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As promised, here's the great e-mail from 'Alabama Sam' that came in for tonight's rock meets classics show ( which incidentally is going well and proving to be very busy so excuse any sloppy typing as I am doing this with 59 seconds left on the song that's playing!).

Here's my list for Wednesday's "classical crossovers" show. Jamie doesn't know much about classical music, so I was on my own on this one. I think someone's an ELP fan ... or at least a prog-rock fan.
ELP, "Hoedown" (Aaron Copland)
ELP, "Fanfare for the Common Man" (Copland again)
ELP, "Nutrocker" (Tchaikovsky)
ELP, "Pictures at an Exhibition" (Moussorgsky)
ELP, "Touch and Go" (the opening trumpet part is from Ralph Vaughn Williams' "Variations on 'Greensleeves', but wasn't originally credited)
PDQ Bach, "The Unbegun Symphony" (a sheer laugh riot or sheer torture for classical music fans, the fourth movement plays the "1812 Overture" and "You Are My Sunshine" simultaneously; it's not rock, but it's a scream)
Procol Harum, "A Whiter Shade of Pale" (the organ descant in the verses is supposedly a Bach chorale)
Sugarloaf, "Bach Doors Man" (riffs on "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor", segues into "Chest Fever")
Walter Murphy, "A Fifth of Beethoven"
Apocalyptica, "Enter Sandman" (again, dubious, but Metallica played on four 18th-century cellos is worth one listen at least, and is somehow disturbing)
Emerson, Lake, and Powell, "Mars, the Bringer of War" (Holst)
Rick Wakeman, Journey to the Centre of the Earth -- the segment where he plays "Hall of the Mountain King" (Grieg)
Tom Lehrer, "The Elements" (Gilbert & Sullivan, but y'all played this during the "Periodic Table" theme)
Falco, "Rock Me Amadeus"
Taco, "Puttin' On the Ritz" (Gershwin)
Rick Wakeman, "Rhapsody in Blue" (Gershwin)
ELP (again?!), "Toccata" or "Creole Dance" (Ginastera)
The Nice (at least it's not ELP per se), "Intermezzo from 'The Karelia Suite'" (Sibelius)
Keith Emerson or The Nice, "America" (Sondheim/Bernstein)
Simon & Garfunkel, "Scarborough Fair/Canticle" (traditional)
Anything from Vision: The Music of Hildegarde von Bingen (the vocals are 12th-century, the music is contemporary)
Anything from Wendy (remember when (s)he was "Walter"?) Carlos' Switched-On Bach -- after all, (s)he's a pioneer of updating classical music!
In addition, there are several "symphonic" collaborations where orchestras play the music of groups such as Yes and Led Zeppelin ... do those count? What about Elton John's Live in Australia disc, where he played with the Melbourne (?) Symphony Orchestra? I seem to remember Bruce Hornsby doing a piano arrangement of Barber's "Adagio for Strings" and some Charles Ives tunes(?), but I could be way off base about that. Hasn't somebody also tackled Philip Glass?

In any case, this one's tough without it becoming an out-and-out ELP-fest or, at the very least, a keyboard-heavy show. I'm sure there are plenty of other artists who have "recycled" classical music (we don't dare call it "plagiarism") or collaborated with classical musicians, but I'm having a hard time coming up with them. Then you get into the gray area of "pseudo-classical" stuff involving some of the "heavy hitters" of prog-rock and jazz fusion like Patrick Moraz, Chick Corea, Kansas, Isao Tomita, and Herbie Hancock. There seems to be a prerequisite level of instrumental virtuosity required that many of today's musicians just can't seem to get a handle on, so I'll be most interested to see what kinds of gems other GIO listeners dig up! Got any Scarlatti treatments lying around?
"Snob mode" OFF,

Sam Fleming.