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.
July 17, 1997 - Seventy years ago pioneering Soviet filmmaker Esther Shub sat down with a treasure trove of archival footage. She had newsreel footage of World War One and breadlines in Russia. She also had reels of film taken by Czar Nicholas the Second's private cinematographer that documented the lavish life the royals led while the masses were starving. The product was a moving and fascinating silent propaganda compilation called "The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty" which shows tomorrow and Saturday at the Red Eye Cinema in Minneapolis . If the film is missing anything, that thing is a decent musical score. That job fell to David Reville, the McKnight Visiting Composer with the American Composers Forum.
January 29, 1998 - Say "organ music" to most people and visions of the phantom of the opera playing Bach's Tocatta often spring to mind. But the folks at the Science Museum of Minnesota are hoping to broaden public understanding of what Mozart called the "king of instruments". They'll do this through a special Organ festival of concerts,exhibits and tours sponsored in part by Minnesota Public Radio and starting this weekend. Minnesota Public Radio's Mary Stucky reports.
January 30, 1998 - Can you define "dance suite movement" and "counterpoint"? The high school students participating in the annual Music Listening Contest can. For the last few months, they've been cramming their brains with the classical canon. Whiz kids from all over the state gathered at Augsburg College in Minneapolis this afternoon for the state finals. Minnesota Public Radio's Chris Roberts reports on how they prepared, what they've learned, and the rigors of the contest itself.
March 6, 1998 - When a venerable art form like opera is placed in the hands of eleven and twelve-year-olds, anything can happen. And that's just what's been happening on the stage of the Hibbing High school auditorium. For the past two weeks, a composer and director from the Minnesota Opera have worked with students creating an opera from scratch. Their production, "The Diner Blues," premieres today. Minnesota Public Radio's Amy Radil reports.
March 18, 1998 - The Timpani, sometimes called the kettle drum, takes the spotlight this week at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. The chamber orchestra's principal timpanist Earl Yowell plays a seldom performed concerto for 8 timpani. Percussionists enjoyed special status as court musicians in the old days, and Yowell says their status is rising again among new music composers. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson has more.
March 26, 1998 - Un bel di Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" is one of four operas selected as part of next year's 1999 Minnesota Opera season. The company will also perform Gounod's "Faust", Verdi's "Otello," and Britten's "Turn of the Screw." Minnesota Opera Artistic Director Dale Johnson says "Madame Butterfly" is one of the most popular pieces in standard opera repertoire. The company performed it as recently as 1993...but Johnson says audiences never seem to tire of the tragic story.
May 18, 1998 - In a surprise announcement today the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra appointed a new acting concertmaster. The selection of the violinist to lead the musicians in any orchestra is a complex, mysterious, process. Insiders expected the SPCO selection committee to take a year to choose a successor to Romauld Tecco... but they found someone they really wanted... Denver-based Steven Copes playing... and they hired him on the spot. Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr reports.
June 1, 1998 - The Church of St. Louis, King of France - otherwise known as the Little French Church - in downtown St. Paul recently introduced its brand new pipe organ to the public with two sold-out concerts. The organ is the centerpiece of a campaign to renovate the church, which was designed by French architect Emmanuel Masqueray in 1909. Masqueray also designed the St. Paul Cathedral and the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, but he called the Church of St. Louis his 'little gem'... and church officials say the new organ will be its crowning jewel. Minnesota Public Radio's John Bischoff reports: As parishioners file into the Church of St. Louis for Sunday morning mass, some steal a glance back over their shoulders...
May 20, 1999 - A farm in southwest Minnesota probably is not the first place you'd expect a professional mezzo soprano to call home, but that is exactly what MPR’s Mark Steil found when talking with Gary Overgaard, a farmer, and his wife Emily Lodine, an opera singer.
June 2, 1999 - Mainstreet Radio’s Marisa Helms reports on the Brainerd High School Choir and their year-end performance of Sarah Hopkin’s “Past Life Melodies.” All year long, the choir's been working on the unique piece featuring aboriginal sounds from Australia. The decidedly NOT-WESTERN music has been educational in all sorts of ways.