BBC to feature UW-Whitewater music professor, George Ferencz
Released: October 27, 2003
George Ferencz, music professor at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, will be featured on an upcoming British Broadcasting Corp. radio production spotlighting American composer-orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett. The BBC broadcast airs Oct. 28 at
7:30 a.m.
When asked how he felt when BBC radio producer, David Batchelor, contacted him to do the interview, "A pleasant surprise, Ferencz said. “I think Bennett to be a musician worthy of more attention than he's gotten, and I appreciate the BBC taking an interest in him and seeking me out to speak with."
Ferencz began researching Bennett in the late 1980s and is internationally recognized as the leading authority on Bennett's career. He cataloged Bennett's work in a 1990 bio-bibliography and edited his autobiography. Ferencz regularly assists musicians and researchers seeking information about the composer and those wishing to study or perform Bennett's many unpublished compositions and arrangements.
Bennett completed more than 200 compositions in his career. He worked on 300 plus Broadway shows and was the leading orchestrator of "Golden Age" Broadway musicals. Bennett worked on productions by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and Frederick Loewe.
Excerpts from Bennett's compositions and Broadway arrangements will be aired during the interview. The broadcast will also be available on the BBC web site: bbc.co.uk/radio4.
- Alenia Heisz,heiszam21@uww.edu
