Since MPR was founded in 1967, our studios have been a regular stop for the world's master musicians, composers, and conductors. Additionally, in partnership with Minnesota Orchestra and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, MPR has recorded interviews and performances with many incredible visiting musicians and leaders in the classical music world, such as Bobby McFerrin, Osmo Vänskä, and Neville Marriner, to name a few. The Archive at MPR has preserved these interviews to make them accessible to you. Enjoy this collection which includes unique conversations occasionally combined with performance highlights and excerpts, as well as reports on the local classical scene.
Please note: Most content related to this topic that is contemporary or created after 2005 can be found on our main content pages of YourClassical MPR and MPR News
May 30, 2003 - Morning Edition’s Cathy Wurzer reports on musicians in The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra agreeing to ratify a contract which includes a 17% pay cut. That change comes in the first year of a new four-year contract.
June 10, 2003 - Opera lovers in Sioux Falls are trying to light the flame in hopes of it catching on in the northern plains. Two South Dakota natives, both of which are now opera stars, are performing scenes from several operas as a way of introduction. Mainstreet Radio's Cara Hetland caught up with Louis Otey, one of the performers, to talk about the efforts.
June 20, 2003 - MPR’s Mindy Ratner interviews pianist Kevin Cole, one of the foremost interpreters of George Gershwin’s music, while he is visiting the Twin Cities to perform with the Minnesota Orchestra. In the interview Cole discusses how he became a Gershwin fan at a very early age.
July 14, 2003 - MPR’s Stephanie Hemphill interviews Young-Nam Kim, artistic director of the Northern Lights Chamber Music Institute, which is sponsored by the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota. The first institute was held at the YMCA's Camp du Nord near Ely in 2002. Kim reminisces about the camp experience and the fantastic audience of campers, families, and children.
July 14, 2003 - For lots of young people, summer means time to go to camp. There are different kinds of camps - hockey camp, language camp, Girl Scout camp. An increasingly popular option for talented young instrumentalists is music camp. MPR's Stephanie Hemphill visits Madeline Island out on Lake Superior, where young people from around the Midwest spend four weeks playing classical music.
July 17, 2003 - Dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov will perform at the Historic Pantages Theater in downtown Minneapolis for a sold-out performance entitled "Solos with Piano or Not…" It features the 55-year-old Baryshnikov dancing on stage alone. He'll be accompanied though, by pianist Koji Attwood, a student at the Juilliard School in New York.
July 22, 2003 - Mainstreet Radio's Erin Galbally visits Andrea Een, a hardanger fiddler extraordinaire and a well-known music professor at St. Olaf College. To the untrained eye the Hardanger fiddle, Norway's national instrument, looks much like the violin. But the nine-string fiddle produces its own distinctive sound. That sound and the instrument will be celebrated at St. Olaf College in Northfield, where more than 300 hundred enthusiasts of the violin sibling are expected to attend.
July 24, 2003 - MPR’s Greta Cunningham interviews Andrew Litton, the new director of The Minnesota Orchestra. Litton says he's honored to be leading Sommerfest into the future and says it's a great time for people and players to have fun. The Minnesota Orchestra has dropped the Viennese and added video screens to its Sommerfest.
July 28, 2003 - Pipedreams Host Michael Barone talks about famed French organist Louis Vierne, whose life and work will be celebrated at a festival at the House of Hope in St. Paul.
August 13, 2003 - MPR’s Lorna Benson interviews Tony Woodcock, who has been chosen to lead the Minnesota Orchestra as the new president replacing the retiring president, David Hyslop. The orchestra also begins an entirely different movement this fall with a new music director, Osmo Vänskä.