Between the Keys with Jed Distler

Shall we dance?

That’s the musical question this week on the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys, hosted by The Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler.

Composers include Satie, Halffter, Dvorak, Grieg, Mozart, Bach, Schoenberg, Schubert, William Davis, Franco Casavola and Robert Helps.

Tune in this Tuesday April 16th at 10 PM for Between the Keys, proudly sponsored by Jacobs Music Company. This program  is an exclusive production of The Classical  Network and WWFM.Org.

This week’s episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys features The Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler and special guest co-host Nadia Shpachenko, exploring Chopin’s Mazurkas in comparative performances.

“More than any of Chopin’s works, the Mazurkas seem to lend themselves to a wide variety of valid interpretive styles and options,” says Distler. “As a consequence, hearing two pianists playing the same Mazurka is like experiencing night and day in the same city.”

This week’s episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys is devoted to Boleros and Barcarolles.

Join The Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler for music by Poulenc, Hallfter, Chopin, Griffes, Busoni, Poulenc, Casadesus and Rorem, among others. Pianists include such luminaries as Leon Fleisher, David Alan Wehr, Raymond Lewenthal, Frank Merrick, Jean-Philippe Collard, and Alicia de Larrocha.

March 26th 2019 marks the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys’ fourth anniversary.

“I can’t believe how much time has gone by,” says The Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler, who has produced, written and hosted Between the Keys since it launched back in March 2015. “And when I look at the range of programming and the variety of special guests we’ve had, I’m all the more amazed.”

The writer and scholar Mark Ainley returns to the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys on Tuesday March 19th, for an extended conversation with the show’s creator, producer and host Jed Distler, who is The Classical Network’s Artist-in-Resience.”

Although there’s no theme or topic linked to this week’s episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys, The Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler nevertheless has put together a fascinating and ear-catching program.

You know the old story: A tourist approaches a police officer and asks, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?. The officer replies, "Practice, practice, practice!".

However, one doesn't have to practice to get to Carnegie Hall for this week's episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys, hosted by the Classical Network's Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler, who presents a wide range of memorable piano recordings stemming from live concerts that took place at this iconic venue.

This week’s episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys. “The Spirit of 176 Part 2,” is entirely devoted music for two pianos

“I’ve been a two-piano nerd for decades,” says Jed Distler, host for Between the Keys, and the Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence. “I loved to play through all kinds of repertoire in college, while one of my first major professional engagements involved the premier of Andrew Violette’s Third Sonata for Two Pianos. That was kind of a baptism by fire, from which I’ve never recovered, thank goodness!”

This week’s episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys is devoted to piano sonatinas.

“It’s interesting how sonatinas are, in theory, smaller sonatas, yet the fact is that some sonatinas are bigger than sonatas, and that some sonatas are smaller than sonatinas,” says Jed Distler, host for Between the Keys, and the Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence. “I thought it would be a good idea to comb through a variety of sonatinas and sonatina movements, combining some familiar works with music that you may not have heard.”

On this week’s episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys, the Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler plays host to pianist Kathleen Supové, one of America’s major champions for the music of our time, whose innovative  “Exploding Piano” concerts have long compelled audiences to reconsider the ways and means of the traditional recital.

This week on the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys, The Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler features recordings by Monique Haas (1909-1987), one of the finest French pianists of her generation, with works by Bach, Mozart, Debussy, Ravel, Roussel, Bartok and Hindemith.

Tune in this Tuesday night February 5th at 10 for Between the Keys, only here on The Classical Network and WWFM.org.

This week on the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys, The Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed DIstler guides us through music inspired by the traditional Latin hymn Dies Irae, with works by Johannes Brahms, Modest Mussorgsky, Sergei Rachmaninov, Constantine Caravassilis and Franz Liszt

Tune in this Tuesday night January 29th at 10 for Between the Keys, only here on The Classical Network and WWFM.org.

To many music lovers, pianist Aldo Ciccolini and composer Erik Satie are synonymous. That’s understandable, since Ciccolini’s Satie recordings from the 1960s and 70s helped develop new audiences for this maverick composer.

On this week’s edition of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys, host and producer Jed Distler (who is the Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence) presents what he calls “a Prelude Panorama.”

“The  prelude genre is wide open and stylistically boundless,” says Distler. “And I’m constantly discovering sets of Preludes by an infinite number of composers. I thought we’d explore both familiar and unfamiliar prelude territory for this week’s episode.”

For this week's episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys, the Classical Network's Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler invited his Toronto-based colleague Stephen Cera to curate and co-host a program devoted to the music of Alexander Scriabin. Cera explores the composer's brief, tumultuous life and far-reaching creative journey through recorded performances by with performances by Vladimir Sofronitzky, Vladimir Horowitz, Mikhail Pletnev, Sviatoslav Richter and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

"I can't afford to fly the Vienna Philharmonic in to perform live at my studio for New Year's Day," explains the Classical Network's Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler. "So instead, my program on January 1st will just have to feature traditional New Year's Concert fare on the piano!"

As Christmas Day winds down, The Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler directs listeners to the piano, with seasonal fare by Dave Brubeck, Bruce Adolphe, Franz Liszt, Claude Debussy, Leroy Anderson and J.S. Bach. The featured work this hour is Godfrey Windham’s large-scale Variations on a Theme by James Pierpoint, performed by Alan Feinberg. Its theme, by the way, is none other than Jingle Bells, James Pierpont’s "greatest hit." And for an encore, Meral Guneyman's lovely arrangement of Mel Tormé's classic Christmas Song tops off a program you won't want to miss.
 

This week’s edition of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning Between the Keys celebrates what has become an annual tradition for the show’s host and producer, the Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler.

Schumann served rare? What is the Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler cooking up?

“It's a simple explination," Jed says. "I'm merely talking about rare works of Robert Schumann, and rare recordings of Schumann works. This week I hope to draw attention to wonderful performances and works that our listeners may not necessarily not know about.”

This week on the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys, The Classical Network's Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler catches up with the internationally acclaimed virtuoso Marc-André Hamelin for conversation and music, in an episode that features a wide and varied selection from the pianist’s large discography, including works by Blanchet, Alkan, Haydn, Charles Trenet, Schumann, Scriabin, Medtner, Liszt and Hamelin himself.

This week on the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys, The Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler presents his third and final program this year to mark the 100th anniversary of Claude Debussy’s death in 1918.

"When I can't think of an overall theme, or I don't have a guest planned, I simply dig into my vast collection of piano recordings, pull out one or two at random, and hope that a nice playlist will eventually evolve," says The Classical Network's Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler, who produces, writes and hosts the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomsom Award winning program Between the Keys each Tuesday night.

This week’s episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys is devoted to the art of the piano Bagatelle, with music by Beethoven, Ježek, Sibelius, Howard Ferguson, Dvorak, Poulenc, Edison Denisov, Saint-Saëns, Marie Jaëll, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Nikolai Kapustin and Edison Denisov. There’ll also be a Bagatelle by the Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler, who is the creator, producer and host of Between the Keys.

On Tuesday November 6th at 10 PM, Episode No. 176 of Between the Keys will feature a single, solitary large scale work, the Fantasia by the Swedish composer Claude Loyola Allgén.

"Allgén lived from 1920 until 1990, " says host Jed Distler, who is the Classical Network's Artist-in Residence." He never really got recognition until the end of his life. In a way, it's understandable, because Allgén composed vast amounts of difficult  large-scale pieces, and he lived and worked in isolation from the music community at large. Apparently Allgén was also a rather prickly character."

When The Classical Network's Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler met his wife, the Italian New York-based artist Maria Scarpini, he had no idea that Italy would become a major part of his life. 

"We go at least once a year, and I sometimes play concerts, " says Jed. "Usually we're based in Milan, and I feel so much at home with the city's growing arts scene and the sense of civility that seems to prevail. Milan also is home to my favorite pizza in the universe: S.P.I.B., at Via Legnone 34!".

Unsung piano legends are the topic for this week’s episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys, hosted by the Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler.

“Although the pianists you’ll be hearing this hour are not necessarily household names,” says Distler, “they nevertheless count among the keyboard world’s most distinctive voices, and made significant contributions. Needless to say, hundreds of pianists share their distinction, I hasten to add, and this is only a small sample.”

The topic of composers at the keyboard is near and dear to The Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler, who not only hosts and produces the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys, but is a veteran composer/pianist in his own right.

For this week’s episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys , the Classical Network’s Artist-in-Residence Jed Distler presents a program of piano etudes.

“Yes, I know, we recently did an all-etudes program, I confess,” says Jed. “But the genre is so vast, so diverse and so interesting that one program cannot do it justice. Nor two or three for that matter.”

This week’s episode of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Virgil Thomson Award winning program Between the Keys takes listeners on a global journey of piano music inspired by geographical hotspots, tourist destinations, bustling cities and vast landscapes.