Behind the scenes

Host John Clare is pictured at the Alamo interviewing conductor Troy Peters for YOSA's Great Tour of China and their farewell concert coming up next Monday. Listen for the interview this Thursday on Classical Spotlight, and follow the tour online: TPR Classical Twitter
We'll also have live updates on air and more blog entries, as well as links to YOSA!

Kids these days

The Youth Orchestras of San Antonio are going to China this next month on tour with Troy Peters. They'll perform and visit across the country, including Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Shenzhen. Host John Clare will accompany the group provide live reports plus blogging and documenting the tour. We'll tell you more about a farewell concert in the next few weeks, and have some behind the scenes look at the trip!

The Music Learning Center is giving their End of Year concert this Wednesday night, starting at 5pm at the Good Samaritan Community Services Center (1600 Saltillo Street) - don't miss it! In fact, check out some of the great work going on there in this video:



You also might enjoy this recent story about kids and classical music - see a report from CBS on El Sistema:

Olympic Song Revealed

The official theme song of the 2008 Beijing Olympics has been revealed, and no, it isn't by John Williams!

Appropriately, a Chinese composer has written the official song, You and Me. Qigang Chen (born 1951; name pronounced "Chee-gang") is one of the leading Chinese composers of his generation. He studied with Olivier Messiaen in Paris.

The song was a closely guarded secret until was performed at the close of the opening ceremonies on Friday. It had been omitted from all rehearsals. You and Me was sung by Sarah Brightman and Liu Huan to an estimated audience of 100,000 in the Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium, and countless billions on worldwide TV.

This is Brightman's second Olympic appearance. She previously sang Friends for Life, the theme to the 1992 Games in Barcelona, with Jose Carreras.

Mr. Chen's other works include the ballet Raise the Red Lantern.

New Release - 40 Degrees North

Guitarist Xuefei Yang ("Fei" to her friends) has released an exciting new album on the EMI Classics label, 40 Degrees North. Listen for selections from the album on KPAC and KXTI.






Fei spoke with host and producer John Clare recently about her new release, China, and playing classical guitar.

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