Classical 104.9 FM and 89.9 WWNO HD2 will air a 13-week series called Carnegie Hall Live, Saturday nights 6-8 p.m. The series will showcase a wide range of classical styles, from early music to recitals to orchestral performances.
Week One - The San Francisco Symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas, Renée Fleming, and Audra McDonald
Superstar vocalists Renée Fleming and Audra McDonald joined the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas for Carnegie Hall's Opening Night Gala with a program of musical theater, opera and orchestral music by Gershwin and Liszt.
Week Two - Berlioz with Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
For this episode of Carnegie Hall Live, the period-instrument ensemble Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique led by John Eliot Gardiner presented an all-Berlioz program. The centerpiece of the broadcast was Harold in Italy, a work that beautifully shows the composer's talent for painting pictures with music. The featured soloist was violist Antoine Tamestit. The night's selections also included a pair of vocal works, La mort de Cléopâtre and excerpts from his grand opera Les Troyens, featuring mezzo-soprano Lucile Richardot.
Week Three - The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra Plays Strauss and Tchaikovsky
The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, founded by conductor Daniel Barenboim and the late Columbia University professor of literature and postcolonial studies Edward Said, fosters dialogue between Israeli, Palestinian and Arab musicians through musical performance. For this concert, the orchestra performed Don Quixote, a tone poem by Richard Strauss based on Cervantes’ novel, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5.