KPAC Blog

When a new festival for opera and musical theater called "Prototype" opened in New York last month, it wasn't inaugurated with a huge new piece. Instead, the festival was kicked off with the first staging of Mohammed Fairouz' opera Sumeida's Song — a work for four singers and a handful of musicians that lasts just 60 minutes long, presented at Here, a theater in Manhattan's Tribeca that seats just 100 people.

Listeners told us through our survey last fall that they tune in to KPAC to hear the best classical music all the time, and this month, KPAC adjusts its on-air schedule to bring you more music throughout the day on your classical oasis.  You’ll also hear your favorite on-air hosts during prime listening times on the station. 

A link to the new KPAC schedule can be found here: http://tpr.org/schedule/week/kpac

New host schedules: 

Yesterday, pianist Sara Davis Buechner published on the New York Times website a brave and moving account of her experiences as a transgendered person. "As David Buechner, born in the northwest suburbs of Baltimore in 1959," she writes, "I became an internationally known concert pianist. But from the time I was a child, I understood that I was meant to be Sara."

We often speak of certain Brazilian composers suffering in the shadow of Heitor Villa-Lobos. After all, he was the one who possessed not only musical genius, but also the ability to attract attention.

He was, in many ways, bigger than life, which made it a struggle for other very able composers to be seen and heard. These others included Camargo Guarnieri, Franciso Mignone and Claudio Santoro. The music of these composers is still struggling to be heard outside of Brazil.

We continue working our way through the preliminary rounds of last years contest. This Sunday, the music of Italian Domenico Scarlatti, a man who won a harpsichord "play-off" against G.F. Handel, and was so impressed by Handel's abilities that he always crossed himself when mentioning the composers name.

Scarlatti left Rome and moved to the courts of Spain and Portugal where he taught Queen Barbara to play harpsichord. Our "concert" starts with three of Scarlatti's sonatas.

Carrying Scarlatti's style

• Hugely good news for all you wandering minstrels: After years of pressure from groups like the American Federation of Musicians, the FAA has just passed a bill that (finally!) allows musicians to carry their instruments as carry-on luggage or, for larger instruments, to buy an extra seat. However, the federal agency has a year to implement the new standards.

There are essentially two approaches to the supreme expression of opera, both of them dealing with what would seem to be the impossible.

St. Mark's completes 8-month refurbishing of organ, sanctuary

Sunday morning will reveal what started over eight months ago: a revitalization and refurbishing of St. Mark's Episcopal Church.