KPAC Blog

We love mothers for all the Hallmark reasons: for their compassion and patience, not to mention giving birth. But some moms aren't exactly greeting card friendly — and none less so than those who live in the opera house.

This is opera, after all, so we expect the outrageous. But operatic moms seem to be disproportionately portrayed as murderers, harpies or generally women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Your Normas, Medeas, Butterflies, Queens of the Night and Clytemnestras.

The Choir of St. Luke's Episcopal Church will present their last "Choral Evensong" this season Sunday afternoon at 4:30pm. The concert will feature the world premiere of the St. Luke's Canticles by Craig Phillips. It was commissioned by the parish and the Friends of Music for the Parish Choir for this concert, and later tour of the United Kingdom. Dr. Phillips will be present for the premiere, and more choral works of Phillips will be presented in the Service as well.

This week the Detroit Symphony Orchestra performs two different programs at Carnegie Hall. Leonard Slatkin, their music director, is happy to be part of the Spring For Music festival. "More than any composer I can think of, you span not only his musical growth, but literally the coming of age of American music with these four [Ives] symphonies."

KPAC will air Detroit's Spring For Music concerts on Saturday & Sunday, May 18th and 19th at 7pm on KPAC & KTXI.

A few weeks ago I had the wonderful opportunity to interview the remarkable composer and band leader Maria Schneider.

Her latest work as a composer is still the buzz around both classical and jazz crowds. The disc, consisting of two song cycles written for Dawn Upshaw, is called "Winter Morning Walks."

In German, it's wiegenlied; in French, berceuse; in Norwegian, vuggevise. In any language, the universal effect of what we know as the lullaby is, of course, to coax a baby to sleep.

Violinist Rachel Barton Pine had her own baby in mind when she decided to record a collection of lullabies. Her infant daughter appears on the cover of the new album Violin Lullabies — all folded up, fast asleep, so tiny she just about fits in her dad's hands.