Peter Pan Radio Special

During the autumn of 1996, classical stations throughout the United States began airing our production of a half-hour radio progam for children. The show is a retelling of J.M. Barrie's timeless Peter Pan. Created for Delos Records, Peter Pan - Music and Words was a promotional companion piece to the Delos release titled An Awfully Big Adventure - The Best of Peter Pan, 1904-1996. The program was distributed to stations on CD, coupled with a six-minute behind-the-scenes featurette titled The Making of "An Awfully Big Adventure".

Here is a portion of the liner notes provided to stations along with the not-for-sale promotional CD of the program.

In preparation for this CD I began reading the original Barrie book Peter and Wendy for the first time. I quickly found myself being asked by my wife to read passages aloud to her at bedtime. Several times I would stop reading, thinking she’d fallen asleep. A moment or two later I’d inevitably hear her say “More, please. What happens next?” What a gift Mr. Barrie has left us that it can work its magic no matter how many times we’ve heard the story and no matter how “much more than twenty” we may be.

In addition to a brief behind-the-scenes look at the making of An Awfully Big Adventure - The Best of Peter Pan, this CD includes my half-hour long children’s program titled Peter Pan - Music and Words.

I invite to you to share it with your listeners during your children’s programming slot or at any time you wish to treat your audience to a magical land “second to the right, and straight on till morning.”

Using several tracks from An Awfully Big Adventure and a well-crafted re-telling of the of the story by Donald Fraser and Carol Rosenberger, Peter Pan - Music and Words attempts to tell the entire story with equal doses of words and the marvelous music we associate with the tale of the boy who would not grow up. As a model I’ve used Richard Wagner’s concept of music drama, attempting to reinforce Donald Fraser’s motivic approach to his arrangements an orchestrations of the scores. All that aside, it’s intended to be fun!

- Rich Capparela

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