The 2019 Columbus Symphony broadcast season begins at 1 p.m. Sunday, April 7 on Classical 101 and continues through June.
Classical 101 presents all of the Classical Series concerts from the 2018-2019 season performed in the Ohio and Southern Theaters.
Ed Thompson records these performances for broadcast. Eric French makes stunning radio – as only he can – out of these concerts, with commentary written and delivered by yours truly.
It’s been a long time since broadcast concerts by the world’s great orchestras were heard several times a week.
Composers like Jean Sibelius, Sergei Prokofiev and even Gustav Mahler saw their reputations grow through regular broadcasts by the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Boston Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Conductors like Leopold Stokowski, Arturo Toscanini, Serge Koussevitzky, Riccardo Muti, Leonard Bernstein, Wolfgang Sawallisch, and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski (fabulous conductor, hard name to pronounce) were part of the national conversation.
Do great orchestras still exist? Yes. Great conductors? You bet. Vivid musical personalities? Sure. You can hear a combination of these Sunday afternoons on Classical 101.
Columbus Symphony music director Rossen Milanov is on the podium for 10 of this season’s 12 Classical Series programs.
Since the current season is nearly finished, I’ll tell you some of my own highlights. I want you to listen every Sunday. You won’t be bored, and you will often be enchanted. But take note of these broadcast dates:
April 7
Richard Strauss’ technicolor orchestral workout Also sprach Zarathustra
April 28
George Frideric Handel's Messiah, with the magnificent, all-volunteer Columbus Symphony Chorus
May 5
Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7, "Leningrad"
May 12
Columbus Symphony concertmaster Joanna Frankel owns the town with her performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.
There’s a lot more. Mozart’s Requiem. The Prelude and Liebestod from Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.
Trumpeter George Goad plays a Shostakovich concerto. Leila Josefowicz is back for the new violin concerto by Thomas Ades. Mahler’s glorious fifth symphony is on the same program.
It’s always better in the hall. If you heard these concerts in the Ohio Theatre, great! Enjoy them again. If not, Classical 101 is proud to offer you the opportunity to meet and delight in your Columbus Symphony.
Join us Sunday afternoons at 1, beginning April 7.
