Radio Week
Radio Week
by Sarah Barnett
SATURDAY FEBRUARY 9
Saturday Morning with Kim Hill, Radio New Zealand National, 8.10am. An eclectic start to the weekend. Polymath Kim Hill discusses dark energy and recalculating Einstein with the University of Canterbury’s Dr David Wiltshire; talks to Garry Trudeau, creator of the internationally syndicated comic Doonesbury and the first cartoonist to win a Pulitzer for his work; and moves on to things musical with composer Stephen Schwartz, who’s responsible for three of the five songs nominated for an Oscar this year (all of them for the sweet Disney movie Enchanted), as well as the current hottest ticket on Broadway: Wicked.
Jazz at Lincoln Center, Radio New Zealand Concert, 1.00pm. If Jazz Times says, “Brad Mehldau is the most highly acclaimed jazz artist to have emerged in the last decade”, then who are we to argue? The New Yorker has adapted material from Brahms to Paul Simon and Radiohead. In this performance, he flies solo, performing Nick Drake’s “River Man” and Thelonious Monk’s “Think of One”.
Musical Chairs, Radio New Zealand National, 4.10pm. Original copies of Lutha’s albums fetch serious prices on internet auction sites; not bad for a Dunedin pub band that was together for just four years at the beginning of the 70s. So serious, in fact, that EMI re-released them on CD in 2006. Last year, organisers of the Dunedin Heritage Festival asked the members to re-form for a final fling and, after making sure they could still play, they did. Roy Colbert, veteran of the Dunedin sound scene, was there, and wrote in the Listener afterwards that singer Garry Alpine gave up the durries for three months beforehand to give his voice a break, and was “bellicosely fine”. Colbert was joined, naturally, by Auckland University economics professor Tim Hazledine: “Lutha songs have such good chord sequences,” Hazledine told him, “and I love a good chord sequence.” This afternoon’s programme joined the band members for a yarn before they went onstage.
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 10
Between the City and the Sea, Spectrum, Radio New Zealand National, 12.15pm. Jack Perkins squeezes 35 years of Spectrum documentaries about Wellington Harbour into this little gem: a history of the harbour that, in 1930, “could hold the entire British Navy”, and which has housed more than a few poor souls on Soames Island.
The 2008 Treaty Debates, Radio New Zealand National, 4.06pm. The second of this year’s two debates features Charles Royal, a composer whose research involves the creative use of indigenous knowledge, and race relations commissioner Joris de Bres.
Metropolitan Opera Season 2008, Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm. Russian soprano Maria Guleghina has been described as having Verdi in her veins, so as Lady Macbeth, in his adaptation of Macbeth, she’s received standing ovations wherever she’s encouraged regicide. Here she sings opposite Serbian baritone Zelijko Lucic in Adrian Noble’s staging of a “non-specific, post-World War II Scotland” version.
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 12
Sound Lounge, Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm. In Ben Monder’s hands, the electric guitar does things it shouldn’t. The jazz guitarist plays, say the critics, as if he has more than his fair share of fingers; according to the New York Times, he creates “great splayed-finger chords that other guitarists can’t get to”. He and his acclaimed trio graced the Windy City for the ninth Wellington International Jazz Festival in 2005 – this evening’s programme is a recording of that show.
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 14
Music Alive, Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm. This evening’s recital by Kiwi musicians Donald Armstrong (violin) and Terence Dennis (piano) includes three sonatas by Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré and César Franck. Franck’s Sonata in A for Violin and Piano was composed in 1886 as a wedding present to Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, whose support ensured Franck’s long-lasting popularity. Armstrong and Dennis also play Debussy’s Achilles and Fauré’s Sonata for Violin and Piano Opus 13.
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 15
Live at the Concertgebouw 2007, Radio New Zealand Concert, 8.00pm. Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw (concert building) was, like much of that city’s architecture, sinking dramatically when its bicentennial rolled around in 1988. The 16-million guilder ($12 million) reconstruction involved shoring up the concrete foundations even as concerts were playing above. Today, its acoustics are regarded as some of the finest in the world and this evening’s concert, in which the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra play Liadov, Schumann and Shostakovich, has a Kiwi connection – a pair of Alexanders. Solo cellist Alexander Ivashkin sent several years lecturing at Canterbury University’s School of Music, and conductor Alexander Lazarev has been a guest conductor with the NZSO.
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