NEPR airs Springfield Symphony performances

New England Public Radio continues its decades-long tradition of broadcasts of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra with a series of seven concerts starting May 26.

 

The broadcasts can be heard, with one exception, on Sunday afternoons starting at 1 p.m. on WFCR, and will feature conversations on each selection between conductor Kevin Rhodes and New England Public Radio music director John Montanari.

 

The schedule is as follows: 

 

Sunday, May 26, 1 p.m. "Opening Night." Franz Liszt: Festklänge ("Festive Sounds"). Béla Bartók: Piano Concerto No. 3, with Peter Serkin, piano. Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 1.

 

Sunday, June 2, 1 p.m. "Electifying Russian Music." Alexander Borodin: Overture to Prince Igor. Sergei Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3, with Ralph Votapek, piano. Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 2, "Little Russian."

 

Sunday, June 9, 1 p.m. "Scheherazade." Edvard Grieg: Music from Peer Gynt. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: Rituals for Five Percussionists and Orchestra, with SSO percussionists Nathan Lassell, Robert McEwan, Nicola Cannizzaro, Jeffrey Irving and David West. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade.

 

Sunday, June 16, 1 p.m. "Mendelssohn and Mozart." Johann Sebastian Bach: Air from Suite No. 3.  Felix Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor, with Caroline Goulding, violin. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 41, "Jupiter.”

 

Sunday, June 23, 1 p.m. "Gershwin and Rachmaninoff." George Gershwin: An American in Paris. Walter Piston: Symphony No. 4. Sergey Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 4, with Alexander Ghindin, piano.

 

Saturday, June 29, 3:30 p.m. (following WFCR's Lyric Opera of Chicago broadcast of Verdi's Rigoletto): "Passion, Love, Murder and Mayhem - It's Opera." Sopranos Mary Wilson and Stacey Rishoi, tenor Eric Ashcraft and bass Gustav Andreasson join the SSO for arias, duets and ensembles from Tannhäuser, Il barbiere di Siviglia, La gioconda, Carmen, Faust, Pacifico del Sud, Madama Butterfly, La forza del destino, La traviata, Don Carlo, Mefistofele, Pagliacci and Der Rosenkavalier.

 

Sunday, June 30, 1 p.m. "Mozart and Beethoven." Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem, with Monica Yunus, Stacey Rishoi, Eric Ashcraft and Gustav Andreasson, vocal soloists, Springfield Symphony Chorus, Nikki Stoia, director. Beethoven: Symphony No. 5.