today’s date in 1671. Albinoni was the son of a wealthy paper merchant, so he was sufficiently well-off, not to have to land a job with the church or…
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Synopsis Claudette Sorel was a pianist, educator and passionate advocate for equal rights for women in music, especially composers and performers. In 1996, she founded the Sorel Organization to expand opportunities and stretch the boundaries for promising emerging female musicians through a variety of collaborations and scholarships, and to acknowl…
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By American Public Media
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Synopsis Merriam-Webster’s defines a gazebo as “a freestanding roofed structure usually open on the sides.” To most Americans, however, “gazebo” conjures up warm, summer days spent out-of-doors: If you imagine yourself inside a gazebo, you’re probably enjoying a cool beverage while gazing out at the greenery — or, if you fancy yourself outside one,…
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Synopsis In the summer of 1853 Johannes Brahms had just turned twenty and was touring as the piano accompanist of the Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi. On today’s date, they arrived in Gottingen, where they were hosted by Arnold Wehner, the Music Director of that city’s University. Wehner kept a guest book for visitors, and over time accumulated sig…
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Synopsis In the late 19th Century, there were two rival musical camps: one favored “absolute music” like the symphonies, concertos, and chamber music of Brahms; the other the “music of the future,” namely the operas of Wagner and the tone poems of Liszt, works that told dramatic stories in music. Now, Dvořák’s mentor was Brahms, and Dvořák was famo…
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By American Public Media
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By American Public Media
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Synopsis For fans of British comedy, the name Peter Sellars conjures up an actor famous for his iconic role as the bumbling Chief Inspector Clouseau in Pink Panther movies. But for opera fans, the name refers to a completely different fellow: an American theater director born in 1957. The American Peter Sellars is notorious for staging classic oper…
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Synopsis On today’s date in 1962, Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem for soprano, tenor, baritone, chorus, and orchestra, had its premiere performance at Coventry Cathedral in England. The Cathedral had been virtually destroyed in World War II bombing, and Britten’s big choral work was commissioned to celebrate its restoration and reconsecration. Britt…
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By American Public Media
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By American Public Media
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By American Public Media
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Synopsis In 1923, the Chicago North Shore Festival sponsored a competition for new orchestral works. Of the 47 scores submitted, five finalists were selected by a distinguished panel of judges that included two leading American composers of that day: George W. Chadwick and Henry Hadley. Two of the five works that made the final cut were by the same…
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