Programming: Q2 2012

Please note: Schedule subject to change.

APRIL 6 The Great VoiceBox Choral Music Showcase: Bay Area Choral Director founder Helene Whitson explores some of the best choral music CD releases of the past year.

APRIL 13 Swinging the Latin American Songbook: Venezuelan vocalist Jimmy Kansau takes listeners on a journey through the music of early to mid 20th century Latin America and the Caribbean.

APRIL 20 Zen and the Art of Singing: Chorus director and surfing enthusiast Bob Geary demonstrates that there’s more to the relationship between surfing and singing than Beach Boys songs in praise of surf culture. (Rerun; program first aired on November 25, 2011.)

APRIL 27 Renaissance Man: Stanford music professor Jesse Rodin discusses the luminous polyphonic style of the great Renaissance composer Josquin des Prez and what it means to truly “know” a piece of Renaissance vocal music.

MAY 4 The Real Glee: College a cappella experts Charlie Forkish, Bill Hare, Deke Sharon, Mickey Rapkin and Will Tarpeh exchange thoughts on the current state of the booming college a cappella scene.

MAY 11 Turntable Fable: Peter Varshavsky of Porto Franco Records and Avi Ehrlich of Springman Records present a candid view of the highs and lows of running a record label for singers.

MAY 18 Medieval Madonnas: Susan Hellauer, a member of the world-renowned a cappella vocal ensemble Anonymous 4, explores the rift between chant as an art form and chant as a spiritual practice. (Rerun; program first aired on December 16, 2011.)

MAY 25 Drinking/Songs: Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, VoiceBox, the Fill A Steins men’s a cappella ensemble and beer cicerone Sayre Piotrkowski present an interactive exploration of the ancient global connection between singing and beer. Recorded before a live audience at 50 Mason Social House in San Francisco on May 16.

JUNE 1 Barbra & Meryl: Actresses Barbra Streisand and Meryl Streep are the main focus of a discussion about great actors who also happen to be great singers with Chad Jones, theatre critic and performing arts blogger, and vocalist Ann Hampton Callaway. Program generously underwritten by The San Francisco Symphony.

JUNE 8 Killing me Softly: The thought of singing in public scares even the most self-assured people out of their wits. Psychiatrist Jerome Oremland, vocal coach Mark Bosnian, Beth Pinney, worship leader at Laguna Presbyterian Church in Laguna Beach, CA, and journalist Michelle Holmes, explore why so many of us are afraid to sing as well as innovative techniques for helping people to overcome their hang-ups and belt out a tune with confidence. Program generously underwritten by Meyer Sound.

JUNE 15 Team Players: Jazz vocalist Ellen Robinson and instrumentalists Sam Bevan and Kristen Strom riff on the subtle yet powerful art of communication that takes place between great singers and the great instrumentalists that surround them. (Rerun; program first aired on November 18, 2011)

JUNE 22 The Fachs of Life: Fach, a method for classifying a classically trained singer’s vocal “type,” can be both a blessing and a curse to a singer’s career. The San Francisco Opera Center’s Sheri Greenawald discusses the workings of fach and how it can change over the course of a vocalist’s lifetime. 

JUNE 29 Under the Knife: Laryngologist Mark Courey and voice pathologist Sarah Schneider explain what happens when professional singers undergo voice surgery from the operating theater to the all-important rehab process. Program generously underwritten by The American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA).