Thursday, October 8, 2009
As one reviewer put it, “If you think classical music is boring, you haven’t met Michael Tilson Thomas.” Thomas is doing for classical music what Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts did in the 1950s and 60s. Thomas is music director of the San Francisco Symphony and the host of the PBS program, Keeping Score. The program was created in 2006 to make a general audience “more comfortable” with classical music not only through the music itself, but by giving life to the dead, white guys who created the music. This October, three new episodes are scheduled—Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, Charles Ives’s Holiday Symphony, and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Then, Bob talks with Dave Zirin, host of Edge of Sports Radio on Sirius XM, about the MLB playoffs, the NFL season, and college football.