ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 6, 1996 TAG: 9601100008
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-10 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: BOB THOMAS ASSOCIATED PRESS
Classical music videos? That's what can be seen when the Arts and Entertainment Network presents ``The 39th Pablo Casals Festival'' from Puerto Rico on Saturday night at 10.
Surprisingly, the festival, which is held each June in San Juan and presents world-class musicians as well as little-known virtuosos, had never been broadcast until last year. That was when Hollywood producers Gary H. Grossman and Robb Weller sold the organizers on presenting the event on TV.
A&E readily came on board, such the show fits perfectly into its programming mix.
The talent this year ranges from the 79-year-old Yehudi Menuhin, who conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, to the 12-year-old piano prodigy Helen Huang. Also included are pianist Jose Ramos Santana (a former Casals student), the German String Trio, violinist Christiane Edinger, and opera singers Edda Moser, Bent Norup and Joergen Klint.
The festival honors the memory of the great cellist Pablo Casals (1876-1973), whose mother was Puerto Rican and who adopted the island as his homeland.
Born in Catalonia, Spain, Casals studied violin as a child, switching to the cello at the age of 12. By the time he was 21, he was hailed internationally as an innovative master of the cello. He began conducting in 1908.
Strongly opposed to fascism, Casals exiled himself from Spain after Francisco Franco came to power. He became a citizen of the world, spreading the cause of freedom and of music as he traveled. After visiting his mother's birthplace, he decided to settle there. In 1956, he introduced the first Pablo Casals Festival.
``A couple of years ago, my partner Robb Weller and I went to Puerto Rico to meet on the possibility of some television shows,'' Grossman said. ``One of the things we explored was the Pablo Casals Festival.
``We met with the management, and I said, `Do I know the festival from television or just because it's Pablo Casals?' They said, `It's never been televised.' We do a lot of work with A&E, and we suggested talking to them about telecasting highlights of the festival, which goes on for three weeks.
``The festival people were thrilled. A&E was delighted, figuring that there was probably too little classical music on television these days.
``But we didn't want to do a show that was just `Live From Lincoln Center.' We are certainly in a different age from the Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts that I grew up with. And A&E is certainly a different network from PBS.''
The producers came up with a formula of doing straight musical portions and combining it with documentary elements, such as explaining the legacy of Casals. They also suggested taking the viewer out of the concert hall and envisioning the music that was played. Out of that came the classical music videos.
``We have one in which we tell the story of Wagner's `The Flying Dutchman,''' Grossman said. ``Another was an abstract piece, Prokofiev's Violin Concerto 1, which we thought would be very impressionistic.''
Grossman's own interest in music began when he listened to Bernstein as a kid in upstate New York. He laments the decline of classical music on television, except for PBS and cultural channels like A&E.
``I've got three children - an 8-year-old, a 4-year-old and a 1-year-old,'' he said. ``The two older children are very aware of music, and they don't have the music choices available to them through television. Even with a satellite dish and 200 channels, they don't have the choices I had when I had three channels as a kid growing up.''
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Saturday night at 10, A&E will air ``The 39th Pabloby CNBCasals Festival'' in honor of the cellist.