CREDITS

THEME SONG – SEASON TWO

Angelo Mascheroni (1855-1905): Eternamente. Claudia Muzio (1889-1936), soprano; Albert Spalding (1888-1953), violin, Robert Gaylor, piano (Edison 82243, recorded 27 April 1921)

THEME SONG – BONUS EPISODES

Claudia Muzio as Nedda in Pagliacci.

Arturo Buzzi-Peccia (1854-1953): Colombetta. Claudia Muzio, soprano; Orchestra conducted by Lorenzo Molajoli (1868-1939) (Columbia BQX 2501, recorded April 1934).

THEME SONGS – SEASON ONE

Claudia Muzio

as Manon Lescaut

Opener: Jules Massenet (1842-1912): Obéissons que leur voix appelle (Manon). Claudia Muzio (1889-1936). (Pathé 54030, recorded 1918)

Lotte Lehmann and Gérard Souzay

Closer: Antoine Boësset (1586-1643): Cachez, beaux yeux (arr. Arne Dørumsgaard [1921-2006]). Gérard Souzay (1918-2004), Jacqueline Bonneau (1917-2007). (Decca LW5091, recorded April 1953)

UNDERSCORING: ALLAN SEGALL

The piano underscorings are adapted from composer Allan Segall’s (b. 1959) Emily Dickinson song cycle My Friend Must Be a Bird. Arranged by and used courtesy of Allan Segall.

Allan and Daniel, Berlin Summer 2019

Allan Segall’s music has been widely performed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia by such distinguished artists as Ralph van Raat, Marcel Worms, Anne Veinberg, Petr Karlicek, Avi Avital, Erik Bosgraaf, Annemarie van Prooijen, Augusto Valenca, Rene Veen, Annelie de Man, Kim Huigens, John Rautenberg, Jim Fulkerson, Michael Cameron, and Tim Lane. Segall has collaborated with world-renowned puppeteer, Duda Paiva; film-makers Eric Urlings and Andrew Schloss; and award-winning choreographers Mary O’Donnell, Winifred Haun, and Randy Duncan. His broadcasts include a guest appearance on Met het Oog Op Morgen (a late night news program on national radio in The Netherlands), and a performance by The Netherlands Flute Quartet June 2004 from the Concertgebouw. His work, The Last Cocktail, was performed in August 2019 at the Grachtenfestival in Amsterdam by acclaimed musicians Illonka Kolthof, piccolo and Ralph van Raat, piano. His music theater work, Yenta’s Lied, a portrait of Shetl life between the World Wars will premiere in May 2020 in Amsterdam with noted soprano Persephone Abbott. His commissions include the Netherlands Flute Quartet; Duo 46; The Cleveland Duo; the Joseph Holmes Chicago Dance Theatre; Ciosoni; the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra; and the Eau Claire Chamber Orchestra. Segall was born in Brooklyn, New York, grew up in Denver, Colorado, received his Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and lives and works in Amsterdam.

LOGO DESIGN: JOEL RICHTER

The beautiful logo for the podcast, using an iconic 1921 photograph of Claudia Muzio, is by Joel Richter (Please use the Contact Us form to obtain Joel’s contact info.)

Born in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, Canada, Joel Richter grew up in the Toronto, Ontario area and Racine, Wisconsin. After receiving a degree in Studio Art from New York University, he lived for many years in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; in 2016 he relocated to Chicago, and currently lives in beautiful Oak Park. 

Joel Richter

He strives to balance the two great loves in his career: graphic design and art. After many years working as Director of Design Support at Hanson Dodge Creative in Milwaukee, he is now a Senior Design Director at Upshot Agency in Chicago. When not at work, he enjoys usually doing freelance design and retouching, or working on photography, painting and mixed-media work. In Joel’s words, “travel inspires me, as do reading, music, film, my partner Patrick, family and good friends.”

I am deeply grateful to Joel, a good friend of my dear brother Jonathan, and me as well, for his dedicated work in creating exactly the logo that I wanted for this podcast, using a beautiful image which conveys the primary elements of the podcast: great voices, dedicated listening, and the vital interaction between those two elements. 

Some of Joel’s design work is represented below:

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TECHNICAL AND ARTISTIC ADVISOR: STEVE ROBINSON

Steve Robinson was an enormous help to me in getting the podcast up and running. I am enormously grateful to him for his input, enthusiasm, and continuing support.

Steve Robinson is an American radio manager, producer and executive producer. He began his professional career in 1967 at WBUR/Boston while still he was majoring in music at Boston University. As a paid staff member of this professionally operated station he produced six, two-hour classical music programs per week. He also created a Saturday morning live call-in program about high fidelity called Shop Talk, which became the model for Car Talk, one of the most successful programs in public radio history.

Steve Robinson with the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg
at the 2017 Cedille Records Gala.

After WBUR, Steve held positions at WGBH and WCRB/Boston and KPFA/Berkeley. In 1976 he was appointed the first development director of Vermont Public Radio (VPR). At VPR he set a national record for VPR’s membership efforts and also won his first national award for The Sky Report, a five-minute daily program about astrophysics that was syndicated throughout the U.S. In one year at VPR he wrote successful programming grants to the VT Council on the Arts, VT Council on the Humanities, NH Arts Commission, NH Humanities Commission, and a total of four grants to the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In 1980 he became the first development director for the newly created jazz station, WBGO in Newark. At WBGO, Steve helped establish the station as the pre-eminent Jazz radio station in the U.S.

In 1971, Steve met multi-reed instrumentalist, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and worked with him on several projects. These included co-producing an eight-part series of one-hour programs entitled, Radio Free Rahsaan. After Kirk’s untimely passing in 1977, Steve produced eight, half-hour programs he called, Memories of Rahsaan, and the 90-minute programs were syndicated to stations throughout the U.S.

In 1984, Steve co-founded AIR, the Association of Independents in Radio, a service organization to assist independent radio producers in the United States. Today, AIR continues to represent independent radio producers and has initiated numerous projects that have helped producers in all phases of their work.

In the 1980’s, Steve produced radio portraits and documentaries with William Schuman, Elliott Carter, Charles Dodge, Lukas Foss, Roger Reynolds, Alan Hovhaness and others.

Steve became the general manager of the newly formed Nebraska Public Radio Network (NPRN) in 1990, a nine-station system of transmitters throughout the state that reached over one million listeners. Steve’s success at management, development and programming at NPRN helped establish it as one of the most successful statewide public radio networks in the country.

In 2000, Steve became the general manager of WFMT and the WFMT Radio Network. Founded in 1951, WFMT is widely considered to be one of the most admired classical music stations in the U.S. and under Steve’s leadership many new programs were added to the local schedule including Introductions, the only radio series produced locally in the U.S. devoted to presenting the most gifted pre-college instrumentalists, chamber ensembles, bands, choruses and orchestras in the region; Impromptu, a program that presents live performances by local, national and international artists on a regular basis during prime time; and a greatly increased on-going series of live broadcasts from the greater Chicago region and beyond.

The WFMT Radio Network was established in 1975 to produce and syndicate concerts by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) but when Steve took over it was losing money and clients. Under his leadership, the Network has become one of the most important producers and syndicators of classical, jazz, folk and spoken word programming in the world.

In 2003, Steve created the daily, one-hour classical music appreciation program, Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin. Over 400,000 unique listeners per week now hear this program on 65 stations in the U.S. It is also heard in Australia, Guam, the Philippines and in Beijing. In 2013, Steve created exploringmusic.org, a subscription-based Web site that offers all 1000+ hours of Exploring Music to interested listeners. It grosses nearly $50,000 a year, which exceeds expenses by a considerable margin.

In 2014, Steve created an on-line archive for the prodigious work of Studs Terkel, who hosted a daily program on WFMT for over 40 years. Studsterkel.org will soon contain all 5500 hours of interviews he conducted on WFMT.

In 2015, he pioneered a cross-cultural broadcast relationship between America and China by exporting to China for the first time broadcast concerts by the NY Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. He also arranged for concerts from the Shanghai Spring International Music Festival and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra to be exported to the West with broadcasts in the U.S., Canada and Europe. This marks the first cross-cultural exchange of this kind between America and China. This precedent-setting exchange was featured in articles in The New York Times, China Daily, the Chicago Tribune and other publications.

Steve has received numerous local and national awards for his work in Chicago including the Champion Award from the Merit School of Music, two awards from the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago (for his leadership in creating unprecedented day-long fundraising campaigns involving every single radio and TV station in Chicago to raise funds for victims of the tsunami in Southeast Asia and the earthquake in Haiti), the Dushkin Award from the Music Institute of Chicago for Exploring Music, the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for creative programming and numerous other awards and citations.

In Chicago, Steve has served on numerous boards including the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Children’s Chorus, Rush Hour Concerts, Merit School of Music, Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, PianoForte Foundation and Music in the Loft. He currently serves on the boards of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt College; Cedille Records; and the Lake Forest Symphony; and as an Artistic Advisor to the Boston-based radio series, From the Top.

Steve left WFMT in Oct 2016 to form his own company, New Media Productions. The company specializes in podcast production and his clients so far include Cornelia Spelman, Spider Saloff, Beth Schenker, American Pianists Association, and Sentenced to Life.

Under the aegis of New Media Productions, Steve is also producing a series of radio features for Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.