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Coming Up on 'WMHT Live!' (Sundays at 6 p.m.)

6.23: Albany Symphony Orchestra: Concert 8. Conductor and Music Director David Alan Miller hosts this rebroadcast of the concert from May 18, 2013. It features violin soloist Aisslinn Nosky in Vivaldi's Four Seasons, plus music of Stravinsky and Adams. Recorded at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in Troy, New York.

6.30: Renaissance Musical Arts presentation from January 27, 2013. Recital by violinist Anna Lee with music by Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Pablo de Sarasate. Recorded at the Massry Center for the Performing Arts at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York.

Coming Up on 'No Ticket Required' (Fridays at 1 p.m.)

6.21: Mendelssohn: Trio #2 in C Minor, Op.66. Smuel Ashkenasi, violin; Yehuda Hanani, cello; James Tocco, piano. Recorded at the Doctorow Center for the Performing Arts in Hunter, New York. (Catskill High Peaks Festival)

6.28: Elgar: Serenade for Strings in E minor, Op.20. ECCO: East Coast Chamber Orchestra. Recorded at the Otesaga Resort Hotel in Cooperstown, New York. (Cooperstown Summer Music Festival)

Sir Edward Elgar (1857 – 1934) Welcome to 'Composer’s Classroom,' an on-air/online/in-classroom partnership between WMHT-FM and the Mohonasen Central School District! You can hear Bill Winans on this month's composer just after the 7 a.m. news on Friday mornings on WMHT-FM.

WMHT's 'Composer of the Month' for June is Sir Edward Elgar (1857 – 1934), an English composer whose best-known compositions are orchestral works including the 'Enigma Variations,' the 'Pomp and Circumstance Marches,' concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies.

He began composing at age ten, although until he was about fifteen, Elgar received a general education with little musical training. He once said, 'My first music I learned in the Cathedral.' He spent countless hours in libraries absorbing everything he could from books on music, including keyboard instruction books and books on music theory.

He left school at 15 and went briefly to work as a clerk in a law office. This post lasted only a few months as he continued his voracious reading in music and literature. He made his first public appearances around this time. He was an active member of the Worcester Glee Club, along with his father, and he accompanied singers, played the violin, composed and arranged works, and conducted for the first time.

At twenty-two he took up the post of conductor of a band in Worcester, writing and arranging short works such as polkas and quadrilles. This practical experience proved to be of the greatest value to the young musician. He acquired a practical knowledge of the capabilities of the different instruments of the orchestra.

He made his first trips abroad in his mid-20s to Paris where as he put it, he became 'heavily dosed with the music of Schumann, Brahms, Wagner and St. Saens.'

When Elgar was twenty-nine, he took on a new pupil, Caroline Alice Roberts. She was eight years his senior. Her parents were horrified at her having taken up with a musician and when they married three years later, she was disinherited. Never the less, she went on to become his business manager and social secretary, saying, 'The care of a genius is enough of a life work for any woman.'

For more on Elgar, click on the links below. Check back June 21 for more about our Composer of the Month.

• Learn more about Elgar on wikipedia.org

• Visit jsbach.org

*Teachers: For related composer and classical music resources visit PBS Learning Media.*

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