Cara Lieurance is one of WMUK's regular classical music hosts, and co-host (with volunteer Dave Marlatt) of The Pure Drop. A music and communications graduate of WMU, Cara comes from a musical family and has been with WMUK since 1989.
Bach Festival Week begins this Sunday with area churches participating in "The City Sings Bach" during morning services, followed by the "Young Vocalists Concert," an afternoon showcase of top performers in last month's Kalamazoo Bach Festival Young Vocalists Competition.
Last September Dr. Kimberly Dunn Adams, director of choral activities at Western Michigan University, began, step by step, to lead a chorus of over 100 singers through the intricacies of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. A mid-20th century classic, it's a setting of of Latin and medieval German poetry on life, fate, food, and love with an unforgettable opening, 'O Fortuna,' adopted by movies and television soundtracks to evoke awe and power.
The 54th annual WMU Concerto Competition will showcase soprano D. Giles Simmer, violinist Youyang Qu, and bassoonist Minyuan Yang.
Conductors Bruce Uchimura and Jeffrey Spenner describe the talents of each; talk about the process of choosing winners from a wide range of specialties, and preview the major work on the second half of the concert, Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5, "Reformation."
Saturday at 1 pm on WMUK-1, listeners will hear the Kalamazoo-born contralto Meredith Arwady singing at the Metropolitan Opera in Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold.
One of the major young voices in jazz piano, Jeremy Siskind will present a solo faculty recital tonight at Western Michigan University which combines inspired pairings of works by composers from Rachmaninoff to Dizzy Gillespie in the first half.
