#classical classroom

Podcast roundup: From Classical Classroom to Imagined Life and Proof, our pick of the best this week

Podcasts have seen a rapid upsurge in popularity in recent years. From true crime to design, popular culture and modern relationships, fiction to in-depth reportage, podcasts have proliferated to the point where no matter how esoteric the subject, there’s bound to be a show that deals with it.…

The story of Mozart’s death has, over the years, taken on an awful lot of…story. Extant theories regarding how he died number in the hundreds and are still emerging. Even yours truly did an episode of Classical Classroom to try to get to the bottom of the whole thing. In this episode, Dr. Robert Greenberg, a music historian and bestselling creator of courses for the Great Courses and the Teaching Company (and now, for Robert Greenberg Music), explains the facts that we know that we know about how Mozart died. Plus, we explore why it’s so hard for us to accept that incredible human beings like Mozart can, and do die, of totally boring, normal causes.

What’s New in the Podcast Charts? Summertime…and the living is easy

This week’s charts have a distinctly summery vibe. The news is the news and its not going away, but slipping into the cracks is the kind of entertainment that you will feel most comfortable consuming while sitting by a pool sipping an icy drink. This week’s new to the charts podcasts are an invitation How do you want to spend your summer?

Dip into the darkness – I’ll admit: the first time I…

“Percussion is almost anything that we say ‘yes’ to playing.” – Sean Connors

Wait. A percussion-only ensemble? Is that, like, a fancy drum circle? Sean Connors of the Grammy-winning percussion quartet Third Coast Percussion explains that this is not too far off. But the operative word is “fancy.” As Connors describes it, percussion ensembles are the mad scientists of the music world. Any object in the world is a potential instrument. And when they’ve run out of objects, they invent more. (Fun fact: Third Coast sometimes works with actual scientists at the University of Notre Dame where they are ensemble in residence.) Learn all about the crazy world of percussion ensembles and hear some amazing music in this show.

Music in this episode:

Mallet Quartet: III (Fast), by Steve Reich, from Third Coast Grammy performance with Ravi Coltrane

Wild Sound, mvt 4, by Glenn Kotche (Arduino and marimba versions)

Check out a video of Third Coast Percussion performing at their masterclass at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music! So cool. Find it in the web article at www.houstonpublicmedia.org/classroom 

“When somebody shows you who they are, believe them.”

That’s one of cellist Amanda Gookin’s favorite quotes. And through the Forward Music Project, she’s decided to show people who she is, and who women and girls are. Learn Amanda’s story (which includes many digressions from, and returns to, the classical music world), and learn why she decided to aim all of her disparate passions at one target. Hear the innovate pieces that she’s commissioned in what she calls a “giving project,” which seeks not only to bring awareness to causes that benefit women and girls, but to donate money to those causes.

Music in this episode (all from the Forward Music Project):

“For Edna,” by Leila Adu

“Stray Sods,” by Amanda Feery

“Swerve,” by Jessica Meyer

“Memories lie dormant: they are reviled before they are revealed,” by Morgan Krauss

For starters, this episode was recorded on Groundhog’s Day. Which is pretty perfect considering that this is the second time we’ve had the Cypress String Quartet on the show to talk about a “final” recording. Cypress cellist Jennifer Kloetzel swears that this really is the quartet’s final final recording and assures us that this is not just a clever publicity gimmick. (Although for the record, if it was, we would gladly play along.) Kloetzel tells us why, for their final final recording, the group went with a composer they’d never recorded before (Brahms), why they recorded the album live in front of a studio audience, and why they played as a sextet rather than a quartet. Also discussed: whether or not one has to have Jedi training to record at Skywalker Sound, and whether Jennifer and Zuill Bailey had a cello battle in the studio.

All music in this episode from the Cypress String Quartet’s Brahms: String Sextets Op.18 and Op.36.

All of us have heard spirituals before – those sometimes jubilant, sometimes sorrowful songs created by African American slaves. But have you really heard them? As it turns out, these deceptively simple songs sometimes carried hidden messages, signals, and directions. Dr. Jason Oby, artistic director of the Houston Ebony Opera Guild, teaches all about this ingenious and soulful musical invention that was born out of oppression and necessity. He also talks about the spiritual’s connection to classical music, and the music of Roland Carter, who, among many things, arranges spirituals.

Music in this episode:

“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” feat. Jason Oby and Moses Hogan (piano)

“His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” feat. Jessye Norman

“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” arranged by James Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson, feat. Roland Carter

“Hold Fast to Dreams,” by Roland Carter

Audio production by Todd “Telekinesis” Hulslander with levitation from Dacia Clay and assistance from Mark DiClaudio.

Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Spoon boy: There is no spoon.

Neo: There is no spoon?

Spoon boy: Then you’ll see that it is not the spoon that bends; it is only yourself.

– from The Matrix

Dr. George E. Lewis is the Neo of the classical music Matrix. He doesn’t have a great deal of use for preconceived notions of genre and form and he doesn’t have a lot of time to worry about definitions. That’s because he’s pretty darn busy making music and art. In addition to chairing the Composition Area at Columbia University, he’s a composer, an electronic performer, an installation artist, a trombone player and a scholar. In this episode of Classical Classroom, Dr. Lewis pauses for a moment to talk about his experimental classical music, and about what he’s been doing at Rice University with the James Turrell Sky Space using the things Houston is best known for: its crazy weather and its diverse people.

Music in this episode :

“Anthem” performed by Wet Ink Ensemble from Relay, by George Lewis

“Give It Up Or Turn It Loose” by James Brown from Sex Machine (live at Bell Auditorium, Augusta, Georgia)

Audio production by Todd “Typical Todd” Hulslander with digitization by Dacia Clay and assistance from Mark DiClaudio.

By the way, in this episode, Dr. Lewis talks about an art installation that he worked on with artist Carroll Parrott Blue for the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston called Whispering Bayou. Among the many cool things about this piece, in it, Lewis and Blue used recordings of Houstonians representing many of the 145 languages that are spoken in the city. Learn more here in this short video from Houston Public Media’s Arts