Do you remember when the major U.S. television networks had their own orchestras? I wasn't alive at the time so, to me -- an inveterate classical music lover -- that bygone era seems like a sort of Camelot, or maybe more like Brigadoon -- the musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe about a mysterious Scottish village that appears for only one day every hundred years. These orchestras live on in our minds (and on Youtube). Indeed, luckily, we still have audio and video recordings of these great orchestras to satisfy our nostalgic palet. Here's some video of Arturo Toscanini leading the NBC Orchestra in Richard Wagner's Lohengrin Prelude to Act III. Note Toscanini's all but silent left hand, and also note the vim with which the orchestra plays. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InPRlxxOpOc They don't make 'em like that anymore.
Jennifer Hambrick unites her extensive backgrounds in the arts and media and her deep roots in Columbus to bring inspiring music to central Ohio as Classical 101’s midday host. Jennifer performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago before earning a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.