Director's Cuts

 Weekend Edition Sunday Audio

As music director of Weekend Edition Sunday, NPR's Ned Wharton supervises music continuity for the show, keeps tabs on what's new and noteworthy in the music world and produces many of the artist features heard on our program.

October 3, 2004

'Ensemble Modern Plays Frank Zappa'
The Frankfurt-based chamber group Ensemble Modern was one of the last orchestral ensembles to work with Frank Zappa during his lifetime when they recorded The Yellow Shark, released in 1993. Now a new set of orchestral favorites has been released by the group: Greggery Peccary & Other Persuasions. Many of the compositions were originally recorded by Zappa's computer music instrument, and the data from those files was used to create transcriptions for orchestra.

Hear Selections from Ensemble Modern:

'Moggio'	'Night School'
'Peaches en Regalia'

'Quadiophiliac'
Frank Zappa was a pioneer in multi-channel sound, and as far back as 1970 he was taping four-channel mixes of his music. His son Dweezil recently discovered a treasure trove of these tapes, and DTS Entertainment has now released Quadiophiliac, a surround sound DVD-Audio disc that presents this music in its full glory.

Hear Selections from Frank Zappa:

'Rollo' (previously unreleased recording and title)	'Chunga Basement' (previously unreleased recording)
'Venusian Time Bandits' (previously unreleased live recording)

From the Archives

Ned Wharton's 1993 Appreciation of Frank Zappa

Web Resources

Zappa.com Web Site
Ensemble Modern Web Site
Find a Copy of 'Quadiophiliac'

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