@ the Symphony
Insights and anecdotes from musicians, dancers, artists, actors and directors, as well as audience response.
Episodes
April 25, 2024 • 18 mins
Montreal Canada born composer Samy Moussa talks about his Pittsburgh Symphony commission Adgilis Deda ---Hymn for Orchestra - mentioning that it is terrific to have it on a program with one of his favorite composers Anton Bruckner as well as how it was inspired by a person he met in Georgia of the former USSR where he spent an extended period of time. He describes his path so far as a musician studying in Canada, Munich, Germany a...
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April 25, 2024 • 21 mins
Pittsburgh Symphony Music Director Manfred Honeck talks with Jim Cunningham in the grand lobby of Heinz Hall about the Liszt Dante Symphony and this weekend's performances of Beethoven’s Ninth with 3 pieces by Anton Bruckner - Locus Iste, Ave Maria and the Adagio from the String Quintet in F in the arrangement Manfred Honeck and Thomas Ille have made. He also speaks about the Beethoven Ninth and how it is always new including an of...
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April 18, 2024 • 18 mins
Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes returns to the Pittsburgh Symphony to play one of the most challenging piano concertos of all, the Third by Sergei Rachmaninov with Music Director Manfred Honeck. He joins Jim Cunningham in the Grand Lobby of Heinz Hall to talk about the fine points of the Concerto, how he stays " in the pocket" as drummers in jazz and funk bands like to do, comments on the record Rachmaninov made of his own Third, mentions...
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April 12, 2024 • 19 mins
Gilmore and Avery Fisher prize winning pianist Charlie Albright makes his Pittsburgh Symphony debut April 12, 13 and 14 with George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue for PNC Pops and Saturday morning Fiddlesticks concerts. He’s from Centralia, Washington with a start at age 3 then on to studying at Harvard with an interest in economics and pre medicine but the piano became the main focus. He’s appeared with Yo Yo Ma on numerous occasions...
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April 4, 2024 • 19 mins
Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet joins Jim Cunningham to share his thoughts about Camille Saint-Saens and the Egyptian Concerto No. 5 written in uxor and inspired by his visit to the country even weaving a bit of a song he heard from the river. Jean-Yves talks about his Hall of Fame designation at the Hollywood Bowl, his work in the wine region of Burgundy with cellist Gautier Capucon, his interest in jazz, his new cd with Michael Fein...
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April 4, 2024 • 19 mins
The long time Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra discusses the Inextinguishable Symphony No 4 by Carl Nielsen, the Bach Toccata and Fugue in d minor in the Skrowacewski transcription and its use on horror films along the way to becoming the best known music by J. S. Bach. Maestro Vanska says he’s living the Finnish equivalent of the free life but enjoys his home in Minnesota, he knows the Finnish wunderkind Klaus Makela and ...
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March 20, 2024 • 18 mins
WQED-FM's Jim Cunningham sat down with conductor Juano Mena, who will conduct the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra this weekend in Elgar's Enigma Variations and Sukkot Through Orion's Nebula by James Lee III. Plus, he'll conduct violin works by Ginastera and Sarasate with Hilary Hahn.
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March 16, 2024 • 16 mins
During WQED-FM's live broadcast of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on Friday March 15, 2024, Jim Cunningham spoke with conductor Jacob Joyce, guest violinist James Ehnes, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Vice-President of Artistic Planning Mary Persin and WQED President and CEO Jason Jedlinski during intermission.
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March 5, 2024 • 12 mins
Mason Bates joins Jim Cunningham to talk about his Pittsburgh premiere of Philharmonia Fantastique, commissioned in part by Pittsburgh. With animation and live action film this score has won a Grammy in its Chicago Symphony recording while becoming Mason’s most performed piece. It mixes animation with ties to the Pixar studio and Lucasfilm, live action on screen while the orchestra plays. Mason also fills us in on his next opera ba...
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March 5, 2024 • 19 mins
John Moore, Micah Howard and Nicholas Myers, members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Double Bass section, stopped by the QED Morning Show with Jim Cunningham to talk about the Pittsburgh Double Bass Symposium taking place at CMU on Sunday March 10th, as well as the Sound Fusion concert taking place at Heinz Hall on March 5th.
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February 29, 2024 • 19 mins
Pablo Heras-Cassado returns to Heinz Hall to conduct Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, Manuel de Falla's Three Cornered Hat, and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Yunchan Lim. Jim Cunningham spoke with the Maestro about the concert.
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February 15, 2024 • 11 mins
Pablo Ferrandez returns to Heinz Hall having had a sensational debut in a 2023 December concert with Anne Sophie Mutter and John Williams playing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Anne Sophie Mutter. He describes the challenge of playing the Shostakovich Cello Concerto No 1., the composer’s fear of being taken away in the night were he to run counter to what Stalin thought he should be writing, the importance of the timpanist in the...
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February 15, 2024 • 17 mins
Katherine Balch talks about her new music commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony and several other American Orchestras with the world premiere on February 16, 2023--- Musica Pyralis to be conducted by Manfred Honeck. She is inspired by the events around her including fireflies in the music for Pittsburgh. Katherine tells Jim Cunningham her story: born in San Diego, now teaching at Yale, her thoughts about connecting with audiences...
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February 9, 2024 • 17 mins
Pianist Alexandre Kantorow makes his Heinz Hall debut February 9th through 11th at Heinz Hall with Manfred Honeck. In this conversation with Jim Cunningham recorded in the Dorothy Porter Simmons Rooms at Heinz Hall, he talks about the Liszt Second Concerto; his recent win of the Gilmore Prize and the win at the Tchaikovsky Competition; his early career; growing up in the musical family with his Dad, a conductor and his Mom a violin...
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February 1, 2024 • 22 mins
Anthony Parnther makes his Pittsburgh Symphony debut with "Lift Every Voice" on Saturday February 3rd, 7pm at Heinz Hall where he’ll conduct the Florence Price Third Symphony and the Lars Erik Larsson Trombone Concertino with Cooper Cromwell Whitney solo. The wide ranging program celebrates tradition in African American musical culture with Grammy wining soloist Oleta Adams and the Unity Choir conducted by Nikki Porter. Anthony ha...
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January 30, 2024 • 20 mins
Trombonist and Paul J. Ross Fellow with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Cooper Cromwell-Whitley, discusses with Jim Cunningham his childhood love for the trombone, and Lars-Erick Larsson's Concertino for Trombone that he will play this Saturday, February 3rd at 7 pm in the "Lift Every Voice" concert with Oleta Adams, Nikki Porter and the Lift Every Voice Unity Choir, Anthony Parnther, and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Visit...
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January 26, 2024 • 25 mins
Minister of Music at Eastminster Presbyterian Church and choir director, Nikki Porter, discussed with Jim Cunningham live on the QED Morning Show her upcoming concert with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Oleta Adams, conductor Anthony Parnther, pianist Alton Merrell, and trombonist Cooper-Cromwell Whitley in "Lift Every Voice" next Saturday, February 3rd at 7 pm. Nikki talks about the program featuring Florence Price and some of...
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January 26, 2024 • 13 mins
Violinist Alexi Kenney returns to Pittsburgh to perform the Barber Concerto with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and guest conductor Juraj Valcuha. Alexi talks about the concerto, playing the PSO and more with Jim Cunningham.
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January 26, 2024 • 15 mins
Juraj Valcuha returns to Heinz Hall to conduct the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in Nico Muhly's "Bright Idea", Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and Barber's Violin Concerto with guest soloist Alexi Kenney. WQED-FM's Jim Cunningham spoke to the maestro about the concert.
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January 16, 2024 • 20 mins
WQED-FM's Jim Cunningham speaks with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Guest Conductor Petr Popelka, pianist Yulianna Avdeeva and PSO Vice President of Artistic Planning Mary Persin during intermission of WQED-FM's live broadcast on Friday January 12, 2024.
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