Claudio Desderi Interview with Bruce Duffie . . . . . . . . .

Baritone / Conductor Claudio Desderi

A Conversation with Bruce Duffie

See my interviews with Gianna Rolandi, Richard Stilwell, Felicity Lott, Faith Esham, Bernard Haitink and Sir Peter Hall

Claudio Desderi (April 9, 1943 in Alessandria - June 30, 2018 in Florence), known for his buffo roles, was the son of Italian composer Ettore Desderi, and came to fame after his 1969 debut at the Edinburgh Festival in Rossini’s “Il Signor Bruschino.” From there he became a fixture at Salzburg, Glyndebourne, and Pesaro in Mozart and Rossini roles.

At La Scala, Milan, he sang in “La Cenerentola” and “l’Italiana in Algeri,” conducted by Claudio Abbado and directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. He would also perform Mozart’s Da Ponte trilogy conducted by Riccardo Muti and directed by G. Strehler.

After retiring from his singing career, he would become the artistic director of the Teatro Verdi from 1991 to 1998 and the Teatro Regio from 1999 to 2001. He would also become the superintendent of the Teatro Massimo from 2002 to 2003. He was also a formidable teacher.

== Names which are links in this box and below refer to my interviews elsewhere on my website. BD

Claudio Desderi appeared with Lyric Opera of Chicago in eight seasons (see full list in the box at the bottom of this webpage), and in December of 1991 he graciously took time from his busy schedule of performances and masterclasses to sit down with me for a conversation.

Portions of the chat were aired on WNIB, Classical 97, and now (2025) I am pleased to present the entire interview . . . . .

Bruce Duffie:   Tell me the secret of singing Mozart.

Claudio Desderi:   There’s not really a secret for singing Mozart. The first thing is that you should love this music. There’s an enormous connection between text and music.

BD:   Moreso than Rossini or Bellini or Donizetti?

Desderi:   It is the much more than Rossini, Bellini or Donizetti.   Sometimes Rossini is nonsense music and text. He uses the vowels and the syllables as sounds. For example, in the famous ensemble ‘Questo è un nodo avviluppato’ from Cenerentola, the words are cut short and sung staccato. [Quietly sings the phrases] It’s a famous piece, and everybody sings those syllables. The text is nonsense, but the sounds of those syllables give the sense of the music, and is strictly in connection with the instruments. [Notice that Desderi sings two different roles in the two videos shown below. Also, see my interviews with Kathleen Kuhlmann, Laurence Dale, Donato Renzetti, John Cox, Frederica von Stade, Francisco Araiza, Paolo Montarsolo, and Paul Plishka.]

BD:   Could you almost sing that ensemble using just vowels and no consonants?

Desderi:   Yes, and you could choose which one you want. The words don’t change anything to the resonance. However, in Mozart, that never happens. The music and the text are just one thing together. One of the secrets that you asked me for is that you really need to understand it at the deepest level. It’s not only the first lines of text. There’s the underlying meaning. There’s a double-sense and a triple-sense, and that’s very interesting. That’s the reason it is so difficult for the singers, for the director, and for the conductor to understand. We can probably never completely understand Così Fan Tutte and Don Giovanni. The Marriage of Figaro is easier because the story is so concrete. The characters are so very well focused from the very beginning. Figaro is Figaro, the Count is the Count, and Cherubino is Cherubino. It’s absolutely clean.

BD:   Are the characters in Figaro more real?

Desderi:   They are more real than the characters of Così and Giovanni. Così is an absolute philosophical piece. You can try to find a kind of philosopher person, an enormous gigantic character, but you can approach Fiordiligi or Ferrando in many different ways. It depends on your point of view. Giovanni is a mystery, and really is an esoteric piece.

BD:   In some of these Mozart operas, you have a choice of singing a couple of roles.

Desderi:   Ah, maybe even three! [Both laugh]

BD:   How do you decide which one you will undertake? [Vis-à-vis the video shown at left, see my interviews with Daniele Dessì, and Delores Ziegler.]

Desderi:   Sometimes a conductor has invited me to sing one or another, and sometimes the theater invites you, or the record company or the television may ask you to do one. It depends. For example, I sang Figaro a lot in The Marriage of Figaro. I don’t know if, at my age of 48, it’s still good for me to sing Figaro. We should really be conscious about that. The same way, I can’t imagine a person of twenty-five or thirty singing Alfonso because he’s a mature character. He’s like an old philosopher.

BD:   Can’t makeup do the trick?

Desderi:   Well, no, I don’t think about the physical things. I just think about the character. You can feel young at forty-eight or fifty, but the Figaro is a young person, and a tenor at fifty cannot sing Ferrando with the same strength, innocence and aggressiveness like a young singer of twenty-five or thirty. Today, especially, it’s very important because the theater needs credibility.

BD:   You need to look more the same, and feel the more the same?

Desderi:   Yes, much closer to the character. The young Fiordiligi is difficult to portray at fifty. She is eighteen. When we decide to choose a role, we should also think about that, not simply about the music, or the voice, or our preferences.

BD:   Talking about Così, who should end up with whom at the end?

Desderi:   [Laughs] There’s no answer, but I can say what I prefer. I think Così is an example of an unhappy ending.

BD:   [Surprised] Unhappy???

Desderi:   Unhappy, yes.

BD:   Why?

Desderi:   Because nobody is happy! Certainly, during the music the audience wants Ferrando and Fiordiligi together, and they are set with Dorabella and Guglielmo together, but the reality is Fiordiligi is with Guglielmo, and Dorabella is with Ferrando.

BD:   What happens in the ‘third act’? [Both laugh]

Desderi:   For me, they come back as the original couples at the end, but they are unhappy. It’s not only because of that, but they are unhappy because they finally understand that life is difficult. It’s not simple as in the beginning of the opera.
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BD:   They have grown up?

Desderi:   They have grown up, but they grow up painfully. In the end they say that everybody should be conscious. It’s important to accept what life is giving you. Don’t ask for more. When the girls ask to forget everything and start again, the men agree, but they don’t want another test. That’s very incredible and very important. When you speak about the ‘third act’, there are not just two, but many possibilities. One is the normal one, where they spend a bourgeois life with the old couple. They stay friends with each other, but not as before because it’s impossible to go back. Or, perhaps one or two years later, they break up again, and they change spouses.

BD:   They switch around?

Desderi:   They switch around. That’s another possibility. Certainly, when I say they are unhappy, nobody is happy. Not just the two couples, but certainly not Despina nor Alfonso because he discovered his theory is absolutely right.

BD:   Is he not happy that he’s right? [Vis-à-vis the recording shown at right, see my interviews with Carol Vaness, John Aler, and Dale Duesing.]

Desderi:   No. Alfonso is only being a cynical person. That’s all. He’s happy because he’s sadistic, but I don’t think he’s so rude, or has such a dark point of view. He asked the young people to trust him. They are too optimistic. Life is not like that. If they want to be happy, how much can they be happy in the human life? They should understand that life is difficult, and that is the life. In the end, they realize that is the life, but that doesn’t make him happy just having a confirmation that the theory is right. It is sad that Alfonso is so wise because in the past of his life, probably he received the same experience as the young boys.

BD:   He was disappointed in love?

Desderi:   He was disappointed in love. He says to follow him and listen to him. He knows that the life isn’t that, because he was like them. In the famous drinking scene, Guglielmo doesn’t sing the beautiful line. He’s the only one in the end who sings differently. Probably Guglielmo is the future Alfonso, because he is the first to understand the reality. In that ‘third act’, there’s another young boy with a new Guglielmo, and probably before the beginning of the opera, Alfonso was the Guglielmo.

BD:   So it goes on, again and again.

Desderi:   That’s right.

BD:   Is this what you want the audience to take away from this opera?

Desderi:   Yes, I think so. It also depends on the production. I did many, many different productions in different ways. The last was with Trevor Nunn in Glyndebourne. It was completely optimistic with a wonderful happy ending. It was difficult to accept that, but we did. But with a knowledge of Mozart’s life, and Lorenzo da Ponte’s conception, this opera is really cynical. It’s a tragic-comic opera. It’s a lesson of life. It’s really a concrete programmatic lesson of life. Don’t dream that this concrete life is where women are like that. It’s obviously a generalization.

BD:   [Gently protesting] You say the Figaro characters are more real, but you’re painting the characters in Così as being very real!

Desderi:   In Così, the characters are symbols.

BD:   They stand for other people? Do they stand for everybody?
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Desderi:   Yes. You can call her Fiordiligi, but you could call her Amelia, or Andrea, or Giulia, but in Figaro, Figaro is Figaro. It’s a real story. Così is an example of life as symbols. Giovanni is another thing, but Così is fantastic. I will do Così here in 1993.

BD:   As Alfonso?

Desderi:   As Alfonso, of course.

BD:   Ah, good! [Both laugh] We look forward to that.

Desderi:   Me too! I love this opera. [Vis-à-vis the video shown at left, see my interview with Sylvain Cambreling.]

BD:   Good, I’m glad. In general, do you enjoy singing Mozart?

Desderi:   Very much. It’s the best music for me. If I were to choose something, it would obviously be Mozart. There’s a nice little story which says when in Paradise, and the angels want to glorify God, they sing Bach. But when they want to sing for themselves, they sing Mozart! [Both laugh]

* * * * *

BD:   Coming around to comic operas of Rossini or Donizetti, how do you keep them from becoming slapstick?

Desderi:   I don’t understand the word ‘slapstick’.

BD:   Like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. How do you keep it on a reasonable level without going too far, or making it too silly?

Desderi:   [Smiles] Oh, it’s really simple. When you play a comic opera, you should trust this opera, and play a normal thing. Your examples of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin are wonderful, great comic artists because they don’t play comic. They play simple. If the situation is comic, and if you play normally, that becomes comic. If the situation is comic and you play for being comic, that changes it and it becomes a gag. It’s a farce. If an old lady falls down in the street, the first reaction is to laugh. Then you start to be worried, and you try to help her. But the first reaction is funny because the situation is funny. But she’s played the truth. She didn’t play to fall down. She just fell down. Buster Keaton is so funny because he never smiles. He never laughs. He works at something that happens, but in reality the situation is comic. You don’t make the situation comic. That’s the difference. If you are on stage for The Barber of Seville or L’Elisir d’Amore, or Don Pasquale, or any comic opera, if you choose the way to play it as really comic and full of gags, you lose the real comic ideas and the lightness of the piece. It becomes heavy as a farce. That’s another way to do it. It’s like La Commedia dell’Arte, which is too much for me. It’s not using different faces. The difference between Ben Turpin and Charlie Chaplin in the movies is that Chaplin is all so simple. [In the 1909 film Mr. Flip, Turpin receives what is believed to have been the first pie-in-the-face. He later joined the Mack Sennett studio, where his aptitude for crude slapstick suited the Sennett style perfectly.]

BD:   A more slapstick style would be the Keystone Cops [produced by Sennett]. [In the photo below, actors shown left to right are Keaton, Chaplin, Turpin, and the Keystone Cops.]

Desderi:   Yes, that’s the truth! To do it correctly, just analyze the situation, and play the situation. If that is comic and if you trust in your character, you play as your character should in this situation. Because the situation is comic, the opera is comic. Avoid every exaggeration and every gag. Just act it!

BD: When you’re singing in Italian for an English-speaking audience, do you exaggerate a little bit?
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Desderi:   No, never. We trust the audience.

BD:   Is it easier now with the supertitles?

Desderi:   In a way it’s easy, but in another way it’s worse. It’s easy because a lot of people understand much more. But especially in a comedy, the risk is to lose too many times what actually happens on stage.

BD:   The gestures?

Desderi:   No, no, no. In the comic operas, the events run very quickly. Sometimes, when the audience is looking at the surtitles, something different happens on stage, and the audience loses the moment. Obviously, if you sing Wagner with the surtitles, you have the time to read everything. You just follow the music because the characters stand for twenty minutes. But in the comedies it’s different. The acting is so quick, and the change of the situation is so quick, the risk becomes when you follow the surtitles you can lose thirty per cent of the opera. I know it’s optimistic, but my suggestion is that the theater should prepare the audience with meetings or conferences [such as pre-opera lectures!], and give everybody the libretto. People should study the story to understand what happens. [Sighs] That’s optimistic, I understand, but I don’t think it’s necessary to exaggerate the diction of the Italian language or the movements for the English audience. They need to receive the real thing.

BD:   You do a lot of comic roles. Do you also do some serious roles?

Desderi:   Well, I did in English Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s The Rakes Progress. That’s very serious. I sang Filippo in Don Carlos, and Marcello in La bohème. I did Colline the last time, but I think Marcello is much better. I also sang Iago in Otello fifteen years ago.

BD:   How evil is Iago?

Desderi:   [Laughs] Iago is the only normal person in Otello. Otello is too much, and Desdemona is stupid.

BD:   Is she stupid or just too trusting?

Desderi:   It’s just trouble when a girl is too trusting because she’s too stupid! [Both laugh] She cannot insist about the handkerchief for twenty minutes without understanding the first reaction of Otello that there’s something wrong. It’s better for her to wait for another moment. It’s too much. But I think Iago is the only real person. He’s a devil. He’s a real person but it’s not The Devil. He’s a man, and he wants the power. In that society, he was the right-hand to the general manager. He understands a wonderful job is coming, so he tries to take this job in order to take over as general manager.

BD:   He tries to discredit his boss?

Desderi:   Discredit his boss, that’s right! It’s normal. That happens every single day.

BD:   [With mock horror] Are you saying that opera is real???

Desderi:   [Smiles] Every opera is real. I have always thought that. For opera to survive for a long time, people today need reality on stage, and movies, and all fiction of great imagination. Certainly Parsifal is not life. It’s not reality, but Parsifal is a great fiction. We should be believable on stage, otherwise we risk being old-fashioned, and that will transform the opera into a museum, and we can’t do that.

BD:   Then how much of opera is art and how much is diversion?

Desderi:   Opera is music, and social history, and theater, so that means it’s art. We are in the moment when there is much risk. In Italian we say Siamo sul filo del rasoio.

BD:   [Translating] We are on the razor’s edge.

Desderi:   Yes, exactly what you said. We are risking to fall on one side or the other side. One side is art, and the other side is entertainment.

BD:   So you’re trying to walk along the razor’s edge without falling to one side or the other?

Desderi:   Yes, and that’s very risky. In my opinion, we are a little too close to the entertainment side, and we avoid the art side of the opera. We pay too much attention to the entertainment, but the basis of the opera is arts — music, theater, art. Sure, it’s entertainment for the audience. We should make the people happy, but without a doubt, our first duty is to make music and theater, and be artists. There is much entertainment on television, as with movies. Ask anybody today, and they will say that politics is entertainment. [Both laugh] Trials are entertainment. Business sometimes is entertainment. We are entertainment, but now we are asked to be more entertainment than something else, and that is wrong to me. We should keep the sense and the responsibility. We are not movies. We are not the NFL [National Football League] or the NBA [National Basketball Association]. Opera is not sports. It’s something that is entertainment, but basically it’s art. It’s music, it’s culture, and sometimes we risk paying too much attention to make the audience grateful for us. I don’t think it’s good.

* * * * *

BD:   Do you change the way you sing for a large house and small house?

Desderi:   Obviously that’s another important thing to understand — how you can or should use your instrument. But after the first two or three days when you are rehearsing, you understand your body, and your voice reacts instantly in that way.

BD:   You’ve sung in large houses, such as the one here in Chicago, and the small ones like Glyndebourne.

Desderi:   You can make a difference between Glyndebourne and Chicago, but the acoustic in Chicago is beautiful. It’s wonderful, and you don’t need to push too much because the voice carries very well here. Glyndebourne is less good as an acoustic than Chicago. It’s small, and you should be able to adapt. That is not a very big problem. For example, the Berlin Philharmonie for me sounds very bad. It’s perfect for making records for singers, but it is not very good for the concerts. That’s my opinion, but normally I feel comfortable everywhere.
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BD:   Do you sing the same for a microphone as you do on the stage?

Desderi:   No! [Both laugh] No, a microphone is completely different. You can do a lot of little things that you cannot do on stage. But if you want to make a pianissimo, then you can’t immediately sing fortissimo because of the microphone. If you have a hundred possibilities in the theater, with a microphone you can use only fifty or sixty. It’s a machine that thinks of you in your place. They can use everything. I don’t trust records. We cannot do everything we want.

BD:   Despite all that, are you pleased with the recordings you have made?

Desderi:   We are never happy. I’m never so happy with my records. I want to repeat every time, because if I listen today to a record from two or three years ago, sometimes you feel it’s not bad, but today certainly I want to do it a bit different, thank goodness.

BD:   Sure, then you grow!

Desderi:   Yes. [At this point, he mentioned a few of his recordings, both audio and video, including Figaro, Così, Cenerentola, and The Barber of Seville, many of which are shown on this webpage.] Last summer I did Il Signor Bruschino by Rossini for Deutsche Grammophon with Kathleen Battle, Samuel Ramey and Claudio Abbado. It was a very good team. [Also see my interviews with Jennifer Larmore.] I also did a modern work by an Italian composer named Sylvano Bussotti, the Rara Requiem [shown above-right]. A few years ago I made a record of Schubert’s Winterreise. It was live from a concert so you can trust it. [Both laugh.] [Recording shown below-left also includes three encores of other Schubert songs!] I have many videos, including Don Giovanni from La Scala with Riccardo Muti.

BD:   You’ve done some modern operas. Without naming names, are there some modern composers who know how to write for the voice?

Desderi:   That’s difficult to say because the singers always worry about that. I’m not so precious. I think the composer should use the voice as they use the instruments, and it is our duty to try to use our instrument as a function of this music, using our voices.

BD:   [With a gentle nudge] You want to be a bassoon or a trombone???

Desderi:   [Laughs] We can. They can use the right range to pursue it. [Sighs] But it’s impossible to ask the composer to use our voices in the same way as Bellini, or Donizetti, or Verdi, or Puccini. They use another way for the instruments. We are instruments. We are musicians using the voice in the same way as another musician uses the bassoon, or the violin, or the piano. There’s no difference.

BD:   It doesn’t hurt the voice?

Desderi:   It depends on you, and how you can use this voice. It depends on us. We should use our instrument without disturbing our instrument, without a break in the instrument, but we need secret study! [Both laugh] Sometimes we are lazy in that way. We don’t want to study too much. It’s an excuse.

BD:   Do you have any advice for composers?

Desderi:   I think they don’t use the voice too much because they don’t trust us enough, especially in Europe... maybe not so in America. Still, in Europe they talk about the musicians, but the singers are another thing. I would like really for the composer to think of musicians and singers as only one thing, and trust us much more. That would be enough. I sang a lot of Berio, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Bartók, Penderecki, Lutosławski, Xenakis, and Kagel... I like them all very much, and I remember many of those pieces. Bussotti is another great composer in Italy.

BD:   So you have sung quite a range!

Desderi:   I sang many, many, many, especially until 1980 or 1981. Then there was less and less, because the composers do not give to us too many wonderful suggestions, and because my career was so busy that I had not too much time. I personally was much more interested when I was younger, but I still think if something very interesting came along, I’d be very happy to do it. It’s no problem.

* * * * *

BD:   Now you’re involved in the Opera School here, and also in Italy.

Desderi:   Every time I come here, I do some masterclasses for the Lyric Opera Center. It’s very intelligent and I like that.

BD:   Are you pleased with the talent you see coming along?

Desderi:   Absolutely! I did two already this year, and I‘m doing another one tomorrow. In Italy, I am responsible for three years of modern interpretation in a wonderful school, La Scuola di Musica di Fiesole, and from that I founded a company of singers and orchestra and a chorus. Now this company is completely solid. We chose thirty-six singers, and in three years they sang ninety or ninety-five performances, staged with orchestra in different theaters in Italy, and also in England. We are invited to London and Versailles to perform Così Fan Tutte and Don Giovanni.
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BD:   What kinds of advice do you have for the young singers coming along?

Desderi:   [Sighs] The most important thing is not to learn only the arias, but sing the whole score. Many times when they do auditions, someone is very good in the arias, but when they start the rehearsal, they are very bad in the rest of the opera. Today it is impossible to accept that, because there is no time anymore. A few years ago, it was possible for a conductor to spend a lot of time with singers to teach them. Now when you arrive at the theater, you should know the role from the first note to the end. You should be ready to go on stage from the second day, because time is money, unfortunately.

BD:   They just come to rehearse the interpretation?

Desderi:   Just for interpretation, and to put it all together. That’s all. Chicago is an isle of serenity in that way because we have a minimum of three or four weeks. But even with that, you should be ready from the very beginning, because the level is the top here. When the young people meet with the artists on the first day when there is the music rehearsal, they should be ready.

BD:   So, be prepared!

Desderi:   Be prepared! Study like crazy! Don’t think that the voice is ninety per cent of your duty. It’s only fifty per cent. You need a lot more other things, such as musicality, interpretation, a capacity to stay in the theater, acting, cleverness, and good attitude with colleagues. They also need to be able to talk to regular people. Don’t think they trust you and will stay with you only because you are a singer, and because you received a wonderful gift from God of your voice. It’s not that. Yes, you have a wonderful gift from God, but then you must use that wisely. Spend your life normally. Have a family, play sports, live your life. Don’t think your voice is all you have. Use your voice, but simply be happy with it.

BD:   [Since I contributed interviews to the Massenet Newsletter...] Have you done some roles of Massenet?

Desderi:   I sang only Albert in Werther. I remember sometimes I would forget my role because I was following Kraus who was singing Werther. It was so good. [Both laugh] It was difficult for me keep my concentration in my role.

BD:   In general, is singing fun?

Desderi:   It’s marvelous. It’s marvelous fun. I still think I will be singing for a while longer. I love very much playing music, but I don’t want to sing when the people feel yesterday was better. I hope to arrive at that moment when some friends, or myself, understand that it’s time to stop. I don’t want to have a decline at the end of my career. I hope to find the right moment to say it’s time to stop singing, without leaving music. I can’t live without it.

BD:   Then you’ll do some more teaching?

Desderi:   Some teaching, but now I am conducting, too. I am music director of a theater in Italy. I started conducting four years ago, and I’ll grow that more and more. [Recordings of two Rossini operas conducted by Desderi are shown below.] Last summer I sang Così at Glyndebourne, and immediately after I conducted another eight performances of the same production with their touring company. It was very good, and very exciting. Next year I will conduct Cenerentola and Rigoletto.

BD:   Are you more sympathetic to the singers because you understand their needs?

Desderi:   I understand perfectly what they need, and that’s very important. I started my music career as a violinist, and then conducting, and suddenly I decided to be a singer because singing was easy, and the career came very easily.

BD:   Thank you for coming back to Chicago!

Desderi:   I will come back again in 1993, and I will be very happy. I hope we have another occasion to speak together.

Claudio Desderi at Lyric Opera of Chicago

1977 Barber of Seville (Bartolo) - with Stilwell, Ewing, Alva, Montarsolo, Hynes, Andreolli; Bellugi, Gobbi, Peter J. Hall

1983 Cenerentola (Don Magnifico) - with Baltsa, Blake, Nolen, Harman-Gulick, Sharon Graham, Crafts; Ferro, Ponnelle

1988-89 Don Giovanni (Leporello) - with Ramey, Vaness, Mattila, Winbergh, McLaughlin, Cowan, Macurdy; Bychkov, Ponnelle

1989-90 Barber of Seville (Bartolo) - with Allen, von Stade, Lopardo, Ghiuselev, Lawrence; Pinzauti, Copley, Conklin

1991-92 L'elisir d'amore (Dulcamara) - with Gasdia, Hadley, Corbelli, Futral; Pappano, Chazalettes, Santicchi

1993-94 Così fan tutte (Don Alfonso) - with Vaness/Magee, Ziegler, Rolandi, Lewis, Black; Davis, Sir Peter Hall

1994-95 Barber of Seville (Bartolo) - with Allen/Braun, von Stade/Mentzer, Blake, Ghiaurov/Halfvarson; Rizzi/Behr, Copley, Conklin

1996-97 Un Re in Ascolto [Berio] (Friday) - with Lafont, Harries, Rambaldi, Devlin, Begley, Woods, Langton; Davies, Vick, Dyer

This conversation was recorded in Chicago on December 19, 1991. Portions were broadcast on WNIB in 1993. This transcription was made in 2025, and posted on this website at that time. My thanks to British soprano Una Barry for her help in preparing this website presentation.

To see a full list (with links) of interviews which have been transcribed and posted on this website, click here. To read my thoughts on editing these interviews for print, as well as a few other interesting observations, click here.

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Award - winning broadcaster Bruce Duffie was with WNIB, Classical 97 in Chicago from 1975 until its final moment as a classical station in February of 2001. His interviews have also appeared in various magazines and journals since 1980, and he now continues his broadcast series on WNUR-FM, as well as on Contemporary Classical Internet Radio.

You are invited to visit his website for more information about his work, including selected transcripts of other interviews, plus a full list of his guests. He would also like to call your attention to the photos and information about his grandfather, who was a pioneer in the automotive field more than a century ago. You may also send him E-Mail with comments, questions and suggestions.