Mindy Ratner

Tuesday evening marks the beginning of Hanukkah, which runs for eight nights. Hear some of the music and learn about customs that make the Jewish Festival of Lights meaningful.

As the world pauses Saturday to remember the Holocaust, classical music host Mindy Ratner has gathered a collection of conversations with some of those touched directly by the tragic event. Those conversations form the basis of 'Kaddish: Reflections on the Holocaust in Music and Words.'

Join hosts Mindy Ratner and Bill Morelock for a one-hour celebration of Chanukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights. There's plenty of music from both the Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jewish communities, plus an exploration of well-loved holiday traditions.

Steve Barnett's arrangement of 'Ocho Candelikas' sizzles on the program, 'Candles Burning Brightly.' But harpist Sunita Staneslow performs a version that's just as lively. Enjoy this performance as bonus content to the Hanukkah special, 'Candles Burning Brightly.'

Mindy Ratner, classical music host and host of the Chanukah special 'Candles Burning Brightly', shares a story about a menorah that's close to her heart.

As bonus material for 'Candles Burning Brightly,' enjoy actor Theo Bikel's enchanting reading of the Howard Schwartz story, 'The Lost Menorah.'

Join hosts Mindy Ratner and Bill Morelock for a one-hour celebration of Chanukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights. There's plenty of music from Jewish communities around the world, plus an exploration of holiday traditions, and a special story reading by the incomparable Theodore Bikel.

Mindy Ratner, classical music host and host of the Chanukah special 'Candles Burning Brightly', shares a story about a menorah that's close to her heart.

Though just 22, the pianist Lang Lang has already established himself an international cross-over classical music artist. He talks with host Mindy Ratner about growing up in China and how the American cartoon "Tom and Jerry" gave him an appreciation for classical music.

What if Mozart didn't die of that last illness at 35? What if he followed his librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, to New York? Would Mozart have written the first American Opera? A new opera presented by The College of St. Catherine plays out these "what if?" scenarios. Classical music host Mindy Ratner interviews composer Albert Biales and librettist Brian Fogarty.

Created to honor the 100th anniversary of the first Nobel Prizes, Minnesota native Steve Heitzeg's ambitious "Nobel Symphony" was originally commissioned by Gustavus Adolphus College in 2001. This year, he partnered with VocalEssence choir and the Minneapolis Colledge of Art and design to create an interactive multimedia performance of the piece. MPR's Mindy Ratner discusses the creative process with Heitzeg.

The world's largest gathering of viola professionals, students, and enthusiasts was held at the University of Minnesota, June 9-13, 2004. MPR's Mindy Ratner interviewed many in attendance.

The Guthrie Theater closes its season with Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance." MPR classical music host Mindy Ratner sat down with Joe Dowling, artistic director for the theater and the operetta's director to find out why Gilbert and Sullivan's works last.

The Guthrie Theater closes its season with Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance." MPR classical music host Mindy Ratner sat down with Joe Dowling, artistic director for the theater and the operetta's director to find out why Gilbert and Sullivan's works last.

Minnesota Public Radio listeners get a double treat on Sunday February 22 at 6 pm: the first performance of a warmly received new opera—with a Minnesota singer in the title role. The singer is boy soprano Nathaniel Irvin of Maple Grove, and the opera is a new setting of the beloved fantasy The Little Prince by Antoine de St.-Exupéry.

Back in his days as an early-music specialist, musician/scholar Oleg Timofeyev never dreamed of performing Russian music. Then he discovered Georgian-born composer Matvei Pavlov-Azancheev, who created a body of work for the Russian seven-string guitar while languishing in a Soviet labor camp during the Stalin years. Minnesota Public Radio’s Mindy Ratner spoke with Timofeyev about composer Pavlov-Azancheev, and the unique instrument for which he wrote.

He's one of the icons of modern-day Classical Music, a musician who's done the late-show circuit, first playing on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1958 when he was just 13, won enough Grammy's to fill a wall-sized case and an individual performer in the mold of the great violinists who came before him. Itzhak Perlman was born in 1945 in Tel Aviv, and since then has played with all the major orchestras of the world, giving thousands of concerts with orchestras or with a piano accompanist, solo on stage. Mr. Perlman was in the Twin Cities on October 21, 2003 to play a recital at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, the opening concert of the Schubert Club's International Artist Series. Accompanied by pianist Rohan da Silva, he played a program of Bach, Beethoven and Poulenc.

Mindy Ratner hosts a special hour of music for Chanukah reflection.

From the decimation of Nanjing, China, through the destruction of Nagasaki, Japan, to the rending of Korea at the 38th parallel, the people of Asia have experienced the horrors of war throughout much of the 20th century. To help humanity come to terms with it all, Young Nam Kim, artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota, commissioned four composers—three of Asian ancestry—to each create a work of remembrance and reconciliation. Their works were presented in Hun Qiao: Bridge of Souls, a concert that pays homage to the victims and survivors of war atrocities and to their descendants.

The spring of 1933 brought the first of many insidious measures levied against the Jews of Germany, long before the so-called "Final Solution." The systematic institutionalization of anti-Semitism included the boycott of Jewish businesses, the confiscation of property, the prohibition of marriages between Jews and Aryans and, from the earliest days, the expulsion of Jewish musicians, actors and artists from the nation's orchestras, opera companies and theaters. The little-known story of Jüdische Kulturbund is brought to light in "The Inextinguishable Symphony" (John Wiley & Sons, 2000) by Martin Goldsmith, for years a respected music host and commentator on National Public Radio.