April 3 & 6, 2008

In week 5 of our 24-week Atlanta Symphony broadcast series, ASO principal guest conductor Donald Runnicles talks about being the podium's most notorious southpaw. He also reveals his pet peeve - background music in elevators and at the mall. Donald Runnicles' star, which was already plenty high, continues to rise with appointments to soon head both the BBC Scottish Symphony and the German Opera Berlin.

Taiwanese-American violinist Cho-Liang Lin says it's especially important that a soloist and an orchestra have the same style in mind when they're playing Mozart. And then he and the Atlanta Symphony set out to do just that.

Join us to hear Runnicles, Lin and the ASO in Mozart's Third Violin Concerto. Also on the program, Beethoven's Fourth Symphony. And the concert concludes with Donald Runnicles conducting music by Richard Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks. The piece depicts the satirical misdeeds (and eventual hanging!) of irreverent folk hero Till Eulenspiegel. There's an old German saying, "One sees one’s own faults as little as an owl recognizes his ugliness by looking into a mirror." Till's last name, "Eulenspiegel," means "Owl-Mirror."

The ASO is on GPB Thursday at 8, repeating Sunday night at 10. Sarah Zaslaw hosts.