On April 16, WQXR will host its first mingle event for its listeners to celebrate and enjoy New York’s incomparable classical scene together. Host Midge Woolsey will welcome listeners at New York City Opera’s Madama Butterfly, with private receptions before and during the performance. On April 11, Q2, Classical 105.9 WQXR’s contemporary music stream, will present a live audio webcast of the first public concert from 110 Livingston Street, new home of Brooklyn-based performance venue ISSUE Project Room, featuring groundbreaking composer Morton Feldman’s Second String Quartet. The New York-based, internationally-connected online stream will also spotlight another local composer, Missy Mazzoli, highlighting her work on Q2 in the first week of April.
Also in April, WNYC, the new home of WQXR, will host MPC 48, the annual conference of the Association of Music Personnel in Public Radio, in The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, the station’s street-level, multi-platform performance venue.
April highlights from Q2
On Sunday, April 11, Q2 will present a historic live audio webcast of ISSUE Project Room’s first public concert from its future home at 110 Livingston Street in downtown Brooklyn. For this free, pre-renovation, candlelit opening, new music stalwarts Ne(x)tworks will perform the six-hour masterpiece String Quartet No. 2 by the innovative New York composer Morton Feldman, inviting the audience to come and go as they please. Helga Davis will anchor the broadcast. Contemporary music fans around the globe will be able to hear the landmark composition, which has never before been broadcast live, beginning at 11:30 am EST, concluding around 5:30 in the evening. Full details will be announced shortly.
On March 29, WQXR kicks off its next monthly “Composer Introductions†series with “it-list†young composer Missy Mazzoli. Recently described by the New York Times as “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York,†Mazzoli’s work has been performed by such leading ensembles as the Kronos Quartet, eighth blackbird, Ensemble ACJW, and the Minnesota Orchestra. Q2 will feature many unreleased and private recordings, some made by Mazzoli’s own chamber-rock ensemble, Victoire, with an introduction to the music from the composer herself. Previous “Composer Introductions†featured Caleb Burhans and Valentin Silvestrov.
On Thursday, April 22 at 7pm, the innovative radio stream partners once again with the New York Philharmonic to present an audio webcast of the orchestra’s second CONTACT! concert, with an encore presentation on Saturday, April 24 at 4pm. The performance will be recorded live at Symphony Space on April 16, and features world premieres from composers Nico Muhly, Matthias Pintscher, and Sean Shepherd, performed by members of the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Music Director Alan Gilbert. In addition to these exclusive webcasts, Q2 will be a hub for writers and journalists blogging about the event.
Q2’s ongoing partnership with Manhattan venue (Le) Poisson Rouge makes archived recordings of memorable performances available for on-demand listening. The new go-to performance space for eclectic, adventurous programming, (Le) Poisson Rouge serves as a meeting point for musicians from multiple genres. Q2 makes these innovative performances available to a wider audience, currently making concerts by Alarm Will Sound, American Contemporary Music Ensemble, Leipzig String Quartet, flutist Claire Chase, and John Hollenbeck (among others) available for on-demand streaming. A live event from LPR is planned for the spring.
April highlights from 105.9 FM WQXR
WQXR, active as ever in New York’s cultural life, welcomes listeners to an exclusive evening of music and mingling at New York City Opera’s production of Madama Butterfly, starring Yunah Lee and Konstantin Stepanov in Puccini’s timeless classic. On Friday, April 16 at Lincoln Center’s David H. Koch Theater, WQXR’s regular midday anchor Midge Woolsey hosts this specially-priced WQXR night, which includes a pre-performance reception with wine and hors d’oeuvres, and dessert and coffee at the first intermission. Tickets are available at http://www.wqxr.org/events/wqxr-events/2010/apr/16/wqxr-night-new-york-city-opera/.
Beginning Monday, April 5, WQXR launches a 4-part series, On Wings of Song, featuring music from recitals by young singers, recorded live in New York this season under the auspices of the Marilyn Horne Foundation. On Wings of Song, co-hosted by Marilyn Horne and Elliott Forrest, airs Mondays at 10pm, showcasing a new generation of vocal talent.
On Friday evenings in April, the inaugural edition of “Conductor’s Choice†continues with the two final installments of Sibelius’s symphonic cycle in recordings chosen and introduced by Maestro George Manahan, Music Director of the New York City Opera. Broadcast as part of Symphony Hall, this new series draws on New York’s exceptional classical community and offers creative insights from those who are defining what is heard in the city’s concert halls and opera houses. Symphonies Nos. 5 and 6 will be heard on April 2, and Symphony No. 7 – with the ever-popular Finlandia as a bonus – on April 9.
With Emmy Award-winning actor Alec Baldwin as its new host, The New York Philharmonic This Week offers live-recorded performances representing most of the legendary orchestra’s current season, its first under new Music Director Alan Gilbert. The two-hour program, which airs on Thursday evenings at 9pm, also boasts interviews with Philharmonic musicians, conductors, and guest artists.
WQXR explores New York’s vibrant cultural life of classical music and beyond with The Arts File on Wednesday mornings at 8:30am. In each installment of this new regular feature, WNYC’s Kerry Nolan talks to a reporter, critic, or expert about one of the top arts and culture stories in the metropolitan region.
April highlights from The Greene Space
This year’s MPC 48 – the annual conference of the Association of Music Personnel in Public Radio – will be held on April 21-23 in The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, WNYC/WQXR’s street-level, state-of-the-art broadcast studio and performance venue. This year’s MPC will feature some of the biggest names in music and media, and conversations will address the latest trends and pressing issues that face music broadcasters in public radio, with sessions on engineering and production; fund-raising and programming; on-air talent cultivation; online platforms; the future of classical music; and audience development. Attendees will have the opportunity to enjoy New York’s incomparable classical scene first-hand, with trips to the New York Philharmonic under Valery Gergiev, in an all-Stravinsky program, and to the Metropolitan Opera’s production of The Flying Dutchman, starring Deborah Voigt.