Week of February 17, 2025: Ports of Call – Once while traveling by train across the Alps, Gustav Mahler turned to his friend, a fellow composer, and said, “Don’t bother looking at the view; I have already composed it.” For the next two weeks, Exploring Music will present sounds from composers’ backyards and hear their journaling voyages to distant lands: from the bird calls in the Amazon jungle expressed by Brazilian composers, to the distant bells ringing as a composer approaches a safe harbor. Listen to Italian composer Ottorino Respighi’s famous Pines of Rome, and then travel with him to Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he wrote Brazilian Impressions, an orchestral suite with strange and beautiful sounds.

Week of February 24, 2025: Ports of Call, Pt. 2 – This week on Exploring Music, we will continue traveling with composers around the world. Music from around the globe varies as much as languages do. Many of us can identify the country where a composition was written before we can name the composer who wrote it. You can’t separate the composer from his background. Listen to them express the sounds of their native land and paint musical pictures of their travels. We will hear the music of homesick George Gershwin in Paris, Charles Ives floating down the Housatonic River in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, and Ella Fitzgerald and her friends on the “A” train in New York City.

Week of March 3, 2025: Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) –
A look at the life and music of one of Russia’s most talented and controversial composers, Sergei Prokofiev. Born in Tsarist Russia, Prokofiev was a brilliant pianist who delighted in shocking the bourgeoisie with his outrageous creations. He went on to become one of the most beloved composers of the 20th century, creating seven symphonies, great concertos, and ballets such as Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella. Join Bill McGlaughlin in exploring the music of Sergei Prokofiev. 

Week of March 10, 2025: I Lost It at the Movies – The tradition of composing music for silent films began in France when Camille Saint-Saëns created an original score for The Assassination of the Duke of Guise in 1908, and Hollywood took it from there. Bill shares some of his favorite original and arranged scores from great films: Bernard Herrmann’s work for Citizen Kane and several Hitchcock films, Elmer Bernstein’s score for To Kill a Mockingbird, Henry Mancini’s music for The Pink Panther, Ennio Morricone’s compositions for various Westerns, and even some singing from Charlie Chaplin. Grab the popcorn and enjoy the music!