Since MPR was founded in 1967, our studios have been a regular stop for the world's master musicians, composers, and conductors. The cultural institutions of Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra have provided our community with not only the opportunity to incredible visiting musicians, but also the leadership of classical personalities Bobby McFerrin, Osmo Vanska and Neville Marriner. MPR has strived to preserve many of these local classical moments. As part of that goal, here is a sample collection of unique conversations, occasionally combined with performance broadcasts and reports on the local classical scene.
April 14, 1970 - Garrison Keillor hosts The Morning Program with skits on lawn care and sex tips. The newscast includes the Apollo 13 moon expedition news, which had a problem explosion and includes Mission Control actualities, including the famous "Houston, we've had a problem."
October 7, 1971 - MPR's first live broadcast of Minnesota Orchestra, October 7, 1971. Excerpt from broadcast of concert with host Arthur Hoehn. Audio from highlight CD created in October 2010 when Hoehn was inducted into Museum of Broadcasting Hall of Fame.
October 7, 1971 - Pre-intermission break from MPR's first live broadcast of the Minnesota Orchestra, October 7, 1971. The orchestra has finished "The Flying Dutchman" conducted by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and Hoehn speaks in the interval before it begins William Schuman's Symphony No. 3. Audio from highlight CD created in October 2010 when Hoehn was inducted into Museum of Broadcasting Hall of Fame.
March 2, 1973 - Aaron Copland talks about his history as a composer. Guggenheim Foundation helped propel his career.
March 15, 1973 - MPR’s Connie Goldman sits down with composer Aaron Copland for conversation at a local diner. In between food and drink, Goldman asks Copland about conducting, his film scores, time overseas, and his youth.
March 23, 1973 - The Minnesota Bach Society will be performing its creation 'A Lighthearted Evening with the Bach Family'. This is a novelty concert featuring humorous music that has mostly not been sung. Linda Hoeschler talks about the Coffee Cantata written in 1751, when a controversy existed in Europe over coffee and its effects; that it was the marijuana of its day leading women to ruin. Hoeschler talked about other members of the Bach family, and about people singing nonsense verses to tunes. She said music has been discovered; as she?s gone through manuscripts to find music, the paper has fallen apart and disintegrated. The performance will be presented at O' Shaughnessy Auditorium.
April 6, 1973 - Steven Rumph, Canadian harpsichordist, visits TC, Give lecture-demonstration on virginal and harpsichord to 5 and 6 year olds at a Robbinsdale school. This is the first time he has lectured to elementary school students. He talks about this experience He doesn?t want to speak over their heads but wants them to know the instrument. Children speak. Rumpf (sp) talks about the difference between the virginal and harpsichord. He uses two instruments because he plays a lot of early music before 1650, and uses old system of tuning called mean tone temperament. There?s more interest in Early Music than there used to be. On this tour he?s attracted large audiences, some come out of curiosity. Influx of harpsichord music in pop world such as Tom Jones and in commercials. There?s a great interest in the period of the Baroque and Renaissance in general in the lifestyle, thinking, habits, paintings.
October 18, 1973 - Violinist Charles Treger was the first American to win a prestigious competition in Poland. He is in town to perform with the Minnesota Orchestra. Treger talks about the competition and about Polish audiences. In Poland even the layman knows about music, they are an informed audience, they grow up with it. They are very conscious of their heritage, history and culture. He talks about the Joachim concerto that hasn?t be performed in public 60 or 70 years until he started playing it. Joachim, a contemporary of Brahms was not a great composer. However now there?s interest in composers not considered main composers. His Violin Concerto in D minor, while romantic, could be one of the most difficult ever written and it?s technically very demanding. Treger talks about his experience playing with Skrowaczewski and says he is superb.
October 18, 1973 - A plaza may surround the Minnesota Orchestra Concert Hall building now being built. The Peavey company is giving money towards this project, which will be eventually be called the Peavey Park Plaza. The concert hall will finish being constructed first, and is scheduled to open a year from now, in October 1974. The park construction will be in progress next summer. A parking ramp should be finished sometime in 1975. Loring Park is to be connected via a pedestrian walkway to the Westminster Presbyterian Church in a mall extension. Donald P. Engle, President of the Minnesota Orchestral Association, says he can see possibilities for presenting summer concerts in this space.
June 14, 1974 - Principal Conductor Dennis Russell Davies rehearses the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra through Bach's Brandenburg Concerti No.4 and 5 BWV 1044 (1721).