Christa Ludwig, celebrated two weeks ago, is not the only great singer and musician to have departed this earthly realm in recent months. This episode presents a wide cross-section of great musicians we have lost, not just singers,

I have dreamed of doing an episode on the great Irish soprano Heather Harper (1930 2019) since before I began the podcast. As we we find ourselves in close proximity to both the anniversary of her b

A month ago the great Finnish baritone Jorma Hynninen turned 80, and on May 2, his closest collaborator, the Finnish pianist Ralf Gothni turned 75. We celebrate these two birthdays somewhat belatedly

The world of singing sustained an enormous loss a week ago: the death of the great German singer Christa Ludwig on April 24 at the age of 93. A singer whose repertoire centered around the great German composers but who also sang Verdi and French repert...

I return to Cathy Berberian, Prima Donna of the Avant Garde (or The Divine Miss B as she was sometimes called in the mid-seventies) for a further exploration of her career and influence on vocalism

Today I finally get to pay tribute to one of the singers who was a formative influence on me as a budding opera and vocal aficionado. George Shirley, born on April 18, 1934 in Indianapolis, Indiana, was one of the most versatile tenors of the second ha...

This episode is the first part of a tribute I have been wanting to create for quite some time. It honors the extraordinary artist and musician Cathy Berberian (1925-1983), the cosmopolitan Armenian-American vocalist who made an indelible mark on contem...

Dear listeners, it is Easter Sunday. While we are strictly non-sectarian at Countermelody, I did want to offer a program of spring favorites to welcome in the earths rebirth. (I also had to scramble

This week we celebrate the recent 111th birthday of the great Italian verista Magda Olivero. An extraordinary artist whose unusual career saw her taking a ten-year hiatus just as her career was gaining steam,

This week I offset the gloom of last weeks music with straight-up joy. No gimmicks, no goofiness, no weird accents. Whether the composer is Giuseppe Verdi, Ralph Benatzky, Aaron Copland, Oleta Adams,