Preview of ALO’s Lucia di Lammermoor — an interview with the stars

This Saturday, KMFA will be broadcasting the ALO production of Lucia di Lammermoor LIVE from the Long Center!

Maestro Richard Buckley, Dianne Donovan, Lyubov Petrova, and Doug Scholz-Carlson

On this week’s Classical Austin, host Dianne Donovan had the great pleasure of interviewing some of the artists and artistic leaders who are so instrumental in creating this glorious operatic presentation.  She chatted with the star,  soprano Lyubov Petrova, as well as the conductor, Maestro Richard Buckley, and Stage Director, Doug Scholz Carlson.

If you missed this episode of Classical Austin, you can hear the interview portion again here.

~posted by Alison @ KMFA  :-)

A Surprise Birthday Gift from the Consulate General of Mexico

Ludwig Barragan presents the CD collection to KMFA President/General Manager, Joan Kobayashi

KMFA received a surprise birthday gift from the Consulate General of Mexico today!

Ludwig Barragan visited the KMFA Studios on behalf of Consul General Rosalba Ojeda, and he arrived bearing gifts! It was a collection of CDs featuring Mexican classical composers, contemporary and past, created by the Mexico National Foundation for the Arts in partnership with the Miguel Aleman Foundation.

Mr. Barragan’s timing was great: Maestro Peter Bay of the Austin Symphony was here as well (he was on the air for our Birthday Pledge Drive).  Maestro Bay knows the Consul General well, as she is a great fan of the Austin Symphony.

Dianne Donovan, Ludwig Barragan, and Maestro Peter Bay

We are pretty excited about the CD collection, and can’t wait to really sit down and enjoy it after the Pledge Drive is over… it will be a wonderful addition to the KMFA CD library!

~posted by Alison @ KMFA

Just for fun: play Google’s online guitar

When the legendary guitarist Les Paul’s birthday rolled around, Google posted an interactive “Google Doodle” in his honor: an online, playable guitar! Although the birthday is long passed, here’s a persisting archival link to it:  http://www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html

Not only did it allow you to strum the strings with your mouse cursor, it could record what you played and play it back for you. Lots of folks took it to the next level and posted videos of their music-making on YouTube. Here’s one of my favorites (Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9):

Enjoy!

~posted by Alison @ KMFA