Friday, December 8, 2023, 11:00am
The season includes favorites like Mozart's "The Magic Flute," Puccini's "Madame Butterfly," and Verdi's "Nabucco."
Saturday, August 26, 2023, 8:00am
It's "back to school" on "Classics by Request." On Saturday, Sept. 2, a special "kids-only" request program will air.
Thursday, July 13, 2023, 4:55pm
From sculptures lurking around every bend, tiny cabins housing painters hard at work right before your eyes and wandering groups of performance artists, Electric Forest is a celebration of art, in any and all forms.
Tuesday, February 7, 2023, 9:00am
Explore the musical and cultural traditions of tubas around Wisconsin with the University of Wisconsin band.
Monday, January 30, 2023, 1:05pm
Conductor Nicholas McGegan on the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra's latest concert.
Tuesday, January 3, 2023, 9:30am
On New Year's Day, Wisconsin Public Radio's "Wisconsin Classical" aired the most recent performance of the Beethoven "Missa Solemnis" by the Madison Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, with soloists, under the direction of John DeMain.
Friday, June 17, 2022, 10:25am
Join Wisconsin Public Radio for two productions from Madison Opera.
Thursday, December 2, 2021, 1:00pm
The Metropolitan Opera’s 2021-22 season of Saturday afternoon broadcasts runs Dec. 4 through June 11.
Friday, October 15, 2021, 2:30pm
Capital City Theatre will be presenting the musical "The World Goes ‘Round" from Oct. 15-24 in the Playhouse at Overture Center in Madison.
Friday, September 17, 2021, 9:05am
During WPR's Fall Member Drive, join our music hosts during daytime classical music shows for a wide range of recordings by some of the greatest singers in American music, including Jessye Norman, Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald.
Thursday, August 12, 2021, 1:20pm
Starting Sunday, Aug. 15, we’ll spend a week highlighting music by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor during our daytime classical music programing.
Coleridge-Taylor was born in England in 1875 to an English mother and African father. He showed remarkable musical gifts at an early age, and in spite of racial barriers became a successful and popular composer, touring the U.S. in the early 1900s. His popularity even resulted in an invitation to visit President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House.
He also became increasingly interested in traditional African music, and began incorporating it into his own works. One example is this dance from...
Tuesday, June 29, 2021, 12:00pm
WPR music hosts focus attention on composers who immigrated to the United States from Europe, Asia and South America.
Tuesday, June 15, 2021, 11:50am
Traditional spirituals have always been a part of our music programs at WPR, but this week our daytime classical music includes a special focus on them. Created by generations of enslaved Africans, spirituals tell the stories of their sorrows, celebrations, and hopes for freedom.
Tuesday, June 1, 2021, 4:20pm
Music lifts our spirits and helps focus our energies. Exercise gives us energy and keeps us healthy. Celebrate the power of both with WPR’s virtual Classical 5K Run/Walk/Roll this June.
Tuesday, June 1, 2021, 9:10am
Experience the beauty of musical expression as four gifted young artists compete in the final round of the Bolz Young Artist Competition. Broadcast on WPR’s NPR News and Music Network Wednesday, June 2 at 8 p.m., and Sunday June 13 at 1 p.m.
Monday, May 17, 2021, 2:40pm
The influence of jazz runs through many kinds of music, including music written by composers working in the classical world. For many American composers, especially, jazz was a welcome jolt of life that gave them an exciting new musical language rooted in their own country.
Thursday, April 15, 2021, 10:00am
"Earth Day Heritage: A Celebration in Music and Words" is a new recording featuring Marin Alsop conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. WPR's Norman Gilliland recently spoke with Alsop about her experiences as one of America’s leading conductors.
Thursday, March 11, 2021, 10:45am
Many women are prominent classical performers and soloists, but even today, far fewer are conductors, especially of major orchestras.
Tuesday, February 23, 2021, 10:35am
Watch and listen to WPR's "Morning Classics" host Stephanie Elkins give a free, online talk about American composer Florence Price.
Thursday, February 18, 2021, 1:55pm
From its opening notes, "Pasture," by the band Elephant Revival, dances through the speakers with a percussive melody from a mandolin, followed up by its duet partner, the fiddle. The band shared this wonderful instrumental during a 2013 in-studio performance and interview with "Simply Folk's" Stephanie Elkins.
Tuesday, February 16, 2021, 10:15am
Florence Price was an American composer, pianist and teacher, active in the first half of the 20th century, and was the first Black woman to have a work performed by a major American orchestra. We’ll be featuring a wide range of her music during our music programs the week of Feb. 22.
Thursday, January 28, 2021, 4:15pm
Raye Zaragoza named her 2020 album, "Woman in Color," because she saw it as "a coloring book, and every song was a like a little bit of me coloring in my story, of my past and my present and my future."
"Being a woman of color in America and someone of mixed race, I’ve always felt like identity is something that weighs on me very heavily and something that I really wanted to write about in this record," she said.
Zaragoza recently talked with me and shared some solo acoustic performances off her album. We’ve played the recording quite a...
Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 12:00pm
Writing can be a struggle, whether it’s songwriting or penning a novel. The duo of Aaron Nathans and Michael G. Ronstadt recently explored this territory in their song, "Ghost Writer," the opening track to their 2020 album, "Shadow of the Cyclone."
When they perform, Nathans mainly plays guitar and sings, while Ronstadt (who is the nephew of Linda Ronstadt) plays cello. On the album, however, they perform on 33 different instruments, most of them played by Ronstadt, who lives in Cincinnati where he is a frequent recording session player and teaches cello.
"Ghost Writer," according to Nathans who wrote the song,...
Saturday, January 2, 2021, 5:05am
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the miles between them, "Simply Folk" listeners shared their voices and their spirit with each other for the show’s annual singalong to be broadcast on Jan. 3. Invited to record their voices singing along to traditional folk songs, 60 listeners and staff members of Wisconsin Public Radio and PBS Wisconsin responded enthusiastically, creating a wonderful album of music that you can download here.
"Simply Folk’s" annual singalong show has, for many years, been its most popular broadcast, sharing three hours of songs to sing along to, most well-known but a few less so. During the...
Wednesday, December 16, 2020, 4:30pm
For many, Christmas is a season of peace, and in the middle of World War I, that literally was true. During our own time, when political divisions can feel so extreme, the story of the Christmas Truce of 1914 is a welcome gift and witness of peace between supposed enemies.
The truce took place just months after the beginning of World War I. Pockets of soldiers along the front lines in Western Europe, from both sides of the conflict, laid down their weapons and enjoyed a few hours of peace and respite from the war, even mingling with each other....
Saturday, December 5, 2020, 7:30am
December is here, and with it the end of 2020. I know we’re all a little glad for that, but in the midst of all that’s happened this year, folk musicians continued to create some great music.
That’s amazing, when you think about all the challenges, lost gigs and income, and interrupted recording and band time that musicians faced in 2020. Some of these albums were produced before the pandemic, some during it. Some were recorded at home while others originated in a studio. In all these cases, though, we’ve been fortunate to share some of that music on "Simply...
Friday, December 4, 2020, 1:10pm
The 2020-21 Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast season opens on Dec. 5, 2020 — the Met’s 90th consecutive year on the air and a milestone for the longest-running classical music series in American broadcast history.
Thursday, November 5, 2020, 10:10am
This year marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of American composer William Grant Still, and WPR will be featuring a wide range of his works during our music programs the week of Nov. 9, including our weekday classical shows between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Wednesday, October 30, 2019, 1:30pm
Mary Gauthier's 2018 album "Rifles & Rosary Beads" was written with veterans and their families as a way to share their stories of war and beyond.
Thursday, October 22, 2020, 12:20pm
Couldn’t we all use a little seasonal break right about now? Halloween comes at just the right time, with a few pretend frights to take our minds, if only for a moment, off the serious news of the day. Musicians are always coming out with new music appropriate for the holiday, so here are a few releases from the last year, suitable for your holiday playlist.