Midday Music, Thursday 1/22/09

Shizuo Kuwahara is one of the four finalists for music director of the Augusta Symphony. He is in Augusta to conduct the orchestra in Prokofiev and Ravel on Saturday's concert, and he speaks with WACG's Mary Ellen Cheatham on GPB in the noon hour of Midday Music.

Other Georgia events this weekend:
  • Andre Watts soloes with the Atlanta Symphony in Brahms, tonight through Saturday.
  • The Macon Symphony pays tribute to Neil Diamond Saturday.
  • The Dublin Philharmonic brings Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky to Athens Sunday.
  • Tenor Lawrence Brownlee (opera star and Atlanta resident) makes his Spivey Hall debut.
  • The Atlanta Opera presents Philip Glass's opera Akhnaten, with a libretto partly by Emory University's Shalom Goldman, Friday and Sunday at Emory.
  • Off the classical path but still string-based, Les Yeux Noirs and Cedric Watson share a program, "Gypsy Jambalaya," at Atlanta's Rialto Center.
And now, today's Midday Music playlist.

11 AM
  • Liszt: Un Sospiro (A Sigh). Andre Watts. EMI 47381.
  • Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat. Nelson Freire, Gewandhaus Orch Leipzig, Chailly. Decca 6588.
12 N
  • Prokofiev: Symphony No. 5: Andante (mvt 1). Chicago Sym, Levine. DG 439 912.
  • Mary Ellen Cheatham's interview with conductor Shizuo Kuwahara.
  • Ravel: Mother Goose, Ballet, suite for piano duo. Martha Argerich, Alexander Mogilevsky. EMI 18333.
  • Ravel: Tzigane, Rhapsody for violin and orchestra.
  • Orekhov: Troika Variations. Artyom Dervoed. Naxos 8.570443.
  • "Zam'hora pe opt," from Les Yeux Noirs' album Tchorba
1 PM
  • Bach: Suite No. 6 in D major for solo cello. Jean-Guihen Queyras. Harmonia Mundi 901970.71.
  • Saint-Saens: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor. Andre Watts, Atlanta Sym, Levi. Telarc 80386.
at