What a year was 1913! In an exhibition in a New York Armory, Cubism and abstraction were revealed to the American public for the first time. In Vienna, audience members at a concert of atonal music by Schoenberg and others broke out into a near-riot. And in Paris, Stravinsky and Nijinsky’s new ballet The Rite of Spring burst on stage with famously inflammatory results.

WNYC’s Sara Fishko marks 100 years since 1913, a landmark year in global culture, through three “shocking” Modernist events:  The exhibition of modern art in New York’s Lexington Avenue Armory; the concert of atonal music in Vienna that sparked a near-riot; and Stravinsky and Nijinsky’s Rite of Spring premiere in Paris that sparked another near-riot!   Culture Shock 1913 looks at the years of change and uncertainty in the early 20th century that led artists, writers, musicians and thinkers to find dramatic new forms of expression. Find out more and hear a preview of the program here.

It’s been a huge year for Chopin, as the bicentenary of the composer’s birthday has been celebrated by artists all over the globe. That includes pianist Garrick Ohlsson, whose Chopin series is drawing to a close as the year ends.

On this 4^th of July weekend coming up, thoughts, as usual, will turn to picnics and patriotism.  With Americana in the air, one particular patriotic song caught the interest of WNYC’s Sara Fishko as it has wended its way through history.  In this edition of The Fishko Files, a story about music, politics and the U.S.A. 

It’s the 75^th anniversary of a celebrated recording by Jascha Heifetz of the Sibelius Violin Concerto. That has WNYC’s Sara Fishko considering the power of the recording and the music ... in this edition of the Fishko Files.