Stingray Classica Around the World
Saturdays in August
This August, on four Saturday nights at 21:00 CEST, Stingray Classica takes viewers on a musical journey to three different continents: South America, Europe, and Asia. Starting on August 6, ‘Tango: Café de los Maestros and Friends’ offers a splendid South-American concert performance recorded at the famous ballroom El Palacio in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This concert is followed by the documentary ‘Heitor Villa-Lobos: From Bach to Brazil’, which examines the enduring cultural impact of legendary Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, whose compositions put Brazil on the world map of classical music. On August 13, Stingray Classica journeys to Europe for a wonderful performance of The Philharmonics, paying tribute to the music of Vienna with arrangements of popular waltzes by Johann Strauss, Jr. On August 20, Stingray Classica visits another Latin American country. The Academia de Música del Palacio de Minería in Mexico City provides the setting for a concert program dedicated to Mexican composers, performed by soprano Anabel de la Mora and the Orquesta Sinfonica de Minería conducted by Raúl Delgado. On August 27, Stingray Classica concludes its journey around the world in Asia, with two North and South Korea-themed broadcasts. The evening opens with a documentary about composer Isang Yun: ‘In Between: Isang Yun in North and South Korea’ explores whether music can help overcome the boundaries of a divided country. The evening ends with the historic 2008 ‘Pyongyang concert’, performed by The New York Philharmonic under the baton of maestro Lorin Maazel.
Fiesta del Tango
Saturday, August 6 | 21:00
For the audience in the famous ballroom El Palacio in Buenos Aires, the year 2012 began with tango rhythms and Argentinean folk music. This festive broadcast opens with a tango performance by dance partners Eduardo and Gloria, accompanied by the renowned ensemble Café de los Maestros. Another highlights is a performance by bandoneon player Rodolfo Mederos and his trio. In addition, the concert features a performance by Teresa Parodi, former lead singer of the Astor Piazzolla Band, accompanied by the Fernando Suárez Paz Quintet. Also on the bill is the contemporary electronic tango formation Otros Aires. Founded by Miguel Di Genova in 2003, Otros Aires combines electronic rhythms and traditional tango instruments, such as the bandoneon, piano, and guitar. On the program are compositions by Astor Piazzolla, Pedro Maffia, Pedro Laurenz, Gustavo Mozzi, and many others. Enjoy this concert of music and dance, featuring some of Argentine's tango scene's finest artists!
Villa-Lobos: from Bach to Brazil
Saturday, August 6 | 22:20
Composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) is to Brazil what Giuseppe Verdi and Jean Sibelius are to Italy and Finland: his compositions have come to embody the very soul of his native country. In Villa-Lobos: from Bach to Brazil, narrator Carlos de Andrade guides us through young Tuhu's journey through life, from his humble beginnings as the cello-playing son of a demanding librarian serenading performing in Rio de Janeiro's many cafés, to the bigger-than-life maestro Heitor Villa-Lobos whose quintessentially Brazilian music is recognized and respected the world over. Interspersed with numerous contemporary music performances and rare footage of the composer at work and at home, the documentary also sheds invaluable light on Villa-Lobos' estimable role in the development of Brazil's new-found national identity.
A Tribute to Vienna
Saturday, August 13 | 21:00
Chamber music ensemble The Philharmonics pays tribute to the music of Vienna in this March 9, 2011 concert from Vienna's Café Sperl. The ensemble, which consists of musicians from the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic, performs arrangements of five popular waltzes by Johann Straus II. Among them are Kaiser-Walzer, Op. 437, and Schatz-Walzer, Op. 418, from the operetta The Gypsy Baron. In May 1921, the likes of Arnold Schönberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern wrote these chamber music arrangements to raise funds for their Society for Private Musical Performances. Although both the concert and the auction of the scores were very successful, the Society eventually went under. In addition to these pieces by Strauss, The Philharmonics perform works by Fritz Kreisler, Leopold Godowsky, as well as The Philharmonics's first violinist, Tibor Kováč. The program comes to an end with Godowsky’s tribute to the city: Alt Wien.
Mexican Concert - Part I
Saturday, August 20 | 21:00
Soprano Anabel de la Mora is accompanied by the Orquesta Sinfonica de Minería conducted by Raúl Delgado in a concert program dedicated to Mexican composers. This program, which includes the first part of the concert, features the following works: Miguel Bernal Jiménez's "Angelus", Alfonso Esparza's "Dime que sí", María Grever's "Munequita Lina", Ricardo Castro's "Intermezzo de Atzimba", Jorge del Moral's "Besos robados", and Consuelo Velázquez's "Bésame mucho". This concert was recorded at the Academia de Música del Palacio de Minería in Mexico City in 2019.
Mexican Concert - Part II
Saturday, August 20 | 21:30
Soprano Anabel de la Mora is accompanied by the Orquesta Sinfonica de Minería conducted by Raúl Delgado in a concert program dedicated to Mexican composers. This program, which includes the second part of the concert, features the following works: Blas Galindo's "Sones de Mariachi", Arturo Marquez's Danzón No. 2, José Pablo Moncayo's "Huapango", and Genero Codina's "March of Zacatecas". This concert was recorded at the Academia de Música del Palacio de Minería in Mexico City in 2019.
In Between: Isang Yun in North and South Korea
Saturday, August 27 | 21:00
This documentary by Maria Stodtmeier, filmed in North and South Korea, explores whether music can overcome the boundaries of a divided country. There is one figure of the two Koreas, whose outstanding biography in itself forms a bridge between both worlds: The Korean composer Isang Yun, one of the very few people acknowledged on both sides. The film traces the course of a life that has been interpreted in different ways. It examins the worlds of North and South Korean music and in this way taking the viewer on an exciting journey through two political systems that Isang Yun spent his life trying to reconcile.
The Pyongang concert
Saturday, August 27 | 22:00
“The concert was historic…” Daniel J. Wakin, The New York Times „From the start, the concert was exceptional… It felt like history… If this concert… precipitates a thaw, it started here.” Anna Fifield, Financial Times The concert was the ultimate highlight of the New York Philharmonic’s trip to North Korea’s capital Pyongyang: when Music Director Lorin Maazel raised his baton for Arirang, a lilting folk song emblematic of the North and South Korean people, some audience members were obviously misty-eyed. The North Korean audience was on its feet, applauding and waving to the musicians. Does this moment symbolize a change? Can music make a real difference? The concert at the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre was certainly an impressive event. The New York Philharmonic under Lorin Maazel opened with the national anthems of North Korea and the United States, leading on to Wagner’s Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin, Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9 From the New World and An American in Paris.