Hampson And Other Help America Sing

We’ve got a couple of classical music stars to catch up on today, the first of whom is Thomas Hampson, or The Hampster as he is known here at Spotlight.

This homegrown star’s 90-minute PBS “Great Performances” special, “Thomas Hampson: I Hear America Singing,” airs on KSPS-7 at 8 p.m. Wednesday.

This is a massive undertaking for Hampson; indeed, it will be released as a home video soon after its airing. It’s a tribute to the American concert song, featuring music from Stephen Foster all the way up to Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein.

Hampson is joined by many of his fellow superstars in the vocal music world, including Marilyn Horne, Dawn Upshaw, Frederica Von Stade, Harolyn Blackwell and Jerry Hadley. In addition, there will be a number of star instrumentalists, including the Jay Ungar Trio, best known for “Ashokan Farewell,” the haunting theme to Ken Burns’ “The Civil War.”

Concert footage from New York’s Town Hall is interspersed with on-location footage from historic American places, including Walden Pond and Concord, Mass., and from the homes of Walt Whitman in New Jersey, Emily Dickinson in Massachusetts and Stephen Foster in Kentucky. (Check out the Web site at www.wnet.org.)

This show is just one of many big events for Hampson coming up in the first half of 1997. He sings the role of Ricardo in “I Puritani” at the Metropolitan Opera beginning Jan. 13; he sings Britten’s “War Requiem” with the New York Philharmonic Feb. 5-8; he sings the title role in Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” in Vienna later this spring; and he receives the National Arts Club’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Music and Education on Jan. 27.

This is all routine stuff for our favorite baritone from Spokane.

The Stephen Drury update

The second classical-music-star-from-Spokane is Stephen Drury, the pianist who is now based in Boston.

Drury is known for championing new music and for dressing like a rock star in leather pants (think of him as Keith Richards in a recital hall). Drury will appear at Carnegie Hall in New York next week, premiering a new concerto written for him by avant-garde composer John Zorn. The performance will be recorded and released by Avant.

Drury is coming off a triumphant performance of Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G with the Boston Philharmonic last year. Drury’s performance topped the Best of the Year wrap-up by Boston Phoenix music critic Lloyd Schwartz, who said that Drury “leaves you gasping.”

Mel Torme cancels out

Here’s some news that we were afraid might be on the way: Mel Torme has been forced to cancel his Spokane Symphony SuperPops performance at the Opera House on April 5.

Torme suffered a stroke in August and has since developed other complications, including pneumonia.

Replacing Torme, same date and same time, will be jazz clarinetist Pete Fountain. Fountain is a French Quarter institution in New Orleans.

If you have tickets to the Torme show, you don’t have to do anything: You can use your tickets for the Fountain show. Those who would prefer a refund or an exchange should call the symphony at 624-1200.

Top classical concerts of ‘96

Last week, Spotlight’s stable of reviewers picked the top pop concerts of the year in ‘96 (Bette Midler, Neil Young, Patti Smith).

Today, we turn to classical music authority Travis Rivers for his pick of the top classical concerts of the year.

His No. 1 pick is the Spokane Symphony and Chorale’s phenomenal performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony last May. Rivers called it a “summation of the orchestra’s past 50 years.” No wonder the symphony’s special-release CD of this performance is already sold out.

Right behind that was Zephyr’s performance of William Walton and Edith Sitwell’s “Facade,” which Rivers said “shows what great fun and great art there is in 20th century classical music.” Congratulations to Kendall Feeney, the force behind Zephyr.

Children’s Museum keeps going

A reminder: The Children’s Museum of Spokane will remain open at its storefront location at Post Street and Spokane Falls Boulevard until Jan. 31.

The museum was originally scheduled to close this temporary location at year’s end, but is staying open because of high demand.

Fund-raising is now under way for a permanent home.

Last-minute Greco/Roman rush

The lines were snaking far out the doors at the Cheney Cowles Museum during the final week of the “Treasures of Antiquity: Greek and Roman Art from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.” It closed on Tuesday after a three-month run.

Over 4,000 people visited the exhibit in its last five days. The final attendance figure is about 35,400, making it easily the most-visited exhibit in the history of the museum. The Dutch Masters exhibit several years ago didn’t quite reach 30,000.

“Treasures” never threatened to break 100,000, a number that museum officials bandied about, perhaps unrealistically, in a giddy moment right before the opening. But even 35,400 is quite a feat, considering it equals more than half of the museum’s normal attendance for the whole year.

Larry Schoonover, the project director, called the exhibit an “unqualified success.”

The ‘Dante’s Peak’ premiere

We have a few new tidbits of information about that “Dante’s Peak” premiere in North Idaho.

The tentative plan is to hold a champagne gala in Wallace, probably the week of the movie’s opening on Feb. 7, followed by a screening of the movie at the Arena Theatre in Kellogg. That will be an invitation-only affair, but continuous screenings for the public will continue the next day at the theater.

These plans are not yet firm, so keep an eye out for more details.

What’s Julia up to?

Spokane’s Julia Sweeney is taking a well-deserved rest at an Arizona spa after the closing of her one-woman Broadway show “God Said, ‘Ha!”’ As of now, she has no plans to move the show off-Broadway or to take it on the road. Instead, her most immediate project is to edit the film version, which was executive-produced by Quentin Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction”).

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: To leave a message on Jim Kershner’s voice-mail, call 459-5493. Or send e-mail to jimk@spokesman.com, or regular mail to Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210.