Classics Live brings you exclusive performances from throughout the KPR listening area. Our microphones travel to the Sunflower Music Festival, the Lied Center, the Ruel Joyce Recital series, the Great Spaces Music and Arts series, as well as performances recorded in Kansas Public Radio's live studio. Performers include the Emerson String Quartet, the Zoco Duo, Ensemble Iberica, and members of the Kansas City Symphony, among others. The series producer is KPR's Cordelia Brown, with recording engineer Chuck Smith. Darrell Brogdon hosts the program. Thursdays at 7 p.m.
Upcoming Shows
Marimba Sol de Chiapas
March 7
Classica Live 178: John Currey’s group from Texas, now at UMKC, will play a medley of Zapateados. A Veracruz Dance Medley. Parachicos, La Bamba and many more tunes all played by four people on a huge marimba, with percussion effects. Check them out at MexicanMarimba.com.
The Goldenberg Duo
March 14
Classics Live 179: This charming violin and piano duo has been fascinating audiences young and old for over thirty years! It’s the sister and brother duo of Susan Goldenberg and William Goldenberg. They tell great musical stories along with their classical pieces, helping to bring the music to life.
Sunflower Music Festival Orchestra Night
March 21
Classics Live 180: Andre Raphel directs Three Spirituals for Orchestra by Adolphus Hailstork. Other Black American composers featured are George Walker, Jessie Montgomery, and William Grant Still, including Still’s First Symphony.
The Lyric Arts Trio
March 28
Classics Live 181: Some of Kansas City’s finest musicians – Sarah Tannehill Anderson, soprano, clarinettist Elena Lence Talley with pianist Dan Velicer – with modern music set to poetry by William Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson. Also local composer Brian J Nelson with good Kansas music called Windswept Glory.
The Capriole Duo Plus One
April 4
Classics Live 182: The flute and piano duo Capriole play chamber music by Otar Taktakishvili, Aaron Copland, and then welcome cellist Sally Dorer to sit in for Clara Schumann’s Opus 17. Join these three amazing women for lively music from a recent Ruel Joyce Recital at JCCC.
The St Petersburg String Quartet
April 11
Classics Live 183: Fresh from a European tour, The St Petersburg Quartet brings us a Ruel Joyce Recital of Russian greats: Dmitri Shostakovich’s Eleventh Quartet and the First Quartet of Alexander Borodin.
Sunflower Music Festival’s Concertmaster and Friends
April 18
Classics Live 184: This chamber music night begins with Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Blues Forms for Solo Violin, played by Jesse Thompson. Then an oboe sextet buzzes with Antonio Pasculli’s honeybee version of Flight of the Bumblebee. Before the concluding Piano Trio in D Minor by Anton Arensky.
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Sean Chen's Polsky Theater performance of Messiaen, Rachmaninoff and more.
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Beginning with an oboe and harp version of the slow movement from Joaquin Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez.
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KPR's recording engineer Chuck Smith caught this Ruel Joyce Recital at JCCC
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Soprano Victoria Botero, Stephanie Hunt viola da gamba, and founder Jeffrey Noonan vihuela and Renaissance guitar.
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Classics Live 185: Dr Slawomir Dobrzanski's Midwest Trust Center recital of Bach, Mozart, and ChopinIncluding a special Chopin encore.
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From the summer of 2022, Sunflower Music Festival Concertmaster Jessie Thompson opens this chamber music night with Blue/s Forms for Solo Violin by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
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Our sound engineer Chuck Smith caught their Ruel Joyce Recital of Shostakovich and Borodin.
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This flute and piano duo with cellist Sally Dorer bring you Clara Schumann's Piano Trio in G Minor, op 17.
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Pianist Dan Velicer, clarinetist Elena Lence Talley, and soprano Sarah Tannehill Anderson with a Ruel Joyce recital of Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson set to music. Plus Bryan J Nelson's ode to Kansas, called Windswept Glory.
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3 Spirituals for Orchestra by Adolphus Hailstork. Antifonys for Chamber Orchestra by George Walker. Starburst by Jessie Montgomery. William Grant Still's "Afro-American" Symphony No 1.