Musician Barry Brake writes to us from San Antonio, Texas:
“Just this year, Texas Public Radio’s KPAC San Antonio has started a new classical show, 1–3pm weekdays, called Classical Connections, that features music and musicians from San Antonio, the Hill Country, and Texas, as well as standard fare from our massive classical library. Visiting musicians, local stars, up-and-comers, directors, and composers drop by to talk. Often there are live on-air performances. We’d love to be listed on your page! Thanks for doing what you do . . . “
So I popped into the Classical Connections site and instantly I was enjoying this fantastic piece by Ethan Wickman to celebrate San Antonio’s Tricentennial. It is performed by the SOLI Chamber Ensemble.
Have a listen:
Other shows focus on the interplay between San Antonio musicians and the city’s museums and a piece composed in memory of the San Antonio Symphony’s principal flutist, who died at the young age of 51.
Texas, it should be noted, is an astoundingly wonderful place for classical music. Truckloads of people play it brilliantly at very affordable ticket prices, up and down the state. Everybody (or at least lots of people) knows that it is where Van Cliburn helped thaw the Cold War by winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958.
[http://www.olgasamaroff.com/]
Many less people know that San Antonio is where the brilliant pianist and pedagogue Lucy Hickenlooper (who changed her name to Olga Samaroff) was born and raised. Samaroff famously married the conductor Leopold Stokowski and basically managed his career through the 19-tens and teens. Eventually she got sick of Stokowski’s adultery and dumped the guy in 1923. Samaroff was the first American pianist to perform all 32 of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, but after an arm injury she turned to teaching. Ensconced at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, she cranked out the next generation of wunderkinds, including William Kapel, Eugene List, Rosalyn Tureck, and Alexis Weissenberg (whose compositional arrangements of the songs of Charles Trenet I heard the other night played at the San Francisco Symphony).
If you want to know more about Samaroff, you’ve got to watch my friend Wendy Slick’s wonderful documentary about her life. Plus, here is a website dedicated to her work and recordings.
