@ the Symphony
Insights and anecdotes from musicians, dancers, artists, actors and directors, as well as audience response.
Episodes
June 8, 2024 • 12 mins
WQED-FM's Jim Cunningham spoke with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Music Director and composer Michael Daugherty backstage immediately after the world premiere of Daugherty's "Songs of the Open Road," during our live broadcast on Friday June 7, 2024.
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June 3, 2024 • 25 mins
Pittsburgh Symphony Principal Oboe Cynthia Koledo DeAlmeida and Principal Horn William Caballero have joined pianist Rodrigo Ojeda to record Three Rivers Trios on the Crystal label released May 27. The disc features two pieces written for them: Chris Massa’s Scenes From Chautauqua Lake and Eric Ewazen’s Three Rivers Trio along with several other first recordings of the Mozart trio for oboe horn and piano arranged by Eric Naumann f...
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May 29, 2024 • 12 mins
Jim Cunningham spoke with pianist Benjamin Grosvenor who plays the Liszt Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra this weekend. Benjamin talks about the piece, his latest recording projects, and more.
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May 29, 2024 • 23 mins
Vasily Petrenko returns to Heinz Hall to conduct the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra this weekend. He'll conduct Dukas' "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony and Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 with soloist Benjamin Grosvenor. Jim Cunningham talks to him about the program, his latest projects and more.
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May 17, 2024 • 21 mins
WQED-FM's Jim Cunningham spoke with this weekend's Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra guest conductor, Stephane Deneve. He's conducting music of Ravel, Poulenc and the Gershwin "An American in Paris." He talks about program, working in St. Louis, if he ever sees Leonard Slatkin in town, and if he is a classical radio fan.
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May 17, 2024 • 20 mins
Pianist Cedric Tiberghien plays the Ravel Piano Concerto for the Left Hand this weekend with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. It's his Heinz Hall debut. WQED-FM's Jim Cunningham got his thoughts on the Ravel concerto, his interests outside of music and more.
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April 25, 2024 • 18 mins
Montreal Canada born composer Samy Moussa talks about his Pittsburgh Symphony commission Adgilis Deda ---Hymn for Orchestra - mentioning that it is terrific to have it on a program with one of his favorite composers Anton Bruckner as well as how it was inspired by a person he met in Georgia of the former USSR where he spent an extended period of time. He describes his path so far as a musician studying in Canada, Munich, Germany a...
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April 25, 2024 • 21 mins
Pittsburgh Symphony Music Director Manfred Honeck talks with Jim Cunningham in the grand lobby of Heinz Hall about the Liszt Dante Symphony and this weekend's performances of Beethoven’s Ninth with 3 pieces by Anton Bruckner - Locus Iste, Ave Maria and the Adagio from the String Quintet in F in the arrangement Manfred Honeck and Thomas Ille have made. He also speaks about the Beethoven Ninth and how it is always new including an of...
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April 18, 2024 • 18 mins
Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes returns to the Pittsburgh Symphony to play one of the most challenging piano concertos of all, the Third by Sergei Rachmaninov with Music Director Manfred Honeck. He joins Jim Cunningham in the Grand Lobby of Heinz Hall to talk about the fine points of the Concerto, how he stays " in the pocket" as drummers in jazz and funk bands like to do, comments on the record Rachmaninov made of his own Third, mentions...
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April 12, 2024 • 19 mins
Gilmore and Avery Fisher prize winning pianist Charlie Albright makes his Pittsburgh Symphony debut April 12, 13 and 14 with George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue for PNC Pops and Saturday morning Fiddlesticks concerts. He’s from Centralia, Washington with a start at age 3 then on to studying at Harvard with an interest in economics and pre medicine but the piano became the main focus. He’s appeared with Yo Yo Ma on numerous occasions...
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April 4, 2024 • 19 mins
Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet joins Jim Cunningham to share his thoughts about Camille Saint-Saens and the Egyptian Concerto No. 5 written in uxor and inspired by his visit to the country even weaving a bit of a song he heard from the river. Jean-Yves talks about his Hall of Fame designation at the Hollywood Bowl, his work in the wine region of Burgundy with cellist Gautier Capucon, his interest in jazz, his new cd with Michael Fein...
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April 4, 2024 • 19 mins
The long time Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra discusses the Inextinguishable Symphony No 4 by Carl Nielsen, the Bach Toccata and Fugue in d minor in the Skrowacewski transcription and its use on horror films along the way to becoming the best known music by J. S. Bach. Maestro Vanska says he’s living the Finnish equivalent of the free life but enjoys his home in Minnesota, he knows the Finnish wunderkind Klaus Makela and ...
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March 20, 2024 • 18 mins
WQED-FM's Jim Cunningham sat down with conductor Juano Mena, who will conduct the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra this weekend in Elgar's Enigma Variations and Sukkot Through Orion's Nebula by James Lee III. Plus, he'll conduct violin works by Ginastera and Sarasate with Hilary Hahn.
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March 16, 2024 • 16 mins
During WQED-FM's live broadcast of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on Friday March 15, 2024, Jim Cunningham spoke with conductor Jacob Joyce, guest violinist James Ehnes, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Vice-President of Artistic Planning Mary Persin and WQED President and CEO Jason Jedlinski during intermission.
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March 5, 2024 • 12 mins
Mason Bates joins Jim Cunningham to talk about his Pittsburgh premiere of Philharmonia Fantastique, commissioned in part by Pittsburgh. With animation and live action film this score has won a Grammy in its Chicago Symphony recording while becoming Mason’s most performed piece. It mixes animation with ties to the Pixar studio and Lucasfilm, live action on screen while the orchestra plays. Mason also fills us in on his next opera ba...
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March 5, 2024 • 19 mins
John Moore, Micah Howard and Nicholas Myers, members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Double Bass section, stopped by the QED Morning Show with Jim Cunningham to talk about the Pittsburgh Double Bass Symposium taking place at CMU on Sunday March 10th, as well as the Sound Fusion concert taking place at Heinz Hall on March 5th.
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February 29, 2024 • 19 mins
Pablo Heras-Cassado returns to Heinz Hall to conduct Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, Manuel de Falla's Three Cornered Hat, and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 with Yunchan Lim. Jim Cunningham spoke with the Maestro about the concert.
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February 15, 2024 • 11 mins
Pablo Ferrandez returns to Heinz Hall having had a sensational debut in a 2023 December concert with Anne Sophie Mutter and John Williams playing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Anne Sophie Mutter. He describes the challenge of playing the Shostakovich Cello Concerto No 1., the composer’s fear of being taken away in the night were he to run counter to what Stalin thought he should be writing, the importance of the timpanist in the...
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February 15, 2024 • 17 mins
Katherine Balch talks about her new music commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony and several other American Orchestras with the world premiere on February 16, 2023--- Musica Pyralis to be conducted by Manfred Honeck. She is inspired by the events around her including fireflies in the music for Pittsburgh. Katherine tells Jim Cunningham her story: born in San Diego, now teaching at Yale, her thoughts about connecting with audiences...
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February 9, 2024 • 17 mins
Pianist Alexandre Kantorow makes his Heinz Hall debut February 9th through 11th at Heinz Hall with Manfred Honeck. In this conversation with Jim Cunningham recorded in the Dorothy Porter Simmons Rooms at Heinz Hall, he talks about the Liszt Second Concerto; his recent win of the Gilmore Prize and the win at the Tchaikovsky Competition; his early career; growing up in the musical family with his Dad, a conductor and his Mom a violin...
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