Bill Morelock Bill Morelock as a KWSU Classical Music Host Former On -Air Personality Starting as an English major at WSU, Bill Morelock slowly but surely made his way to… Continue Reading Bill MorelockRead More
Listen (Runtime 1:12) Read The 2nd Annual Celebration of Community, Diversity & Culture” will be held this weekend August 6th from 12 to 8 p.m. in Kennewick. The last few… Continue Reading Tri Cities’ 2nd Read More
Jordan Chaney Listen (Runtime 1:59) Read Eastern Washington’s ‘unofficial’ Poet Laureate, Jordan Chaney, is leaving the state to explore new endeavors. A farewell show with the new directors of the… Continue Reading Eastern Washington’s ‘Poet Read More
Family and Friends Celebrating Juneteenth Listen (Runtime 1:24) Read The longest running Juneteenth celebration in Washington is in Pasco. Back in 1978 there was a reunion for family and friends… Continue Reading Washington’s Oldest Read More
Scottish Festival and Highland Games Listen (Runtime :58) Read The Scottish Festival and Highland Games have been a tradition in Prosser for 20 years. The festival includes music, food, and… Continue Reading Scottish Festival And Highland Games In Read More
LaFarge’s Chopin journey began with an email to the creator of the video game “Frederic: The Resurrection of Music” during the 200th anniversary year of Chopin’s birth. An amateur pianist, she wanted to explore the game’s use of Chopin’s iconic “funeral march.” Of course, like all explorers, she couldn’t stop there. Read More
The holiday season has always been popular for introducing new works, including many perennial favorites. In Italy, the day after Christmas became especially meaningful to composers and impresarios. Continue Reading ‘Tis The Season Of Read More
The holiday season inspires all kinds of thoughts, often having to do with reflection, celebration and renewal. For musicians and concert presenters, this time of year has long served as a period for introducing new works, whether specifically related to the season or not. Classical music offers a wealth of examples. Read More
Nettie Asberry opened many doors in her lifetime, including her own. Her teaching and her activism left an indelible mark on the Northwest. Continue Reading Women’s History Music Moment: Nettie AsberryRead More
When a student becomes an award-winner, you congratulate the teacher, right? A teacher like Dr. Chris Dickey, assistant professor of tuba at WSU. His student earned this year’s first prize in European Music at the Charleston International Music Competition. The student is WSU sophomore Tim Schrader. Read More
With the height of the Perseids on August 11 & 12, it’s a great time to reflect on the inspired music of composers entranced by the celestial objects that surround us. The sky has had a long history of captivating its audience. Continue Reading Composers And The Night SkyRead More
Midsummer Update! As of the beginning of August, the 2021 season of Northwest summer music festivals finds some fests concluded, some continuing, and some just getting underway. Some continue to stream past performances. Read More
“I promise you, children become what they are told they are.” The words of the first teacher to be awarded the National Medal of the Arts, Dorothy DeLay. Her violin students numbered in the hundreds, and they include some of music’s biggest names: Midori, Nigel Kennedy, Sarah Chang, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Anne Akiko Meyers, Gil Shaham and Itzhak Perlman. Read More
From the teaching studio to the concert hall, musicians are uniquely poised to create community through their work. For one Tacoma-based violin teacher, inspiration comes from camaraderie with fellow performers and students. Continue Reading Read More
The last time orchestras had a regular concert season, few works by female composers were played. In fact, less then 9% of music programmed by the top orchestras in the U.S. were by women composers. Where are all the women? Dr. Sophia Tegart, professor of flute and music history at Washington State University is making sure they take a prominent place in her classroom. Read More
Music is a tough business, but a diverse one. Not everyone can take center stage in the concert hall. At Washington State University, Dr. Keri McCarthy is one of the professors encouraging her students to think about their future roles in society as musicians– as music consumers, creators, and educators -- by looking to the past. Read More
More people will be allowed at indoor and outdoor spectator events and indoor religious services if there are designated COVID-19 vaccination sections, under new guidance issued by Gov. Jay Inslee Monday. Continue Read More
Black women artists like Josephine Baker, Nina Simone and Eartha Kitt contributed to those social gains. Their suffering came not only from their personal battles against day-to-day racism in America, but also having their careers struggle when they spoke out against it. Europe eventually became home to them as well. Read More
Unlike his contemporaries, Britten did not devote much of his time to writing symphonies. It’s no wonder that when he *did* sit down to write his Spring Symphony, it resulted in a grand journey in 4 parts and 12 movements, harnessing the power of mixed chorus, boys’ choir, soprano, alto and tenor soloists and a massive orchestra including harp, tambourine and cow horn. Read More
Simmons died last week at the age of 87. The cause of death remains unknown, but his life is cause for considerable celebration. Although jazz has established a place in academic and cultural institutions, it was and largely still is an outsider's music, and Simmons was an outsider's outsider. Read More
When Duke Ellington famously coined the phrase "beyond category," he was talking about freedom — of choice, of expression, of belonging. He meant following your heart and your instincts into an artistic territory without borders. And that's the place where violinist Regina Carter makes her home. Read More
Growing up poor in Washington state, singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile learned about harmony and rhythm while performing as a backup singer for a friend's dad, who worked as an Elvis impersonator. Continue Reading Northwest Read More
With its dirt roads and drab dwellings, the camp can be a bleak place. But the beat of a daf, a drum sacred to Yazidis, throbs underneath loud, energetic singing, rising over shouts of children in a trash-strewn playground. Continue Read More
Near the end of HBO's new documentary, Tina, the movie implies the legendary singer has made a decision: after this film rolls out, Tina Turner just might be done appearing in public and talking about her life. It's an odd message, coming from a woman whose life story and experiences have inspired at least four books, an Oscar-nominated biopic, a Broadway musical and, now, Read More
No lautenwerks survived the 19th century. Picture extremely delicate harpsichords — in fact, lautenwercks are alternately called lute-harpsichords. Their strings are made of guts, originally from sheep (like lutes), which gives lautenwercks a warm, intimate tone distinct from brassy, metal-strung harpsichords. Read More
The conductor Mary Terey-Smith made music history here in the Pacific Northwest, as a result of a political revolution half a world away. This Hungarian-born music talent, student of Kodaly at the legendary Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, hadn’t been out in the working world very long when the 1956 Hungarian Revolution turned her into a refugee. Read More
As pianist Mahani Teave was poised to launch her international career, she remembered the moment when the first piano arrived on her remote island. It was 1992, she was nine years old and the instrument landed on Rapa Nui, or Easter Island as it was named by Europeans. Best known for its mysterious, sentinel-like stone statues, the island lies some 2000 miles off the coast Read More
When the pandemic abruptly put an end to live concerts and musical theatre last year, performing arts groups had to scramble to re-invent themselves online. For the Richland-based Mid-Columbia Mastersingers, that meant changing the way they hear themselves. Continue Read More
Lara Downes will release a mini-album every month, for as long as she can keep it up, to highlight overlooked and forgotten compositions by Black artists in the classical music tradition. In honor of Women's History Month, its latest entry focuses on some overlooked and under-appreciated bodies of work by women composers and performers. Read More
The concerts the LA Phil recorded last summer and fall are featured on the Sound/Stage series, which streams on its website. The first season opened with an episode called "Love in the Time of COVID," complete with overhead shots of the lonely Hollywood Bowl and Los Angeles, and a reading of a Pablo Neruda poem. Read More
Andra Day’s performance in the film earned the singer the Golden Globe for best actress in a drama. She is the second Black performer to ever win the award, following Whoopi Goldberg’s win in the category in 1985 for “The Color Purple.” Continue Read More
Singer, songwriter and percussionist Bunny Wailer, an icon of reggae music, died in Kingston, Jamaica, on Tuesday morning. He was 73 years old. Wailer was a founding member of The Wailers, alongside Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. Continue Read More
All the lights in the house would go dark. The wait staff would turn still. The audience, often largely white, would either wait, in discomfort, or leave, knowing what was to come. On stage, a single spotlight illuminated the jazz artist’s face. And then Holiday, the glamorous jazz singer, would end her set with “Strange Fruit,” a song of protest against lynchings. There Read More
A horn made from a conch shell over 17,000 years ago has blasted out musical notes for the first time in millennia. Archaeologists originally found the seashell in 1931, in a French cave that contains prehistoric wall paintings. They speculated that the cave's past occupants had used the shell as a ceremonial cup for shared drinks, and that a hole in its tip was just Read More
Singer, songwriter, guitarist and accordionist Flory Jagoda worked hard to preserve the music and language she inherited from her Sephardic Jewish ancestors in her adopted American home. Named a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts in 2002, she died on Jan. 29 at age 97 in Alexandria, Va. at a long-term memory care facility, according to an Read More
The keyboardist, composer and bandleader Chick Corea — one of the most revered figures in contemporary jazz, but whose work spanned fusion to classical — died on Feb. 9 at age 79. Continue Reading Chick Corea, Jazz Fusion Pioneer, Has Died Of Cancer At Read More
In the 1920s, the Russian physicist Leon Theremin debuted an electronic instrument that could be played without any physical contact. Players stood in front of a box and waved their hands over antennas, summoning otherworldly sounds seemingly from thin air. The theremin might have been regarded as a passing novelty if not for the late Clara Rockmore, a virtuoso who helped Read More
Mary Wilson, one of the co-founders of The Supremes, died Monday at the age of 76, her publicist announced. Wilson "passed away suddenly" at her Henderson, Nev., home, the singer's longtime friend and publicist Jay Schwartz said in a statement. No cause of death was given. Read More
Last fall, former President Barack Obama told Stephen Colbert that he was "shocked" Dolly Parton hadn't gotten a Presidential Medal of Freedom during his time in office. "That was a screwup," he said. "I think I assumed she had already got one." Read More
From Hand Habits to a violin concerto that includes whistling, this week's All Songs Considered has some surprises along the way. Hand Habits is the music of Meg Duffy. On their new EP dirt, we hear the climactic tune "4th of July," filled with Meg's intriguing guitar. It was also the guitar that attracted me to Miss Grit, the music of Korean American Margaret Sohn. She Read More
Since his first American concert, Zakir Hussain has become perhaps the most famous tabla player in the world. He now lives in California, and he says it was this performance 50 years ago that showed him that Indian classical music could be played in the West in its purest form. "It really set the tone of how I would present myself to my fellow musicians — whoever I was Read More
Osvaldo Golijov is a MacArthur "genius" composer who's written for Yo-Yo Ma, Kronos Quartet and soprano Dawn Upshaw. But in 2012, he was accused of plagiarism, and he disappeared from the scene. Only now, nearly a decade later, is Golijov reemerging — with a work that could not have a more timely subject: it's a meditation on grieving and loss. Read More
For over a decade, arts journalist Betto Arcos has been a familiar voice to public radio listeners, bringing them the sounds of the world — be it from a samba school in Rio or an amphitheater in Colombia, profiling artists who play unusual instruments or create cross-cultural mashups. More than 140 of those reports are collected in his new book, Music Stories from the Read More
This Algerian and Canadian band proves that music has no boundaries even in times of isolation. Recording its set from France and Colombia, Labess blends flamenco and Gypsy jazz-influenced North African chaabi into energetic soul music with a nonstop beat. Read More
In 2021, I'm looking forward to, fingers crossed, live music. I really miss the roar of a symphony orchestra in concert or a soaring soprano on the opera stage. But artists are still making albums, even in lockdown, like British composer Max Richter. His upcoming album is a follow-up to last year's Voices. This new one is Voices, Part 2 which will be released in April. Read More
For members of Luminous Voices, a professional choir ensemble in Alberta, Canada, rehearsing and performing safely during the pandemic has meant getting into their cars, driving to an empty parking lot and singing with each other's voices broadcast through their car radios. Read More
A little boy decked out in a pink rhinestone cowboy outfit travels around a farm and points out things that bring him joy. "A is for adventure. Every day is a brand new start. B is for boots — whether they're big or small, short or tall. C is for country," the story goes. This is the basic premise of the new kids book C Is for Country written by Lil Nas X, the Read More
As 2020 came to a close, we asked artists and authors about the songs that helped them survive a strange and devastating year. We also posed that question to you, and compiled a playlist of 101 songs that you played over and over again this year. Some songs offered an escape. Some infused joy and despair. Read More
While streams dominated this chaotic, sorrowful year, musicians continued to lay down official statements in the form of albums. And as the pandemic exploded, the economy cracked, the protests thundered and politics grew even more partisan, the arresting albums listed below became the soundtrack to my 2020 – the best in troubled times. In the order they were released are Read More
Produced by a diverse group of filmmakers assembled by 1504, a studio based in Birmingham, Ala., For The Sake Of Old Times pairs the performance of "Auld Lang Syne" with archival footage from 2020, particularly of the summer's racial justice protests. Read More
