This Week in Classical Music

by: Randy Kinkel

January 11, 2009

Julia Fischer

This Week in Classical Music-January 11, 2009

( Phoenix, AZ )
•Midem Classical awards winners
•Slatkin/DSO TV series

This Week in Classical Music 1-11-09

It’s This Week in Classical Music, an update of what’s happening in the classical music world; I’m Randy Kinkel.

The short list of winners in the Midem classical awards have been announced—the Midems are held every year during the record industry’s annual trade fair in Cannes. Nominations were submitted by over 100 record companied in 23 countries; jurors included editors, executives, producers, and radio stations. The award ceremony is to be held January 20th, but some of the awards have been announced already, including the two artists of the year: those awards go to Violinist Julia Fischer and countertenor Phillipe Jarroussky: lifetime achievement award winner is tenor Carlo Bergonzi and Label of the year went to Sony Masterworks.

Conductor Leonard Slatkin and the Detroit Symphony orchestra now have their own TV show. It debuted last week on Detroit’s KTVS-TV (channel 56). Each 30 minute episode in the 13 week series explores a different theme and is designed to introduce classical music to a general audience. The first program was called “Listen Up”, where musicians, students, critics and others talked about how they listen to music and how people can get more out of the classical music experience. Future topics include the size of ensembles, music education, how to create a concert program, and musicians and their instruments.

For more on these and other items and events, go to the website, kbaq.org; be listening each week at this time for another update; and join me every weekday at noon for the Mozart buffet—an hour of music by Mozart and his contemporaries. I’m Randy Kinkel, for This Week in Classical Music on 89.5 KBAQ Phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.