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Welcome to Intermezzo from Interlochen Public Radio, where we take a few minutes to bounce some ideas around about classical music.
Today 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.
In Michigan, we can watch the ceremony live with coverage starting at 2 p.m. this afternoon on NBC and Peacock. There will be Primetime replays tonight on NBC Sports and the official games will run through February 22nd.
The Winter Olympics will feature 16 different sport disciplines, and we've explored four this week. So far we've looked at the downhill ski, figure skating, cross-country ski and speed skating events.
Today, Christy, Lara and Gabriel talk about slalom skiing and how to say "go for the gold" in Italian!
Slalom skiers have to make extremely quick, short turns through closely spaced red and blue poles on a steep course. Composer Carter Pann tried to capture the thrill of that race in his extremely challenging piece, "Slalom." Here's Paavo Jarvi leading the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in Carter Pann's "Slalom."
Carter Pann - "Slalom"
This week's Mystery Melody
Congratulations to this week's Golden Ears who guessed the Mystery Melody correctly! Listen for the song title revealed at the end of today's podcast episode.
