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Press Releases
‘The Architects of Music,' YouTube Classical Music Series, Marks 50th Episode with June 26 Feature on Charles Villiers Stanford’s Irish Rhapsody No. 4
Credit: Victor Juhasz
American conductor-composer Lawrence Rapchak hosts
free-to-view videos illuminating classical compositions
through narration and piano demonstrations,
recordings, animations, and original
and archival images
Produced in Chicago by Boston’s New Media Productions
and funded by major foundations, the ad-free programs
blend biography and history with musical analysis
Editors: For a private link to preview the entire Stanford episode, please email nat [at] njscompany [dot] com
CHICAGO, May 29, 2026 — ‘The Architects of Music,” a Chicago-based classical music series on YouTube, will release its 50th episode on June 26, 2026, featuring late-Romantic Anglo-Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford and his Irish Rhapsody No. 4.
“The Architects of Music,” which has garnered more than 45,000 subscribers, is found at https://www.youtube.com/@thearchitectsofmusic.
Highly regarded Chicago-area conductor and composer Lawrence Rapchak, who for 28 seasons served as preconcert speaker for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, writes and hosts the series.
His presentations blend history and biography with musical analysis and a passionate advocacy for composers and pieces he champions.
“I’m not exaggerating,” Rapchak says in the introduction to the 50th episode. “The Stanford 4th Irish Rhapsody is one of the most beautiful late-Romantic works in the entire repertoire, and that’s in addition to its fascinating historical and cultural aspects.”
Rapchak waxes rhapsodic about composers and works he feels are underrated, such as Alexander Glazunov, subject of the episode “Faith in Time of War (“Cortège Solennel”).”
“Glazunov,” he says, is “another great Russian composer of the late 19th century . . . entirely overshadowed by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff . . . whose music continues to be ignored at an alarming rate.” His music, Rapchak says, exudes “a sense of warmth, lyrical beauty, and best of all, an animation, a spirit that’s engaging and delightful.”
Throughout the series, Rapchak delves into familiar as well as unjustly neglected classical masterworks, aided by animation, original and historic images, and audio excerpts. He also explains and demonstrates musical passages at the piano while viewers can follow the written score on screen.
The show’s YouTube description says Rapchak “takes you inside the minds of the world’s greatest composers to reveal the techniques and devices these geniuses used to construct their masterpieces.”
Of his role on “The Architects of Music,” Rapchak says, “In a way, I feel that I am now doing what I do best, sharing my love for extraordinary music with an international audience and illuminating what makes this music, and its creators, so thrilling.”
The series, which launched in 2022, is entirely free to view, with no user registration or membership required. Support for the ad-free channel comes from the Negaunee Foundation, the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, and other donors.
Episode topics
All episodes are archived and grouped thematically on the series’ YouTube hub.
“The Magnificent Nine” explores the complete symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven through 19 video installments The episodes are substantial. The video devoted solely to the fourth movement finale of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 runs one hour and 15 minutes. Vivid video clips of nature and moving images of the cosmos and dramatic mountain landscapes amplify the choral symphony’s final themes.
The newest category, “Double the Fun,” offers such episodes as “Tchaikovsky and the ‘Mozart Effect’” and “The Bad Boys of Music — Stravinsky & Antheil.”
John von Rhein, the Chicago Tribune’s longtime classical music critic, now retired, recently lauded “The Bad Boys of Music” in an email to Rapchak.
“Great insights, script, scholarship, visuals, soundtrack, technical realization — and great fun. Inspired idea to do a side-by-side chronicle of their careers,” von Rhein wrote. “Can’t wait for the next episodes of Architects of Music.”
“The Masterworks” collection covers music by Berlioz, Brahms, Vincent D’Indy, Dvorák, the aforementioned Glazunov, Mahler, Mozart, Franz Schmidt, Schumann, Shostakovich, Richard Strauss, and Sergei Taneyev.
“Fascinatin’ Harmony” is a set of five short episodes about harmony in Western tonal music.
“The Basics” examines the core components of music, concentrating on the element known variously as form, structure, and architecture.
More about Lawrence Rapchak
Rapchak served as music director and conductor of Chicago Opera Theater from 1994 to 2000 and the Northbrook Symphony Orchestra from 2001 to 2019, in addition to music director of Chamber Opera Chicago and as principal guest conductor of the Northwest Indiana Symphony.
The Northwest Indiana native and lifelong resident of the area holds a bachelor’s degree in composition from the Cleveland Institute of Music.
His orchestral composition “Saetas” was commissioned and premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Neeme Järvi and was subsequently performed by the Helsinki Philharmonic and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Other works by Rapchak have been performed by the Detroit Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, and Omaha Symphony, as well as the National Orchestral Association.
Rapchak’s critically acclaimed chamber opera, “The Lifework of Juan Diaz,” described by the Chicago Reader as “a work of startling originality,” was premiered by Chamber Opera Chicago under his baton. It was later recorded and commercially released by Albany Records.
He also created major educational programs for the Ravinia Festival and the Northwest Indiana Symphony.
Production team
“The Architects of Music” was the brainchild of veteran classical radio executive Steve Robinson, who envisioned the series as the video extension of “Exploring Music,” the widely aired, internationally syndicated classical radio show he created while serving as general manager of Chicago’s WFMT and the WFMT Radio Network. “Exploring Music,” now in its 22nd season, remains a mainstay of classical stations in America and beyond.
Robinson left WFMT in 2016 to launch his Boston-based company, New Media Productions, where he is executive producer of “The Architects of Music.”
In addition to Rapchak and Robinson, “The Architects of Music” principal production team includes Reino Art’s Yoshua Orozco, director and principal camera, and Joel S. Fenner of Fenner Laboratories, visuals and post-production.
Anna Ouspenskaya and her team at Virtual Concert Halls, a Virginia-based multimedia company, created illustrative video material for many of the episodes, including the entire Beethoven symphonies series.
Award-winning American illustrator Victor Juhasz created the banner artwork for “The Architects of Music,” a caricature of 13 famous composers huddled over construction blueprints. His humorous caricatures and illustrations have been commissioned by major magazines, newspapers, advertising agencies and book publishers in the U.S. and abroad.
# # #
Press contact:
Nat Silverman
Nathan J. Silverman Co. PR
Office tel: 847-868-1417
Email: nat [at] njscompany [dot] com
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