Hear today's full episode by clicking "Listen" above or find "Intermezzo" from your favorite podcast app.
Welcome to Intermezzo from Interlochen Public Radio, where we take a few minutes to bounce some ideas around about classical music.
This Friday is the start of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo. Christy L'Esperance and her two co-hosts, Lara and Gabriel, talk about the games, Italian culture and classical music associated with some of the sports events.
The Winter Olympics will feature 16 different sport disciplines, and we'll look at 5 of them this week, starting with one that requires snow: alpine skiing!
Olympic alpine skiing is a high-speed sport where athletes race down snow-covered slopes, navigating gates on skis. The goal is the fastest time, and skiers have to follow a specific course where they go around gates with penalties for missing them.
The fastest alpine event is the downhill ski, reaching over 80 miles per hour. There are long, sweeping turns and jumps in the downhill.
In 2023, Australian singer-songwriter and cellist Monique Clare won the Queensland Music Award in the Contemporary Classical category for her song "Downhill Skiing." Let's listen to the song and imagine the aliveness you might get from charging down a slope!
Monique Clare - "Downhill Skiing"
This week's Mystery Melody
It's time to test your ears. Each week we have a mystery melody that we have to figure out together. It relates to our topic. (We'll make the melody less mysterious each day.)
If you know the mystery melody, text your name and the title and we’ll give you a shout out on Friday. The number to text is (833) 490-4718.
