Pianist Christopher O Riley the host of From the Top and Taylor Allderdice High School grad has a new 2cd cd set with cellist Matt Haimovitz, Troika. It features Dimitri Shostakovich Waltz No 2 in a new arrangement they wrote, the Sonata in d minor op. 40 and the Prokofiev Sonata in C op. 119 with a new arrangement of his Troika. With the Rachmaninoff Sonata in g minor is the Vocalise, Viktor Tsoi's Kakushka, Lennon and McCartney's Back in the USSR and Punk Prayer-Virgin Mary, Put Putin Away by the Russian dissident rock band Pussy Riot. There's a discussion of what the cover art represents.  Chris remembers highlights from his Pittsburgh years working with Fred Rogers and Jim Cunningham attempts to draw from Matt details of his New York past and get Chris  to remember shop class and homeroom but the conversation reaches an end just at the bell. 

Chris Fennimore the host of QED Cooks on Saturday mornings for WQED13 has a new hard bound cookbook out, Simple Pleasures:Memories of Real Food. He discusses the book and the memories and the photography that go with it with Jim Cunningham. There are 80 recipes published by St. Lynn’s Press. Chris also talks about his career in public broadcasting working with Bill Moyers and others at WNET where he worked before joining WQED as Program Director.

WQED-FM's Anna Singer chats with cast members of Resonance Works' Amahl and the Night Visitors.  

Mckeesport born pianist Byron Janis has a new cd out with a recital recorded in Leningrad in 1960 without his knowledge. Byron remembers the cold war tension that surrounded his visit and working with Aaron Copland to prepare the Sonata he played  in Russia. Byron, now almost 90, remembers his Pittsburgh connections, playing the Pittsburgh Symphony in 1964 in the middle east, Colfax School in Squirrel Hill, the Syria Mosque with Lorin Maazel and Vladimir Horowitz and much more.

Former Pittsburgh Opera Music Director John Mauceri has a new book out Maestros and Their Music the Art and Alchemy of Conducting. He mentions Pittsburgh Opera several times in the book with his experiences there including a memory of a director who told him how the glass harmonica should go in the mad scene of Lucia di Lammermoor. John recalls his teen age visit to Birgit Nilsson’s dressing room where she was watching Truth or Consequences, the meeting of Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein in Salzburg, his flight on the Concorde with Paul McCartney, conducting for lady Diana and Prince Charles and much more.

Christmas in East Liberty brings together the East Liberty Presbyterian choir with the Director of Music at the church organist Dr. Edward Alan Moore and the Brass Roots for holiday favorites Friday December 15 at 7:30. Jim Cunningham narrates the Anthony DiLorenzo ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. Brass Roots trumpet and co-founder David Gardner joins Abby Langhorst percussionist with the ensemble and Ed Moore.   

Violinist Andrew Fouts reveals the plan for the Jubilant Season the concerts to be given by Chatham baroque December 15,16,17 in Millvale, Shadyside and at Chatham University with special guest artists.