I and a few KUSC listeners compiled this essential list for the cab of the thinking truck driver’s 18-wheeler.
10. Gioachino Rossini’s William Tell Overpass
9. George Frideric Handel’s Semi-ram-us
8. Ferde Grofe’s On the Trail
7. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Procession of the Nobles
6. Roy Harris’ Folksong Symphony (the only Great Composer who was a trucker)
5. Alan Hovhaness’ Mysterious Mountain (for routes over Donner Pass, Rabbit Ears Pass, and Sherman Summit)
4. Sergei Prokofiev’s Peterbilt and the Wolf
3. Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man
2. Edvard Grieg’s Haul of the Mountain King
1. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Trucks May Safely Graze
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Dennis Bartel
Dennis Bartel began his broadcast career in his native Los Angeles as morning host at KUSC. He moved on at twenty-seven, and an interim of twenty-seven years followed, during which he worked on-air in Pittsburgh, served as a newspaper editor also in the Steel City, was founding program director for a Baltimore classical station, and spun CDs in D.C., where he was morning host, and assumed the opera host role from Paul Hume upon the legendary music critic’s retirement. Back in L.A., Dennis is again morning host at KUSC, Monday-Friday, 6-9 a.m., Saturday, 7-8 a.m., and Sunday, 1-4 p.m., and loving the cyclical nature of life.
Dennis is also an accomplished writer, having published hundreds of articles, stories and essays with Harper’s, Time-Life, Doubleday, and many others, on a rainbow of subjects ranging from Israel to Parisian cemeteries; a pagan farm to maple syrup farming; and Sikh ashrams to contract killers for which he won a press club award for investigative journalism. His new novel is High’d Up. He’s published an award-winning book of short stories, and written extensively on music - as a national columnist and for several major U.S. orchestras.
