“Minnesota Public Radio is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year,” writes Tom Wallace in last Friday’s (11/3) Star Tribune (Minneapolis). “On Nov. 11, the Minnesota Orchestra will play a special concert to mark an association with the public broadcaster that dates to 1971, [with] conductor Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and the orchestra at O’Shaughnessy Auditorium in St. Paul. Since then, nearly 1,200 concerts have been aired to listeners who can’t make it to Orchestra Hall, or who … enjoy sitting at home in an easy chair with the stereo speakers in the background…. On Nov. 11 [Brian Newhouse, MPR’s managing director for classical programming] will take a seat on stage as emcee and introduce pieces he helped select with music director Osmo Vänskä, while American Public Media’s Fred Child fills in as the on-air voice…. What was then called the Minneapolis Symphony was first heard on radio in 1923, with German conductor Bruno Walter on the podium. There were intermittent broadcasts on various stations through the decades before MPR instituted its ‘Live From Orchestra Hall’ series of Friday night subscription concerts in 1974.” The November 11 concert will feature Vänskä leading works drawn from decades of live broadcasts.
Posted November 10, 2017
