In the words of Irish-American singer-songwriter Aoife O’Donovan, “performing alone is a very solitary experience. Aoife makes the claim that “when you’re in a band and something amazing happens on stage, you look at each other, ‘Yeah! We’re so locked in.’ Or if something goes wrong, you can look at each other and shrug and…
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Savannah Music Festival LIVE is a weekly radio series produced for Georgia Public Broadcasting, which is now in its 16th season. The show has been licensed to public radio stations across the country and is available to stream online anytime. GPB Radio's weekly statewide broadcasts are on Sunday nights at 8 p.m. and WUGA on Tuesdays and Saturdays at 9 p.m
Savannah Music Festival 1640 – The Alt / Teada
On this episode we listen to selections from a co-bill of Irish bands from our 2023 festival, The Alt and Teada.
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1017 – Stewart Goodyear, Part Two
Many pianists have played all 32 Beethoven sonatas over the course of their career, and some have played all of them over the course of a season in a concert hall. But almost no one has ever attempted to play all 32 in one day. In this episode, we listen to excerpts from Stewart Goodyear’s…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1016 – Leyla McCalla
Leyla McCalla is an American musician of Haitian descent, who first became known for her work with the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Since leaving that group in 2012, she has been working to develop her own personal approach to music that encompasses her Haitian roots, American folk, Louisiana roots and gospel, along with jazz and classical…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1013 – German Lopez
German Lopez is an esteemed timple player from the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa that belongs to the nation of Spain. In this episode, we listen to German Lopez’s SMF debut in 2017 alongside his musical partner, guitarist Antonio Toledo.
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1012 – Stewart Goodyear, Part One
Many pianists have played all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas over their career, and some have even played all of them over the course of a season in a concert hall, but almost nobody has ever attempted to play all 32 of them in one day. Canadian pianist Stewart Goodyear, in a program he calls Sonatathon,…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1011 – Mozart & Hummel
By the early 1880s, Johann Hummel’s father recognized that he had a child prodigy who had outstripped his own ability to teach him, so he jumped at the chance to move his family to Vienna where Mozart was then at his peak. When Mozart learned of this extraordinary young man, he invited him to his…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1009 – Jan Lisiecki
Though he rejects the label “child prodigy,” Polish-Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki started playing at age 5 and made his orchestral debut at age 9. His approach to music is a refreshing combination of dedication, skill and enthusiasm. In this episode, we listen to Jan Lisiecki’s Savannah debut from the 2017 Savannah Music Festival, recorded live…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1008 – Ebene Quartet with Daniel Hope & Simon Crawford-Phillips
Since 2004, Daniel Hope has been Associate Artistic Director of the Savannah Music Festival. During this time, his meteoric rise in the world of classical music has resulted from his all-out passion for connecting his music to audiences. He has also helped create original chamber music programs built around visiting artists from North America and…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1007 – Foghorn Stringband
Foghorn Stringband made their Savannah Music Festival debut in 2017 on a double-bill with the Dom Flemons Trio. With eight albums, thousands of shows, fifteen years of touring under their belts and an entirely new generation of roots musicians following their lead, Foghorn is comprised of Caleb Klauder (mandolin, vocals), Sammy Lind (fiddle, vocals), Reeb…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1005 – Richard Thompson
Richard Thompson is constantly ranked among rock n’ roll’s greatest guitarists and finest songwriters by the music press and fellow musicians. His return to the Savannah Music Festival in 2017 spotlighted his abilities as a solo performer, including material from his earliest days with Fairport Convention through his latest solo album.
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1004 – Mike Marshall & Edgar Meyer with George Meyer
Mandolinist Mike Marshall and bassist Edgar Meyer first began playing together in the early 1980s, and their genre blending musical projects over the years have been nothing short of remarkable. In this episode, we hear their 2017 Savannah Music Festival performance at the Lucas Theatre for the Arts, where they were joined by Edgar’s son…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1003 – Sarah Jarosz 2017
Singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Sarah Jarosz continues to build a career that includes an exceptional catalog of original songs, an impressive array of performing projects, and most recently a flurry of commendations including two Grammy Awards. In this episode, we listen to Sarah Jarosz’ 2017 return to the Savannah Music Festival, where she shared a…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1002 – Piano Showdown, the Latin Tinge
In a memorable Library of Congress interview with folklorist Alan Lomax, Jelly Roll Morton described the “Spanish Tinge” as tresillo and habanera rhythms of Afro-Cuban music that were an essential ingredient to jazz music. In this episode, we listen to a 2017 concert exploring that phenomenon with three acclaimed jazz pianists, Marcus Roberts, Danilo Perez…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 1001 – MSU Professors of Jazz Play Monk
The jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk was born in Rocky Mount North Carolina in 1917 and is the second most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington. During SMF 2017, we focused on two of jazz music’s most pivotal figures born 100 years ago: Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie. In this episode, we listen to Rodney…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 952 – Julian Lage & Chris Eldridge 2017
Guitarists Julian Lage and Chris Eldridge craft songs that sound familiar but are never easily classified. Percolating with tinges of bluegrass and folk, insinuations of jazz and pop, hints of classical and avant-garde composition, they rarely settle into any one category. Rather, their music dances around the territory between genres, never announcing its innovations and…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 951 – Joel Savoy & Kelli Jones
Joel Savoy, the son of Cajun musician/accordion builder Marc and musician/historian Ann Savoy, has been at the forefront of the Louisiana music revival of the past two decades. He is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, producer and record label (Valcour) founder who has won the Cajun French Music Association’s “Fiddler of the Year” Award twice, and was…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 950 – Stephen Riley Quartet
The ultimate goal of every jazz musician is to achieve his or her personal sound, an unmistakable voice whereby they blend expression, emotion and technique through mastery of their instrument. Tenor saxophonist Stephen Riley has one of the most distinctive voices in modern jazz, and this episode features his 2016 appearance leading a quartet backed…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 948 – Matt Munisteri
As an instrumentalist of prodigious technique, a session musician and producer, a selfless and devoted sideman, a contemporary master of 1920s and ’30s jazz styles and an ardent student of American folk traditions, Matt Munisteri’s journey through 20th century American music yields a vision that feels intrinsically whole. This 2016 SMF performance by Munisteri features…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 946 – The Tallis Scholars
Over four decades of performance and a catalog of award-winning recordings, Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars have done more than any other group to establish sacred vocal music of the Renaissance as one of the great repertoires of western Classical music. Formed in 1973, their goal was to bring Renaissance works to a wider…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 942 – Mike Marshall & Caterina Lichtenberg
The history of the mandolin goes back to 17th and 18th century Italy, when the instrument evolved from the lute family. Over time, the mandolin developed into primarily three types: the Neopolitan or round-backed mandolin, the carved top mandolin and the flat-backed mandolin. Whether it is used in western classical music, Brazilian music, bluegrass and…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 941 – Dave Rawlings Machine – Part Two
He calls it a machine, but it’s actually a band — a quintet to be precise, rooted in folk, country, blues and rock ‘n’ roll. Dave Rawlings’ longtime musical partner is Gillian Welch, and she joins him along with Willie Watson, Brittany Haas and Paul Kowert on this Savannah debut performance. This is part two…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 939 – Dave Rawlings Machine – Part One
Though he’s a guitarist, producer and singer, Dave Rawlings is probably best known as the longtime musical partner of singer-songwriter Gillian Welch. Together they have created an original body of work and an Americana roots sound whose beauty and brilliance is unique even ina city as musical as Nashville. In this episode, we listen to…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 935 – Brian Blade Fellowship
While generally acknowledged as one of the finest jazz drummers in the world, Brian Blade is also a singer-songwriter, a session man for Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, and the son of a singing preacher man from Louisiana. In this episode, we listen to his signature group, Brian Blade & the Fellowship Band, in their…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 934 – Catherine Russell
When you’re born into a renowned musical family, there’s generally a better chance of you understanding music not simply as a job, but as a way of life. Such was the case for Catherine Russell, whose father Luis Russell was Louis Armstrong’s long-time musical director. Her mother was Carline Ray, a singer with degrees from…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 933 – Kayhan Kalhor & Brooklyn Rider
The Persian Empire was any of a series of imperial dynasties centered in Persia, an area that is now modern-day Iran. One of the most famous instruments in traditional Persian music is the kamancheh, a four-stringed, upright fiddle. Kayhan Kalhor is a master of the kamancheh, and in this episode, we listen to his SMF…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 931 – The Time Jumpers – Part Two
In this episode, we listen to part two of a two-part show from SMF 2016 with the Time Jumpers featuring Vince Gill.
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 930 – The Time Jumpers – Part One
While American country music originated in the late 1920s in the southern United States, an important subgenre of the style was called western swing. As dance music, often with an uptempo beat, western swing attracted huge crowds to dance halls and clubs in Texas, Oklahoma and California during the 1930s and 40s, until a federal…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 928 – Arnaldo Cohen
The Brazilian born pianist Arnaldo Cohen, now living in the U.S., has long had a reputation for astonishing his audiences with the musical authority and blistering virtuosity of his performances. His grateful and unaffected platform manner belies playing of white-hot intensity, intellectual probity and glittering bravura technique bordering on sheer wizardry. In this episode, we…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 926 – Murray Perahia
Every once in a while, a performer seems to transcend the experience of giving a recital for an audience into something vastly fulfilling for themselves. When it happens, the result is powerful and revelatory, and it usually leaves the audience hungry for more. In the 40+ years that Murray Perahia has been performing on the…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 924 – Great Concertos 2016
The word “concerto” is derived from the Italian concertare, which means “to reach an agreement.” Concertos have been written for all the instruments of the orchestra, but the vast majority are written for violin cello or piano, as these three instruments feature a wide dynamic and expressive range. In this episode, we feature several masterpieces…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 923 – Haas Kowert Tice
In this episode, we listen to the SMF debut of the trio Haas Kowert Tice, made up of Brittany Haas (Dave Rawlings Machine, Crooked Still) on fiddle, Paul Kowert (Punch Brothers) on bass and Jordan Tice (Tony Trischka Band) on guitar. These three young acoustic musicians have already covered a lot of territory in their…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 922 – Joey Alexander Trio
Stories of child prodigies in the world of music have a long history, going back to such luminaries as Mozart, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn. Jazz pianist Joey Alexander was discovered in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2012 around the age of eight. Joey might be the most talked-about young musician that jazz has seen in decades. He…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 918 – Balsam Range
Balsam Range is an award-winning bluegrass band named after the majestic mountain range in their home of Haywood County, where the Smokies meet the Blue Ridge. They perform finely crafted songs with tightly woven harmonies, and have established themselves as one of the most in-demand ensembles in bluegrass. This episode features their 2015 performance at…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 916 – Schubert Piano, Early and Late
Composer Franz Schubert is perhaps the single instance of a great artist whose outer life had no affinity or connection with art. His career was simple and uneventful, so out of all proportion with the works which he created like a heaven-sent genius, that we must at last turn to them mainly if we would…
Savannah Music Festival LIVE 915 – Beethoven Piano Trios, Part Two
As with the symphony and the string quartet, the piano trio was inherited by Beethoven and transformed into a vehicle for the most deeply felt musical expression. In this episode, we listen to the second half of the complete cycle of Beethoven Piano Trios, performed by David Finckel, Wu Han and Philip Setzer at the…