Highway 89

Fauneil Purcell chats with Alex Bigney about playing the harp, losing one harp in a house fire, and visiting the namesake for his musical duo: Kirkmount.  Songs featured: Lament for a Friend - Original Follow Highway 89 on twitter: @byuh89 and on instagram: @byuh89

Danielle Messina and Kathleen Finlinson, pianists playing selections from Liszt. Repertoire: LISZT Hungarian Rhapsody no. 6; Hungarian Rhapsody no. 16; Follow Highway 89 on twitter: @byuh89 and on instagram: @byuh89

You couldn’t do geometry without Euclid and there’s probably no such thing as modern piano playing without Franz Liszt. This year 2011 marks the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth and in celebration various students from the BYU School of Music will be performing all 19 of his Hungarian Rhapsodies.  The rhapsodies are one of the first examples of musical forays into nationalism—since they were not Germanic and based almost entirely around Hungarian folk themes. Scott Holden guest hosts this hour. He is the director of Keyboard studies at BYU. Musicians: Danielle Messina, Michelle Papenfuss, John Shumway, Kathleen Finlinson Follow Highway 89 on twitter @byuH89

The first private performance of Robert Schumann’s “Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44” featured Felix Mendelssohn at the piano site-reading the score on the spot! That must have been quite an exhilarating performance.  Today, in similar spirit, five international musicians have come to our studio (quite literally from the four corners of the earth) and after very brief rehearsal are set to play the quintet on the air.  They are (photo left to right): Miran Begic, Cármelo de los Santos, Viktor Uzur, Paolo Gualdi and Spencer Martin. All are in Utah to perform at the annual Bonneville Chamber Music Festival at Weber State University which Mr. Uzur founded in 2007. One of his reasons for doing so was to create an environment where chamber music could be performed as it was in days past—by non-standing ensembles and with great spontaneity. Of course, the wisdom of such a sentiment directly correlates to the caliber of musicians involved, but Mr. Uzur only invites the very best.   Follow Highway 89 on twitter

Alex Woods on Violin and Garrick Woods on Cello. Repertoire: Duo for Violin and Cello - Zoltan Kodaly Follow Highway 89 on twitter: @byuh89 and on instagram: @byuh89

Aubrey Smith on Violin, Jayne Galloway on Piano. Repertoire: Violin Sonata in G minor - Claude Debussy; Spiegel im Spiegel - Arvo Paert; Follow Highway 89 on twitter: @byuh89 and on instagram: @byuh89