Last year Robert Ward was the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors. He was presented the award by current UNCSA Chancellor John Mauceri. Robert Ward himself was the Chancellor of the then North Carolina School of the Arts from 1967 until 1975. He stopped by WFDD last week to talk with TAW host David Ford. Here's Part 2 of their conversation.

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Austro-Hungarian composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold is best known today as one of the founders of film music. In 1938 The Adventures of Robin Hood was the first movie in which the composer, Korngold, and not the studio music department head, was awarded the Oscar. But when Korngold fled the Nazi regime and remained in the U.S., he brought with him a wealth of first-hand experiences having absorbed the European musical traditions of composers like Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, as well as the great staged play genre popular in Europe from the 18th century to around 1925. From that tradition comes the first fully integrated production of Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare with music by Korngold since the music was outlawed by the Nazis in 1933. Korngold champion, and University of NC School of the Arts Chancellor John Mauceri will conduct the American premiere performed by members of UNCSA’s Schools of Drama and Music March 29-April 7, with evening performances at 8:00pm and weekend matinees at 2:00pm in the Agnes de Mille Theatre on the UNCSA campus in Winston-Salem. Last week John spoke with TAW host David Ford by phone from New York.

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