"Classical music is relaxing." "I listen to classical music because it's soothing." "I turn on classical music when I want to concentrate." These are all things we're guessing very few people have said about the composer you're going to learn about in this episode. Elliott Carter's music is about something much more vast and complex than chillaxing: it's about the full range of human experience. If you've been alive for long enough to read this, you know that being a person is not always easy - ...
Apr 08, 2019•43 min•Ep. 199
In the beautiful San Jacinto Mountains, southeast of Los Angeles, is a place that is basically the ultimate experience in music and arts education: Idyllwild Arts Academy . It's a residential arts high school where young people are immersed in their chosen practice every day. Here, music students learn alongside peers studying visual arts, dance, and more, and collaborate with them. One hundred per cent of Idyllwild grads go off to college. What does the dream of music education look like? What ...
Apr 01, 2019•34 min•Ep. 198
Neither Sarah Perkins nor Michael Barber ever intended to become music and arts educators. No, they both had their sights set on the Big Time - performance and Broadway. But life presented each with opportunities to teach music to young people, and before they knew it, they Sarah and Michael were hooked. Now they're both staffers at a unique school in Houston, Texas called the Village School . In this episode, learn about what makes teaching music and the arts so rewarding, and about a school so...
Mar 25, 2019•34 min
March is Music Education Month on the Classical Classroom, but it's also Bach's birthday month. So, it's obviously the perfect time to revisit this episode with Simone Dinnerstein in which we discuss a music education program she started about the music of Bach. (Bam. Venn diagram intersection = achieved!) Learn about the music of Bach, and perhaps, take some cues from Simone on bringing music ed to your own community. Special thanks to Todd Reynolds for his music, Taskforce: Farmlab from Outerb...
Mar 18, 2019•32 min•Ep. 40
People are pretty much never just one thing. Each person is made of the stuff in their individual history, including the music. That includes Grammy-winning opera singers. Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato recently completed a project that brought the disparate parts of her own musical history together. And because she's Joyce DiDonato, this meant bringing top notch performers from across the musical spectrum into the studio to work together. In this episode, she talks about the fascinating process o...
Mar 11, 2019•23 min•Ep. 196
March is Music Education Month ! This month, we'll look at a range of people and institutions throughout the music education world in search of the real scoop: Is music ed, along with the rest of arts education, being eaten alive by STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), thereby creating robotic, soulless drone humans instead of people? Or is music ed experiencing a renaissance, reaching populations who've never had it before and providing an essential dimension to the educational ex...
Mar 04, 2019•25 min•Ep. 195
Grammy-nominated composer Mason Bates is also a bona fide DJ. As DJ Masonic, he brings classical music and electronica together on the dance floor. As a composer, he brings the sounds of electronica to classical music in places like the Kennedy Center. So it's fitting that Bates' first opera is about tech guru Steve Jobs. But can it really work to tell a decidedly 21st century story using a 400-year-old medium? Turns out, yes. In this Seattle Opera Podcast crossover episode, Bates explains why J...
Feb 22, 2019•34 min•Ep. 194
To get ready for Bach's March birthday, we bring you the fascinating story of a man on a mission to bring Bach to the people. Bach's music changed cellist Dale Henderson's life. Though the concert hall was a fab venue for sharing this music, Dale wasn't satisfied to stop there. Bach's music, he felt, was for everyone - not just classical music fans. So he schlepped his cello down into a New York City subway, and started playing "pop-up" concerts (for free). And thus, Bach in the Subways was born...
Feb 18, 2019•29 min•Ep. 193
Aleksey Igudesman and Hyung-ki Joo make up the classical music comedy duo, Igudesman and Joo . And though they will crack you up with their performances (which you can watch on their YouTube channel along with millions of other viewers), when they talk about why they do what they do, the two musicians become surprisingly serious. They firmly believe that classical music was always meant to be fun. In this episode, they talk about the history of humor in classical music (even Beethoven was funny!...
Feb 11, 2019•40 min•Ep. 192
Violinist (and veteran Classical Classroom guest) Rachel Barton Pine talks all about her Music by Black Composers initiative, a project that's been in the works for 15 years, and the companion album she recently released called Blues Dialogues, Vol. 1. She discusses why projects like this are important, especially in the classical music world, advocacy vs. cultural appropriation, and talks about the great music on the album. Music in this episode: Special thanks to Todd Reynolds for his music, T...
Feb 04, 2019•28 min•Ep. 191
Astor Piazzolla was a bandoneon player and a composer in Argentina who lived during the 20th century. He changed both classical music and tango music by bringing the two together. The Neave Trio , who recently came out with an album of Piazzolla's work, teaches all about who he was and how his genre-hopping changed music. Music list: Special thanks to Todd Reynolds for his music, Taskforce: Farmlab from Outerbourough ....
Jan 28, 2019•21 min•Ep. 190
We love it when Classroom alums get recognized for their awesomeness. Such is the case for soprano Sonya Yoncheva. In addition to receiving the Opera Award by the Chilean Art Critics Circle, Sonya is on the cover of the Metropolitan Opera's wall calendar this year. We thought this was a great occasion to rerun her episode of Classical Classroom and to say, "You go, gworl." -------------------- In our first MusicWorks episode (that's our storytelling-centered subseries), soprano Sonya Yoncheva te...
Jan 21, 2019•31 min•Ep. 76
String quartet Brooklyn Rider has a new project called Healing Modes which they're currently touring. While they were in Seattle, we coaxed them into the KING FM studio with the promise of snacks. Just kidding! They came in willingly like most of our guests. In this episode, they talk about Beethoven's Opus 132, the piece at the center of this project, and about the 5 new pieces they commissioned to play alongside it. They also talk about why music is healing, and why we need it to do its magic ...
Jan 14, 2019•34 min•Ep. 189
Third Coast Percussion makes amazing music by hitting stuff. Okay - it's a little more complicated than that. But the Grammy-winning ensemble does spend a lot of time, both at Home Depot and with percussion mentors from other countries, searching for things to hit, bash, tap and so on. Their latest project, Paddle to the Sea , is a beautiful and moving distillation of all of that searching and bashing - one that has a rich history, dating back to a children's book of the same name from 1941. In ...
Jan 05, 2019•34 min•Ep. 188
What do Max Bruch and Edward Elgar have in common? Violinist Rachel Barton Pine ! In this episode, RBP talks about the two composers and their very different violin concertos. Discussed herein: Did Edward Elgar invent Post It Notes? How is Max Bruch like Milli Vanilli and Iron Maiden? And, who was the mystery woman to whom Elgar dedicated his violin concerto (hint: it wasn't his wife!)? And so much more. Music in this episode: Special thanks to Todd Reynolds for his music, Taskforce: Farmlab fro...
Dec 31, 2018•33 min•Ep. 187
It's Christmas Eve. Chances are, you've heard a lot of beautiful music. If you're looking for more of that, you've come to the wrong place. Welcome to Jingle Hell, where bad songs are born, and good songs come to die. Alecia Lawyer, founder, artistic director, and principal oboist of River Oaks Chamber Orchestra (ROCO) talks about the worst musical offerings of the season, and what makes them so bad. Songs that include entire scales? Check. Songs with completely bizarre lyrics that we sing along...
Dec 24, 2018•34 min•Ep. 112
We know what you're thinking: Another episode about Bach?! That's what we said! In fact, in this episode we ask Grammy-winning violist Kim Kashkashian to explain why classical musicians play and record the same music repeatedly, and specifically, why it's often the music of Bach. Her answer is totally fascinating! We also address the elephant in the room, i.e., whether or not it would have been okay with Bach that she played his Cello Suites on viola on her new album . Music in this episode: Spe...
Dec 17, 2018•24 min•Ep. 186
Marc-André Hamelin is many things: a renowned pianist, a composer, an Officer of the Order of Canada , and a record collector of major proportions. The hands-on, no robots or algorithms, no safety net, digging in dusty bins in record shops variety. In fact, hunting for classical music diamonds in the rough is part of his creative process, and he loves bringing lesser-known works that he finds out into the light before audiences. In this episode, Hamelin talks about how (and why) he finds music t...
Dec 10, 2018•29 min•Ep. 185
Violinist Hilary Hahn has achieved more at just 39 years old than most of us will in a couple of lifetimes: multiple Grammy awards, 1594 concerts (so far), 20+ albums, 2 episodes of the Classical Classroom podcast, 2 kids, and a talking violin case. In this episode, Hahn talks about how much practice it actually takes to be her, her #100daysofpractice challenge on Instagram, and about how much work went in to her latest album, Hilary Hahn Plays Bach: Sonatas 1 and 2 Partita 1 . Music in this epi...
Dec 03, 2018•23 min•Ep. 184
If you've ever wondered how playing bowls of water is related to traditional classical music, this is the episode for you. Cellist Ashley Bathgate (of Bang on a Can All-Stars fame) was classically trained at Yale University School of Music, educated in the structured musical worlds of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. But today, she moves in a tangent universe of the classical music world, filled with effects pedals, prepared instruments, living composers, and sometimes members of indie rock bands. In...
Nov 26, 2018•42 min•Ep. 183
Sometimes composers just make stuff up. That is the lesson that Grammy-winning, super duper famous violinist Joshua Bell teaches in this episode of Classical Classroom. He also talks about how this is not just okay - it can be great, as it is in the piece "Scottish Fantasy" by composer Max Bruch. Learn about who Bruch was and where this piece came from (spoiler alert: not Scotland). Music in this episode: Special Thanks to Todd Reynolds for his music, Taskforce: Farmlab from Outerbourough ....
Nov 19, 2018•23 min•Ep. 182
Composer, conductor, and librettist Daron Hagen recently created a new magic trick: An opera that's not an opera about the director Orson Welles ( Citizen Kane ) but not necessarily about Orson Welles which may be performed in a different way every time it's performed and, according the website, "may, in fact, not exist at all, except as a set of options." Hagen's opera Orson Rehearsed has a lot to teach us about the use and usefulness of operatic structure and about the creative process. Welles...
Nov 12, 2018•45 min•Ep. 181
Cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir is from the once-isolated island country of Iceland, a land of ice and snow and geothermal power and awesome music. In this episode, Sæunn tells the unique history of Icelandic classical music (or "music," as they call it there), including how the long-term relative isolation of the country lent to its unique approach to music, and tells what Bjork's favorite food is. Just kidding! But she does talk about Iceland's important composers and musical luminaries and say...
Nov 05, 2018•32 min•Ep. 180
Life isn't always puppies and kittens (she stated sagely). Sometimes, it can be downright tough - maybe your family is falling apart and you're a famous composer and you're going deaf. We've all been there, amiright? In this episode, John Largess and Joshua Gindele, members of the Miro Quartet , talk about Beethoven's Opus 131 string quartet and that it's one example of how composers use the string quartet to tell their own stories. They also talk about what was going on in Beethoven's life that...
Oct 29, 2018•19 min•Ep. 179
Arguably, Anne Akiko Meyers is darn admirable herself. The violinist has scads of fans. She's been Billboard's #1 classical artist. I mean, she's been on Morning Edition AND All Things Considered. But in this episode, Meyers is the fan rather than the star. She tells stories about getting to work with composers she idolizes, and what happened when she did - and didn't - dare to ask them to do things differently. Valuable life lessons, people. Music in this episode: Special Thanks to Todd Reynold...
Oct 22, 2018•26 min•Ep. 178
Hold on to your hats, people: This episode with multi-Grammy Award winning classical guitarist Sharon Isbin covers a lot. Because how often do you get to talk to Sharon Isbin?? Learn about everything from the David Lynch Foundation and Transcendental Meditation, to Spanish art song, to astronauts, and how Isbin got started playing guitar at the age of 9. It's a veritable cornucopia of information. (Side note: Are any cornucopias not "veritable"? Do fake, poser cornucopias exist?) Music in this e...
Oct 15, 2018•26 min•Ep. 177
Composer Jono Hill was given a unique task: to compose the score for a film about a classical musician. The movie As Far as the Eye Can See (directed by David Franklin and written by Paden Fallis) follows Jack Ridge, a now 40-year-old former Van Cliburn Competition winner who is more or less hiding out on his family's land in Texas. In this episode of Classical Classroom, Hill talks about the unique process of composing for film, and about the special challenges of composing for a movie with cla...
Oct 08, 2018•27 min•Ep. 176
Pianist Angela Draghicescu never meant to become a classical music investigator. But a simple desire to play good music led her to an unavoidable conclusion: some very important composers were grossly underrepresented in classical music repertoire. But...why? , she wondered. Authorities seemed stumped and inquiries into the whereabouts of these composers' work turned up only dead ends. And thus began Angela's emotional journey to find answers. That search resulted in the creation of her project,...
Oct 01, 2018•47 min•Ep. 175
Anne Midgette, chief classical music critic at the Washington Post, recently wrote an article that caught our attention called, " A beginner's guide to enjoying classical music. No snobs allowed ." We figured that she must have been listening to Classical Classroom , so we invited her on to chat. In this episode, Midgette discusses the pointers in her article (gems such as, "Classical music can do things no other music can"), talks about her own circuitous path to classical music critic stardom,...
Sep 24, 2018•46 min•Ep. 174
The Classical Classroom is back! But from where?? Hear host Dacia Clay recount the epic, harrowing tale behind the show's hiatus in this teaser episode. New full, real episodes will be out any day now. Dacia will be asking even more, even dumber questions about classical music. Come learn with us. Again.
Sep 14, 2018•5 min
