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American Public Media and the San Francisco Symphony Collaborate on The MTT Files, a New Radio Series Hosted By Michael Tilson Thomas Classical Minnesota Public Radio to Broadcast The MTT Files Beginning April 2
March 21, 2007
American Public Media™ and the San Francisco Symphony today announced the upcoming broadcast of The MTT Files™, a new public radio series hosted by the renowned San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas and produced by American Public Media and the San Francisco Symphony.
Classical Minnesota Public Radio will broadcast the The MTT Files Monday evenings at 7 p.m. beginning April 2.
Michael Tilson Thomas (MTT) is acclaimed for his work as a conductor, composer and as one of the great communicators about music in the world today. In The MTT Files, MTT metaphorically pulls out some of his "files"—files full of ideas about music and art, and reminiscences of the legendary artists he has known throughout his career – to create eight very original and personal one-hour radio programs. The series includes an episode featuring MTT in conversation with James Brown, in one of the soul singer's final interviews before his death.
The "house band" for The MTT Files is the San Francisco Symphony, with music throughout the episodes drawn from live recordings during the 12 years MTT has been Music Director of the Orchestra. The MTT Files is part of the San Francisco Symphony's acclaimed Keeping Score project, which includes a national PBS television series, public radio series, interactive websites, and K-12 Education and Community programs, all designed to make classical music more accessible to people of all ages and musical backgrounds.
The MTT Files joins American Public Media's growing portfolio of music programs that together make American Public Media the nation's single largest producer and distributor of public radio music programs across multiple genres. American Public Media is the nation's leading producer of classical music programming for radio and the Internet, producing award-winning programs, series and specials such as Performance Today®, SymphonyCast™, Saint Paul Sunday®, Pipedreams®, Composers Datebook®, American Mavericks®, and Music@Menlo, among others. American Public Media also produces Classical 24®, a 24/7 stream of live-hosted classical music broadcast on public radio stations nationwide.
Available to public radio stations nationwide beginning April 1, The MTT Files includes eight 60-minute programs that explore classical music and its influence on our lives.
The MTT Files Program Descriptions
1. "You Call That Music?" 250 years ago, when composers included "noise" in their music, they mimicked the sounds of the physical world. But by the late 1800s, noise in music had started to represent the internal, psychological anxieties of the coming modern age.
And then, during the 20th century, composers blurred the line between noise and music even more. From the dissonance of early modernism to music that glorified the machine, from musique concrete to the ear-deafening throbs of hyper-amplification, music gave us just about everything an increasingly noisy world could offer.
In this program, MTT asks what's music and what's noise, and demonstrates that noise is in the mind of the listener. His guest is contemporary composer Steven Mackey.
2. "What Does America Sound Like?"—Part 1 Before 1900, there was no real American concert music. But, only 20 years later, composers had begun to break the hold of European standards for art, and were experimenting in earnest with ways to portray an American sound.
In this program, MTT reviews what American classical music was like at the turn of the 20th century, and asks what it was about the cultural melting pot of places like Brooklyn that led to our very own concert music beyond Brahms. Aaron Copland's modernist compositions are front and center, of course, and featured is a recorded rehearsal of his little-known piece for women's chorus, "An Immorality," where MTT demonstrates the raucous sounds the composer was after in his earlier works.
3. "What Does America Sound Like?"—Part 2 As a part of Aaron Copland's move from modernism to populism, he created musical landscapes that were abstractions of the sounds he'd heard all his life—of folk tunes, of Jewish music, of blues and jazz. This music was so successful that it's now what we most associate with the sound of America—with prairies, cowboys and the heartland.
In this program, MTT explains Copland's musical transformation, and the political and artistic sentiments behind it. Included is a recorded rehearsal of the composer's greatest modernist work, the Symphonic Ode, with MTT conducting the New World Symphony.
4. "Igor Stravinsky's Copyright Blues" When Igor Stravinsky's Firebird premiered in Paris, it was the most sensational hit of the early 20th century. But when the score fell out of the composer's control because of the Bolshevik Revolution and the arcane realities of international copyright law, Stravinsky spent much of the rest of his life trying to collect some of the money he thought was due him.
In this program, MTT takes us on a short tour of the history of copyright law, tells the sad tale of Stravinsky's efforts to collect a royalty payment or two, and asks why we should even care whether artists can protect their intellectual property. Featured is an interview/performance with pianola scholar Rex Lawson about one of Stravinsky's efforts to make some money—the piano roll versions of tunes from Firebird.
5. "The Last Virtuoso" Jascha Heifetz was arguably the last great violin virtuoso—the end of a line.
In this program, MTT examines why Heifetz was so good, and asks whether any violinist living today could ever hope to match his incredible technical ability and immense musicality. What's changed? What is virtuosity and why is it so hard to maintain? Featured is an interview/demonstration recorded on the stage of Davies Symphony Hall with Alexander Barantschik, the concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony, who now performs on the famed Guarnerius del Gesù violin once owned by Heifetz.
6. "Freud and the Ballet" Most conductors think Giselle is a piece of fluff. But MTT thinks it's a masterpiece. Although the ballet score's sentimentality is hard for us to accept today, the work marks the very beginning of art looking at internal, emotional explanations of behavior. Art has always predicted the future; in this case, music predicted Sigmund Freud. MTT interviews former prima ballerina Natalia Makarova, the greatest Giselle of our time, about dancing the "heart on the sleeve" role.
After Giselle, of course, music grew increasingly dissonant as the Freudian world view of the human psyche became central to all art—until the bubble burst in the mid-20th century when dissonance overtook itself with a human scream in the opera Lulu. This program is a tour de force examination of one of the major historical transformations in music.
7. "We Were Playing Boulez, But We Were Listening To James Brown!" As a university student, MTT and his colleagues were in the forefront of modern classical music. But one day, while MTT was driving down that proverbial Los Angeles freeway, a song by the late soul singer James Brown came on the radio. That song, and the many that followed, changed MTT's views about how to perform the music of Boulez, Stravinsky and the like. The level of energy, the precision, the sense of time, the angularity—all gave the young conductor insight into the music he was facing at the piano and on the podium.
The core of this program is an extensive interview with the late James Brown, recorded at his home in Georgia, about his music.
8. "Five Degrees of Separation" A program about teachers and students—about how teachers pass on technique and musicianship, but also about how they use stories about their own teachers to pass on the spirit of a musical life.
As a young pianist, MTT studied with John Crown, who'd studied with Moritz Rosenthal, the last student of Liszt, who'd studied with Czerny, who'd studied with Beethoven. In this program, MTT explores what it takes to be a great teacher, and takes us backward in time to hear the stories passed down through five generations of great pianists. Included are interviews with pianist and Liszt expert Garrick Ohlsson, and pianist Ralph Grierson, a fellow student of John Crown.
Michael Tilson Thomas assumed his post as the San Francisco Symphony's Music Director in September 1995, consolidating a relationship with the Orchestra that began in 1974. A Los Angeles native and growing up in a show business family, MTT was a gifted young pianist and conductor who regularly worked with Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen, and Copland by the time he was a teenager. In 1969, Mr. Tilson Thomas won the Koussevitzky Prize and was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony. He became Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra in 1988 and now serves as Principal Guest Conductor and he continues as Artistic Director of the New World Symphony, an orchestral academy which he founded in 1988. Michael Tilson Thomas's recordings have won numerous international awards, and his recorded repertory reflects interests arising from his work as conductor, composer, and pianist. His television credits include the New York Philharmonic Young People's Concerts, which he led from 1971 to 1977, and the San Francisco Symphony's Keeping Score documentary series on PBS.
PHOTO OF MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS AND SAMPLE CD OF THE MTT FILES AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST
Founded in 1911, the San Francisco Symphony has a long and distinguished history marked by artistic excellence, educational initiatives, international tours, acclaimed recordings and innovative programming. Now in their twelfth season together, Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas and the SFS have formed a musical partnership hailed for its revitalization of the classical music experience. The Orchestra's commitment to education and the community, begun in 1919 with its first children's concerts, is today recognized internationally for programs including Adventures in Music, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, Music for Families, and www.sfskids.com. The first orchestra to feature national symphonic radio broadcasts in 1926, the SFS remains a leader in the field of electronic media with endeavors such as the Grammy Award-winning Mahler recording cycle for the Orchestra's own SFS Media label, American Public Media's award-winning American Mavericks radio series and website, inspired by and produced in association with MTT and the SFS, and the Emmy Award-winning PBS/KQED Public Television production of the SFS's Sweeney Todd in Concert. In November 2006, the SFS launched Keeping Score, a national television series aimed at making classical music more accessible to people of all ages and musical backgrounds. The Keeping Score project features PBS telecasts, a national radio series, interactive websites, and a K-12 education program. The MTT Files is supported by a grant from Koret Foundation Funds. Lead funding for Keeping Score is provided by the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, with generous support from The James Irvine Foundation, Nan Tucker McEvoy, Marcia and John Goldman, William and Gretchen Kimball Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, and others. For additional information, visit www.sfsymphony.org and www.keepingscore.org.
American Public Media is the nation's second-largest producer of public radio programs, reaching 14.7 million listeners nationwide each week. National programs include A Prairie Home Companion®, Weekend America®, Marketplace®, Marketplace Money®, The Splendid Table®, Speaking of Faith® and special reports produced by its national documentary unit, American RadioWorks®. American Public Media is the name under which Minnesota Public Radio® | American Public Media does national program production and distribution. Minnesota Public Radio, along with its sister company Southern California Public Radio, belongs to a larger family of companies within American Public Media Group, a national nonprofit organization whose purpose is to develop resources, services and systems to support public media for public service. A complete list of stations, programs and additional services can be obtained at www.americanpublicmedia.org.
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Source: Data are copyright Arbitron, Inc. Arbitron data are estimates only. Fall 2006
Press Contacts:
Jennifer Haugh
Minnesota Public Radio
651-290-1369
jhaugh@mpr.org
Oliver Theil
San Francisco Symphony
415-503-5426
otheil@sfsymphony.org
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