What Is WETA Classical Listening To This Summer?

Between road trips, vacations, and beating the heat indoors, we find ourselves spending more time listening to our favorite music and exploring new recordings, artists, and compositions. Downtime such as this is a great way to keep growing our passion for music, which ultimately makes its way to our programming! All of us here at WETA Classical are fierce music lovers, and our taste in music spans the full classical spectrum. From on-air hosts to recording engineers, our team shares what we've been listening to and exploring this summer.

Linda Carducci, Host

Maurice Ravel’s piano music -- its refinement, melodic beauty and blend of Classical form with new and delicious harmonies -- never fails to captivate me. The piano was Ravel’s primary instrument and he took full advantage of the instrument’s sonorities through a range of solo pieces, from simple to virtuosic. My first exposure to Ravel’s piano music was in college, when a fellow piano student sensitively performed many of Ravel’s pieces in small studio recitals. These performances left our small audience of students in silent awe. Ravel orchestrated several of his piano pieces, but there’s something about the piano’s sonorities that draw me to the original piano versions. This summer, I’m enjoying Chandos’s recent release of all of Ravel’s piano music, performed by French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, a recording that includes Le Tombeau de Couperin (my personal favorite) and the devilishly difficult and virtuosic Gaspard de la Nuit.

Evan Keely, Host

The Suspicious Cheese Lords (a.k.a. Suscipe Quæso Domine) may sport a humorous moniker, but they are an altogether serious Washington-area choral ensemble specializing in early music, often with a focus on lesser-known composers and works. 

I wasn’t familiar with French composer Jean Mouton (c. 1459 – 1522) before listening to their 2007 album Vivat rex! (produced by Tina Chancey, whom I had the pleasure of interviewing last year), but the Suspicious Cheese Lords’ nuanced, spirited performance does justice to this fine music from the courts of Louis XII and François I. 

Mouton was a teacher of Adrian Willaert (c. 1490 – 1562), a founder of the Venetian School, so we can draw a line from Mouton through Willaert to composers like Cipriano de Rore and Giovanni Gabrieli. 

The Suspicious Cheese Lords will be touring in France this August, but they’ll give a concert just outside Baltimore on December 14.

Matthew Dayton, Host

One of my favorite albums that I’ve been listening to this summer is music by the contemporary American composer Jonathan Leshnoff. It’s the 2019 Naxos CD of Leshnoff’s Guitar Concerto (played by guitarist Jason Vieux), and his Symphony #4 “Heichalos.” I found out about this album from hearing Jason Vieux being interviewed on a podcast several years ago, and re-listening to Leshnoff’s music this summer has reaffirmed my appreciation for his musical aesthetic: it’s thoroughly modern but not at all alienating, even as it invites the listener on a journey to some fairly intimidating landscapes of ideas and emotions. My favorite piece is the guitar concerto, which I think might be the best guitar concerto of the 21st-century so far. Its orchestration makes the guitar shine like lightning, and its musical conversation with the orchestra explores a thrilling myriad of themes and textures which feel so fresh even as they often nod to famous pieces of the traditional guitar repertoire. It’s music that gets my imagination fired up in the same way that a favorite sporting event or epic adventure story can do.

Charles Lawson, Recording Engineer

Besides the NSO material I am editing for upcoming broadcasts (some spectacular stuff in there!), I have been commemorating the recent passing of Danish composer Per Nørgård by listening again to the eight symphonies contained in the Da Capo boxed set. Nørgård said, “...each of my symphonies is a whole continent in itself” and I have to agree.

I have also recently rediscovered the symphonies of Sir Malcolm Arnold which are just pure fun and pleasure from start to finish with some dark turns in there for sure, but the sonorities and textures really light up my brain in a delightful way no matter the underlying “subject matter.”

And to really satisfy and delight the child within, I am revisiting all of my Bernard Herrmann movies scores―marveling again at the amazing breadth of creativity and atmosphere they contain.  In many cases, they are better than the films they were written for!

Zenas Kim-Banther, Assistant Program Director

I've taken up watercoloring as a way to unwind in the evenings this summer, and my go-to music has been John Field's Nocturnes. I first learned about Field's Nocturnes from the Classical Breakdown episode about this genre and immediately fell in love (he is credited to creating this genre so widely associated with Chopin). The 2005 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is my #1 comfort movie, and these nocturnes evoke everything about the film that brings me comfort and joy, perhaps because the Dario Marianelli score so beautifully played by Jean-Yves Thibaudet in the soundtrack is reminiscent of this music to me. Jane Austen and John Field were alive and creating during the late 18th century after all! Without a doubt, my favorite recording is Alice Sara Ott's 2025 album of John Field's complete nocturnes. If you need something to help you relax and whisk you away to golden hour at Pemberly with Mr. Darcy, I suggest you give this album a try.