January 27, 2024 -- Classic Rebroadcast

[dwarnold]

This week, we revisit a classic from January 27, 1996 with the legendary voice of Rosemary Clooney, The Ensemble Singers of the Plymouth Music Series (now VocalEssence), Janis Hardy, Maria Jette, Helen Bonchek Schneyer, and Vern Sutton.

Highlights include talk of the Winter Carnival, a sonnet for Mozart, “When October Goes” and “Hey There” from Rosemary Clooney, the opera “La Influenza,” featuring VocalEssence, Maria Jette, and Janis Hardy, Famous Celebrities, Fred Farrell and the latest News from Lake Wobegon.

www.prairiehome.org/shows/58387.html

Winter weather in North Florida is a roller coaster ride. In a single week the temps ranged from 21 to 77 and a few mornings the wind was brisk when I was out before sunrise. I came down with my first serious cold in a great number of years, and a bad case of acute conjunctivitis, so I am happy to have the worst of that behind me and hope for no repeats.

[dwarnold]

Rosemary Clooney was born in Maysville, Kentucky, where there now is a street named after her, but her career began in Cincinnati, where she sang duets with her sister, Betty, on WLW Radio and appeared with local bands. The duo grabbed the attention of bandleader Tony Pastor as he passed through Ohio and he asked them to join his band. They played with Pastor for two years as “The Clooney Sisters” and then Betty decided to return to Cincinnati. Rosemary struck out on her own, heading for New York, where Columbia Records signed her. Clooney’s timing was perfect — it was 1949, and “girl singers” such as Doris Day and Peggy Lee were becoming rising stars. Columbia Records was bandleader Mitch Miller's territory, and he convinced Clooney to record “Come On-a My House,” a song that Clooney thought too tawdry and nonsensical. This song catapulted her to stardom — she landed on the cover of Time in 1953 and crossed over to become a movie actress in 1954, when she co-starred with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye in White Christmas. Rosemary passed away in 2002 after entertaining audiences for more than 50 years.

Philip Brunelle is an internationally renowned conductor, choral scholar, and performer. He is also the founder and artistic director of Minneapolis-based VocalEssence, one of America’s premier choral arts organizations. His many awards include the Royal Order of the Polar Star from the King of Sweden and Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit. In July of 1974, Philip appeared on the very first live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion.


Mezzo-soprano Janis Hardy has performed major roles at leading opera houses around the country, including the Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, and Minnesota Opera, where she created roles in more than 20 world premieres. She has been a soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and VocalEssence with Philip Brunelle. And she has mentored numerous students as Associate Professor of Music at St. Olaf College.

Versatile soprano Maria Jette can sing dozens of operatic roles. She also performs pop songs, chamber music, oratorio, and show tunes. She has appeared with orchestras nationwide, including the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, New York Chamber Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Minnesota Orchestra.

[dwarnold]

January 27, 1996

00:00 PR Logo
00:11 TISHOMINGO BLUES
01:04 Credits
02:15 Mozart's Birthday verse
02:55 GK talk about Winter Carnival
03:35 BLUE SKIRT WALTZ / DU LIEBST MIR IM HERZEN
06:39 GK talks with Jeff Smith about tobaggan ride
08:50 Minnesota: A Sate of Contentment
11:26 ANOKA, THE HOME OF MY DREAMS
14:15 Mozart talk
15:02 Sonnet for Mozart
16:07 MOZART STRING QUARTET #11 in D MAJOR
17:34 GK introduces Helen Schneyer
19:55 LONESOME ROBIN
25:29 GK talk with Jeffrey
27:33 Fred Farrell
29:00 PLAISIR D'AMOR
31:19 ARGENTINE LOVE SONG
34:08 GK introduces Rosemary Clooney 5.36.25 HEY THERE
39:32 SWEET KENTUCKY HAM
43:45 GK talks with Alan Frechtman and Jeffrey
45:30 LA INFLUENZA (Opera)
46:10 BACK IN THE CITY (Intermission)
59:16 Welcome back
1:10:43 Puccini Mouth Wash
1:14:37 DWELLING IN BEULAHLAND
1:18:59 WHEN OCTOBER GOES
1:23:26 Thanks to Rosemary
1:24:15 Monologue
1:42:45 DEBUSSY STRING QUARTET
1:45:41 Famous Celebrities
1:51:02 GK introduces choir
1:51:42 WE SHALL WALK
1:54:09 Credits
1:56:07 BLUE SKIRT MEDLEY
1:57:55 Good night everybody!

[jspnrvr]

Hey, folks. Busy this weekend, out in Mt Dora,FL, at the Florida Storytelling Festival!

[dwarnold]

Here we go for another Saturday, the band is playing, honey could we ask for more??

[doctork]

Hey DW, thanks for posting the link.

[dwarnold]

Jan 27, 2024 18:04:39 GMT -5 doctork said:

Hey DW, thanks for posting the link.

Good afternoon, how are things in your neck of the woods?

[doctork]

We're at 56 degrees, cloudy and intermittent rain - typical winter weather.

When I was in Germany at the Outward Bound school in the Alps (Kurzshule Berchtesgaden) we took a field trip to Salzburg and visited Mozart's geburtzhaus, aka his birthplace. But don't trust my German spelling. I spoke it and understood it, I didn't write it. I was pretty good at math in the German school, the numbers part was easy.

[doctork]

Gee, they were trashing English majors back in 1996? I thought trashing of non-STEM was just a current fetish.

[dwarnold]

I am just glad I am over the worst part of the cold... I never got any body aches and pains, only had a mild fevor a few times, but the coughing was awful and the stuff that came out of my bronchial tubes was just plain old icky! then the eye infection was an added bonus!

[doctork]

"Pink eye" is very contagious and colds are a real nuisance though rarely life-threatening thank goodness. I'm glad you are starting to feel better. Since I quit seeing patients (ie, sick people) I haven't gotten sick very much if at all.

[dwarnold]

Jan 27, 2024 18:21:25 GMT -5 doctork said:

"Pink eye" is very contagious and colds are a real nuisance though rarely life-threatening thank goodness. I'm glad you are starting to feel better. Since I quit seeing patients (ie, sick people) I haven't gotten sick very much if at all.

I didn't have a chance to stop my routine, just medicated up, masked up, and kept going. Fortunately I can keep a buffer zone for most of my daily adventures.

[dwarnold]

I am unusually fascinated by the details of infections, given my scientific training.. I constantly wonder what the bacteria or viruses are doing that produces such strange results!

[doctork]

Colds are a common fact of life so we can't always put a halt to daily life for them. Good on you for keeping going, because it sounds like the people need you.

[dwarnold]

In the day to day media fascination with all things Trump, it seems some really significant items get skipped over or ignored. Did you see any news coverage about this?

Museums across America have started closing exhibits highlighting Native American artifacts in an attempt to comply with new Biden administration rules that mandate venues get the OK from Indigenous tribes before displaying those samples. The requirements under the updated Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, originally passed in 1990, went into effect on Jan. 12, meaning that all museums and federal agencies must obtain "informed consent before any exhibition of, access to, or research on human remains or cultural items" from Native American tribes.

[doctork]

Jan 27, 2024 18:30:05 GMT -5 dwarnold said:

I am unusually fascinated by the details of infections, given my scientific training.. I constantly wonder what the bacteria or viruses are doing that produces such strange results!

There's quite a bit of lay writing on the topic so even though infectious disease is a complex specialty requiring years of specialized study there sources you can read to learn more. With your scientific training, you'll understand a lot more than a person without your background.

In medicine there is a whole lot of Greek and Latin which may be common across all the scientific disciplines. I just know people, and a bit about other mammals. Nothing about plants or other animals.

Even "just" bacteria and viruses - one can make a career of studying a single organism and at that level, bacteria and viruses don't even overlap much.

[doctork]

Jan 27, 2024 18:33:49 GMT -5 dwarnold said:

In the day to day media fascination with all things Trump, it seems some really significant items get skipped over or ignored. Did you see any news coverage about this?

Museums across America have started closing exhibits highlighting Native American artifacts in an attempt to comply with new Biden administration rules that mandate venues get the OK from Indigenous tribes before displaying those samples. The requirements under the updated Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, originally passed in 1990, went into effect on Jan. 12, meaning that all museums and federal agencies must obtain "informed consent before any exhibition of, access to, or research on human remains or cultural items" from Native American tribes.

I saw that and wondered how it will be implemented - these collections can be extensive, accrued over hundreds of years. Will they have to remove all existing displays, start again after the permits are obtained? Will we really close all these museums, cutting off their revenue so they will end up closing rather than re-opening with acceptable permissions?
What about Natives who want the items displayed now for continuous education?
Is this a virtue signal, or is it a real effort?

You know, I thought the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a good idea and I hoped when the delay was imposed that the time would be used to make every effort for it to go smoothly. That wasn't what happened.
Sometimes government ideas with good intentions don't go so well in practice. Maybe this is just too woke.

[dwarnold]

I think that museums should have known this was coming, since it dates back to 1990. There are more details in some news articles on Google. Basically some places are just closing off exhibits that they have not done their due deligence on... and there are some controversial catagorizations where museums tried to say that the items they had were not able to be attributed to any specific tribes.. which many felt was obfuscation.

[dwarnold]

I have not heard these lyrics about Beulah Land before

[doctork]

I was a dues paying member of the Museum of Northern Arizona for all the years I lived in Arizona (2010 - 2015), a very frequent visitor and a supporter and I never hear of this until recently. However, MNA does cooporate closely with the three major tribes in the area, and their items constitute the majority of the displays. Well, except for the Anasazi, who vanished completely.

I followed the development of the Nation Museum of Native Americans in Washington, DC and have visited several times since it opened in 2004. If the origin of the movement was 1990, I would think it would have applied to the museum. It's a wonderful place so I hope it hasn't had to close. The news clipping refers to new Biden regulations.

I suspected there is a longer back story that I don't know about.

[doctork]

I don't recall having heard Beulahland before.

[dwarnold]

What is the meaning of Beulah land?
In Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan's allegory of the Christian life, Beulah Land is just outside the Celestial City, or heaven. It's a place of abundance in which the covenant between God and man is renewed. The idea comes from Isaiah 62:4-5, and it has inspired both hymns and gospel songs over the years.

[doctork]

I knew the song "I got a home in Beulahland" and being a Southerner who usually lived elsewhere, I thought Beulahland must be the heaven we all wanted to return to." So I'll take the Pilgrim's Progress interpretation.

[doctork]

Then of course, I am planning a return to Beulahland later this year. If Appalachia and the Blue Ridge are considered Beulahland. I think they are.

I haven't ruled out that I might change my mind.

[dwarnold]

Jan 27, 2024 19:39:09 GMT -5 doctork said:

Then of course, I am planning a return to Beulahland later this year. If Appalachia and the Blue Ridge are considered Beulahland. I think they are.

I haven't ruled out that I might change my mind.

You have so many things to consider for sure.

[doctork]

Yeah the thinking and worrying about all that stuff wears me out.

[dwarnold]

Jan 27, 2024 19:52:12 GMT -5 doctork said:

Yeah the thinking and worrying about all that stuff wears me out.

+*---+-+/*-*-+/98665969+

Well give yourself a break and focus on something else for a while! Hope you have a good week!

[doctork]

You have a great week to DW!