Friday Favorites - May 17, 2024

Steve Staruch can be heard on Classical Minnesota Public Radio from 3 to 7 p.m. weekdays, including hosting Music with Minnesotans, Regional Spotlight and Friday Favorites. Prior to joining the staff of MPR in 2004, Steve presented a variety of radio programs on WCAL in Northfield, Minn., where he created an immensely popular call-in program, and on WXXI in Rochester, N.Y. Outside radio, Steve also enjoys work as a freelance tenor and violist. Steve and his wife, Naomi, enjoy traveling, gardening and hosting dinner parties.


Steve Staruch

Guest host Steve Seel fills in for Steve Staruch on the latest episode of ‘Friday Favorites.’ Listeners celebrated their pets with requests including a dedication from ‘Carnival of the Animals’ to a pet bird and a remembrance of a beloved dog with music by Grieg. Listen now! 


Friday Favorites: Listener requests with guest host Steve Seel

Jeff Beal: Riverside Revelations

Nobu Kōda: Sonata in D Minor

Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 5 in F-Sharp Minor

Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 - 2nd movement

{"type":"doc","content":[{"type":"paragraph","content":[{"text":"","type":"text"}]}]}

Joe Goetz

Jennifer Allen is the Associate Music Director for Classical MPR and is responsible for classical music programming and library organization. What she enjoys most about her job is sharing great music with MPR audiences. Anderson started with Classical MPR as an intern in October 2005. She holds a degree in music from Macalester College and currently resides in St. Paul.


Jennifer Allen

Robin Gehl

Recordings of the Month for May include Jeff Beal’s new album for mental health awareness, Alexandre Tharaud’s collaboration with a baseball team’s worth of pianists, a newly completed Beethoven cycle and the latest from All Classical Portland’s Recording Inclusivity Initiative.


Platoon

Music for mental health, a four-handed party and new Beethoven highlight May releases

Where we turn up the voices of Black artists in the world of classical music, with host Vernon Neal.

Rhapsody in Black - Wynton Marsalis

Vernon Neal is the host of the podcast ‘Rhapsody in Black,’ where we turn up the voices of Black artists in the world of classical music.


Host/Producer

Vernon Neal

Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis is internationally known for his outstanding career in jazz. Many don’t know that he has also found success in classical music.  Find out more in the latest episode of the 'Rhapsody in Black' podcast. 


Nass, Daniel

Wynton Marsalis has jazz and classical chops

Extra Eclectic - May 15, 2024

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and on episode of ‘Extra Eclectic,’ host Steve Seel features works that touch on mental health concepts, but are also, purely coincidentally, by composers of Persian ancestry. Later, hear modern works with religious connotations. Listen now!


Marco Borggreve

Mental health and spirituality, with a twist

New Classical Tracks (Extended Interview) - Mark Kaplan

New Classical Tracks - Mark Kaplan

Julie Amacher's desire to introduce others to great music is what led her to radio. She began her professional broadcast career at a station in Sun Prairie, Wis. She went from rock 'n' roll to the Rocky Mountains, where she found her niche in public radio at KUNC in Greeley, Colo. Julie spent 13 years at KUNC, where she managed the announcers and their eclectic music format. During that time, she earned four national awards for best announcer. She joined Minnesota Public Radio in 1997 as an on-air host and also produces New Classical Tracks, a weekly podcast critiquing a new release each week. It airs locally at 7:15 a.m. Wednesdays and 5:15 p.m. Fridays.


Julie Amacher

On this week’s episode of ‘New Classical Tracks,’ the Weiss Kaplan Stumpf Trio presents its latest recording, featuring all of Beethoven’s piano trios. Listen now!


Provided

Weiss Kaplan Stumpf Trio presents Beethoven's complete piano trios

Listen to the Story

Tom Huizenga

The 86-year-old Kyiv native, living in exile in Berlin, has a new album of symphonic works that explores the idea of reminiscence.


Dmitri Matveyev/Naxos

What's past is present for Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov 

Saturday Cinema - May 11, 2024

Lynne has been at this radio thing since 1984 when she fell into an historic job at KFAC AM and FM, the commercial classical station in Los Angeles.  She was the first woman staff announcer in the station's history, and it was such big news back then, it made the LA newspapers and national radio publications.  She is thrilled women in radio is no longer newsworthy.


Lynne Warfel

On the latest episode of ‘Saturday Cinema,’ host Lynne Warfel celebrates moms, grandmas and mother figures — human and otherwise — with music from ‘Steel Magnolias,’ ‘Forrest Gump,’ ‘Dumbo’ and more. Listen now!


Mother's Day at the movies

Rhapsody in Black Ella Fitzgerald Strange Fruit

Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit' is an unforgettable and mesmerizing classic that speaks to racial violence and anti-lynching legislation.  Find out more in the latest episode of the 'Rhapsody in Black' podcast. 


William P. Gottlieb Collection / U.S. Library of Congress

Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit' speaks to us about racial violence

Extra Eclectic - May 8, 2024

The Oxford Dictionary defines “gallimaufry” as “a confused jumble or medley of things.” It’s that kind of grab-bag of selections we enjoy on the latest episode of ‘Extra Eclectic,’ with works from Ying-Hsueh Chen, Juri Reinvere and Rob Deemer. Listen now with host Steve Seel!


Miscellany, hodgepodge or mishmash?

New Classical Tracks (extended interview) - Jonathan Tetelman

New Classical Tracks -Jonathan Tetelman

On the latest episode of ‘New Classical Tracks,’ tenor Jonathan Tetelman pays tribute to Giacomo Puccini, whose 100th death anniversary falls in 2024. Find out more!


Listen

Stories