Radio

Every day for 5 hours at WXXI, I play CDs.  On an average weekday, I play 22 pieces of recorded music.  A rough estimate suggests that 97% of the recordings I play are produced in a studio, with the remaining 3% are recorded live in concert.  We don't usually think about the process of creating these recordings, but after having just spent a weekend in the recording studio with my brass quintet, I can tell you that studio recording is one of the most humbling experiences a musician can ever have.

Chilean conductor Felipe Hidalgo is coming to Rochester to bring the Gospel of Fun to our young classical musicians. 

Happy New Year! While zillions of people aspire to start fresh, to stop smoking, lose weight, and eat healthier foods, I resolve to eat better quality chocolate and update my blog more regularly. To that end, I offer you two items.

Happy Holidays from your afternoon host guy on WXXI!  It's been a busy Fall, but now that the Winter is officially upon us, I thought I'd offer a little Christmas present to you.  The Eastman Wind Ensemble just toured to Michigan and Chicago, playing at the prestigious Midwest Clinic.  An invitation to play at this internationally recognized event for a wind group is akin to being an Olympic finalist in a given sport.  

The video game Rock Band lets you sing into a microphone that's plugged into your game console.  If you sing the right pitches and the right rhythms, you earn points.  A bored flutist recently made this stunning discovery:

It took something amazing to drag me out of my blogging hibernation, and this weekend I found it.

Over the first weekend of October, nearly 8,000 people experienced Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" performed by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Rochester Oratorio Society in the newly-renovated Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre. One patron blogged about what she saw and heard, and she inspired me to share this clip with you.