Radio Waves - NOT

A bit of depressing news from Canada. CBC Radio 2 is puts classical music on the chopping block to carve out room for pop, jazz, and the like.

""It's good for CBC radio to be playing a variety of musical genres," he said, "but this is a radical change. It is moving away from something only the public broadcaster can do to something many private broadcasters already do. And they are shoving classical music into the 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. low audience ghetto"

Read about it (and listener reactions) here.

WNYC Radio's Beethoven Festival

Tomorrow WNYC Radio's big ol' Beethoven love fest gets underway.

Visit their webpage for details and links. It's right here. 

Gabriela Montero

If you're regaulr NPR listener, you might have caught this broadcast already. If you didn't then check it out. Gabriela Montero, a protege of Marta Agerich, has a cd coming out called "Bach and Beyond" which offers up some truly inventive and delicious jazzy improvisations on the classics.

You can hear it here. Her webiste (see above link) has both audio clips and a podcast.

Performance Today Gets A New Home

This really sad in way. I'm glad Minn. Public Radio will take on "Performance Today", the large context is pretty depressing.

"National Public Radio said it will end production and distribution of "Performance Today," the most popular classical music program on the air, and eliminate 11 jobs in its Washington headquarters as a result."

and

"The move is another sign of classical music's diminished role at NPR and its affiliated stations. Many public stations, including WETA-FM (90.9) locally, have dropped daily classical programming, including "Performance Today," in favor of news and talk programs."

Read the rest here.

And more here: "In recent years many US public radio stations have been reducing airtime for classical music or eliminating it from their schedules altogether in favor of news, features and talk programs. This trend has alarmed classical music lovers, but the stations generally report that their listenership increases in the wake of such changes."