Guitar virtuoso Christopher Parkening will appear as a special guest at a live recording of “From The Top,” the radio showcase for America’s best young
classical musicians.
By Melonie Magruder / Special to the Malibu Times
If “theater of the mind” is a metaphor for radio, then “From The Top,” the hit radio program heard locally on K-Mozart (105.1 FM) each week, is the Lincoln Center of the airwaves.
Produced at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall in Boston and distributed nationally through Nation Public Radio, “From the Top” has been showcasing extraordinary young classical musicians from around the country in its weekly program since its launch in 2000.
Mediated by host and pianist Christopher O’Riley, each year the program selects more than 100 pre college-age youth to perform on the show. Twenty-five will receive the coveted Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist award in support of furthering their musical education.
On Sunday, “From the Top” will be taping a live concert performance at Pepperdine University’s Smothers Theatre at 2 p.m. The show will also feature guitar virtuoso Christopher Parkening, chair of the classical guitar department at Pepperdine. The recording will showcase 13-year-old Timothy Callobre from Pasadena, Calif., who was a participant in the recent Parkening International Guitar Competition. He will play “La Catedral” by AgustÃn Barrios Mangoré. Also performing Sunday will be Pepperdine student and guitarist Carlo Corrieri, who is originally from Italy. Corrieri, 18, will perform “Capriccio Diabolico (Homage to Paganini)” by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Callobre and Corrieri will also play a duet, “El Paño moruno.”
David Balsom, tour producer for the program, has been with the show since its 25th broadcast.
“We’re now at show number 150 and next week’s broadcast is our birthday,” he said. “We’ve been up and running for seven years now.”
Balsom described how “From the Top” was conceived, when the performance hall at the New England Conservatory was refurbished in the late nineties.
“Our producers, Gerald Slavet and Jennifer Hurley-Wales, worked with the Board of Trustees for the conservatory and heard that they were looking for new ways to utilize Jordan Hall,” Balsom said. “Gerry had the idea for an old-time radio show, with music and entertainment, but using kids.”
The result was a variety-hour radio program that leaned heavily on classical music with young, unknown performers.
“The next step was to find a really engaging host,” Balsom continued. “Gerry and Jennifer heard a program with Chris O’Riley who was, shall we say, waxing poetic about the hip-hop group Public Enemy and what rap was doing to music in this country. They knew they had found their man!”
O’Riley, an accomplished pianist in his own right, not only accompanies the performers, he interviews them, presents guest artists and guides the show through fresh and usually humorous unscripted moments.
“Chris’ genius,” Balsom said, “is that he makes classical music accessible to everyone without dumbing down the quality. With Chris, it’s all about a celebration of the kids and the music.”
Each program showcases five young musicians on a variety of instruments, their play punctuated with campy skits and wacky interviews. Wit abounds. Balsom described how music producer Tom Vignieri devises a lineup from the thousands of audition tapes submitted: “Even though these tapes come from kids recording unprofessionally, they know what’s at stake. You’d be surprised at the quality of the audition tapes we receive.”
After the talent is selected, production writers Tim Banker and Tom Voegeli spend at least an hour on the phone with each young musician, seeking out their quirks and talents.
“All the kids have different stories and we look for diversity,” Balsom said. “But even with all our preparation, there are always unscripted moments. Chris sails them through it.”
Balsom said that one of the host’s least appreciated skills is that “he is a great accompanist. And because he plays with the kids, they have a special, trusting relationship on stage.”
The performers only get one rehearsal.
“The day before the show, we get together with all the kids and have a pizza party to get to know each other,” Balsom said. “Then it’s pure musical rehearsal. Chris will just say ‘show me what you need’ or he’ll help direct them into a better performance.”
Not all the youth who are featured on the program go on to musical careers, Balsom said.
“One girl who played for us is now a junior at Harvard studying stem-cell research.”
He smiled when he recalled the program with another girl who played Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee.” On a tuba. Dressed in a bee suit.
“She is now the first female and youngest principal tuba player to ever sit with the Philadelphia Orchestra,” he said.
Ultimately, “From the Top” aims to create “cultural leaders” out of young artists, sitting them down with the show’s education director to discuss how they can bring music to more youth and how they would like to continue their own careers.
The show has been so successful that PBS is producing a “From the Top” TV series to air this spring. Don Mischer Productions, the organization that gives you “The Kennedy Center Honors” and the Super Bowl halftime show, is at the helm.
“For the cost of about two minutes of a Super Bowl half time show, they produced 13 half hour episodes,” Balsom said laughing.
Also performing Sunday will be Eliodoro Vallecillo, a 16-year-old horn player originally from Mexico and now living in Santa Cruz. He will perform Saint-Saens’ “Morceau de Concert in F Minor, P. 94.” And the J3 Clarinet Trio, which includes 17-year-olds Jieun Kim on clarinet and Jin Suk Yu on violin, as well as pianist Julie Lee, 16, all from South Korea and currently studying at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, will perform the finale from the “Suite for Trio” by Alexander Arutunian.
Tickets to the live recording are $30 for adults, $20 for youth 17 and under, and can be obtained by calling 310.506.4522. More information on the performance or audition submissions for “From the Top” can be obtained by visiting the Web site www.fromthetop.org