The Conductor Arturo Toscanini is being remembered this season, 50 years after his death. So there’s a lot of information on him, out there, to get through. As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, tackling the Toscanini phenomenon is worth a try.

Toscanini at the New ...

One of Mexico's esteemed composers has never lost favor in his own country, but for generations he was unknown everywhere else. Even now, Sara Fishko tells us, he's not exactly a household name.

Listening to a musician working on technique might not be your idea of fun; but as WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, there is music that can make that sort of thing a real experience – for the player and the audience. Here is the next Fishko Files...

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Rather than the venerable old violins, violas and cellos one associates with the great string players, The Miro Quartet’s instruments are brand new. Sara Fishko has the story behind the rich sound of these strings.

This was originally broadcast on January 31, 2003

American Composer William Bolcom's compositions are widely performed and recorded; he's written music of every type, comfortably mixing styles and genres. As WNYC's Sara Fishko tells us, Bolcom was, and is, a careful, passionate music-listner as well, and what he listens to tells us a lot about the history of ...

In mid-November, the music of the Cuban-born composer Tania Leon will be featured at The Gatehouse at Harlem Stage. Leon’s music sounds contemporary, but draws on her Afro-Cuban roots. To her, there’s nothing really new in anyone’s music; there are only new ways of using old musical ingredients. WNYC’s Sara ...

This week, the New York Philharmonic opened it’s new season of concerts; which has WNYC’s Sara Fishko looking back at a New York Phil concert of long ago – one which featured a great conductor, an adventurous soloist – and a battle. The entire April, 1962 Brahms concert was preserved, ...

WNYC’s Beethoven Festival begins tomorrow night. So it seems like a good time to revisit Sara Fishko’s consideration of one enormously popular body of Beethoven works – the 32 piano sonatas. What is the attraction of these pieces? Here is the next Fishko Files...

Starting tomorrow night ...

Starting tonight and continuing through the next two weekends, the annual Bard Music Festival considers and performs the music of Franz Liszt. As WNYC's Sara Fishko tells us, Liszt's music is only PART of the Liszt story. Here is the next Fishko Files...

In this Shostakovich-centennial Mozart-birthday year, we are surrounded by Beethoven recordings and performances. Especially, WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, the Beethoven Piano Sonatas: these pieces keep on coming back, singly and in groups. All 32 of them are being performed live this summer, and several recordings of the set are ...

WNYC’s American Music Festival continues through this weekend. And one thing a lot of American composers have had in common is training and study someplace other than America. Philip Glass is an example: he talked to WNYC’s Sara Fishko about his travels in the 60’s.

You can park yourself at a concert all afternoon and evening this Sunday, and hear music one almost never hears. As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, there are plenty of stories and sounds behind the Shostakovich piano pieces being performed this weekend. Here is the next Fishko Files...

Today, all over the world, people are celebrating the music of Mozart on this 250th anniversary of his birth. In an effort to get ‘inside’ the music a little, WNYC’s Sara Fishko spent time talking to music-thinkers who’ve done a lot of Mozart-study. They came up with some of their ...

They say that behind every great composer is a great...cataloguer! That was certainly true in Mozart’s case. As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, it was much harder to appreciate Mozart before Mr. "K" came along.

Music and cartoons have a long and happy history together. But as WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, sometimes what you hear in animation is the last music you’d ever expect! What does the Moonlight Sonata have to do with Elmer Fudd? Here is the next Fishko Files... Tunes for 'Toons ...

All week long, WNYC has been presenting its "MUST HAVE" Music Festival, and it continues through Sunday. WNYC hosts, producers, guests, and friends of the station will be focusing on recordings they simply can’t live without. WNYC’s Sara Fishko has some thoughts on her OWN recent music-listening-habits, on this edition ...

Long before American Idol and the Amateur Hour, soprano Florence Foster Jenkins sang about as badly as anyone had ever sung in public. But people have been fascinated by her style and her story since her death 60 years ago. Sara Fishko asks: was she so bad she was good? ...

This week a new opera by John Adams and Peter Sellars about building the atomic bomb is having its first performances at the San Francisco Opera. The "Dr. Atomic" of its title is the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and, as Sara Fishko tells us, Oppenheimer’s rise and fall has been ...

To produce art, talent is necessary - but confidence and peace-of-mind are major components as well. Sara Fishko talked to one pianist who's been traveling a long road toward peace in the practice of her art. Here is the next Fishko Files...
Sara Davis Buechner's website

Tonight a new production of Marc Blitzstein's opera "Regina," first performed in 1949, opens at the Bard Summer Festival...which has Sara Fishko thinking about the different incarnations of its powerful title character. Here is the next Fishko Files...
Bard SummerScape 2005