WNYC FM: General Station Excellence

<v Announcer 1>Every day. WNYC brings you about 500 years of music from the music <v Announcer 1>of the Renaissance to the music of our time. <v Announcer 1>All kinds of music. <v Speaker 1>And different kinds are needed. <v Speaker 1>For different occasions. <v Announcer 1>WNYC F.M. 94 New York Public Radio. <v Announcer 2>The mission represented in WNYC is programing is quite simple to provide <v Announcer 2>our audience with programing of the highest quality, which represents the currents of <v Announcer 2>life in our time. The music of today, the best source of news and insight <v Announcer 2>into today's events, the directions of life in a constantly changing world of technology <v Announcer 2>and global communications. <v Announcer 2>We believe the most significant aspect of the new music policy has been the innovative <v Announcer 2>integration of 20th century works with traditional classical music in our daily <v Announcer 2>record programs. <v Speaker 1>Chanson by Clement Janequin from a collection of Chanson

<v Speaker 1>by Janequin entitled Le Chanteuse Wasso on Harmonia Mundi. <v Speaker 1>You're listening to Morning Music on WNYC F.M. <v Speaker 1>Ninety four New York Public Radio. <v Speaker 1>I'm Ned Wharton. And in the next hour we'll hear the Chant du Arseno by Stravinsky, <v Speaker 1>the Partita in a Minor for Flute by Johann Sebastian Bach and <v Speaker 1>the String Quartet by John Cage. <v Speaker 1>All coming up this hour on Morning Music. <v Speaker 1>Next, a recording recorded in 1967, <v Speaker 1>music by Stravinsky. <v Speaker 1>We'll listen to the Chant du Arseno performed here by the Columbia Symphony Orchestra <v Speaker 1>under the direction of Robert Kraft. <v Announcer 2>The core of WNYC's new music programming is Tim Page's new, old and unexpected <v Announcer 2>and new sound. The Daily Crossover Music Program with John Schaefer.

<v Announcer 2>In addition to producing new, old and unexpected, host Tim Page writes about music <v Announcer 2>for The New York Times. John Schaefer is the author of New Sounds A Guide to New <v Announcer 2>and Unusual Music From Ethnic to Electronic. <v Speaker 1>There are more students of Leonard Bernstein out there on the street, people <v Speaker 1>who you have touched. And teaching music and the <v Speaker 1>esthetics behind music, I think, than any other teacher in history. <v Speaker 1>Tell us a little bit about your philosophy of using the media to get across <v Speaker 1>musical ideas and beyond that cultural ideas. <v Leonard Bernstein>Wow. <v Leonard Bernstein>I'm flabbergasted at that. Encomium or panegyric <v Leonard Bernstein>or whatever it is, it's it's very hard to answer in kind because <v Leonard Bernstein>if I agreed even fractionally with some of the things you just said, I'd be <v Leonard Bernstein>behaving very boastfully.

<v Leonard Bernstein>I've always been very grateful for the advent of television and <v Leonard Bernstein>radio, for its ability to allow <v Leonard Bernstein>one to transmit very private thoughts, but not only <v Leonard Bernstein>verbally in the actual performance of music. <v Leonard Bernstein>And I I don't consider teaching to be <v Leonard Bernstein>limited in any way to discourse. <v Speaker 1>Let's hear a live performance in our studios of Clapping Music by Steve Reich. <v Speaker 1>This is a 1972 piece, 1934 performed by Steve Reisz and Glen <v Speaker 1>Valez. <v Recording>[Clapping Music performed]. <v Announcer 2>WNYC strives to be a leader of culture rather than followers of fad.

<v Announcer 2>And as such, generates creative activity. <v Announcer 2>Americathon Is a live 8-hour broadcast culminating WNYC's annual <v Announcer 2>American Music Festival. <v Speaker 2>The audience was invited to attend Free of Charge and New York area listeners could also <v Speaker 2>tune in for the live broadcast. <v Speaker 2>This year's event featured 14 American composers who represented a wide <v Speaker 2>variety of American music, including jazz, Broadway, folk, electronic, <v Speaker 2>classical and music that's not easily categorized. <v Recording>[Folk music performed]. <v Announcer 2>The WNYC Concert Unit, a specialized engineering staff used solely on remote

<v Announcer 2>recording sessions at live concerts, records and edits their material in digital form. <v Announcer 2>Adding to the quality of each local, national and international presentation. <v Announcer 2>Among these are Scarlatti Saturday. <v Announcer 2>Semolay, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and remembering Richard <v Announcer 2>Rodgers. <v Recording>[Piano Music Plays]. <v Speaker 2>It is October 26, 1985. <v Speaker 2>And there are lines along Broadway between ninety-fourth and ninety-fifth streets in New <v Speaker 2>York. People are waiting to be admitted to a free concert called Scarlatti Saturday, <v Speaker 2>celebrating the very day on which Domenico Scarlatti was born 300 years earlier. <v Speaker 2>Twenty musicians, 11 harpsichordist and eight pianos and one synthesizer keyboardist <v Speaker 2>gather at the hall. And by the time the event is over, eight hours later, <v Speaker 2>almost 100 sonatas are heard by thousands in the audience and by public radio listeners <v Speaker 2>across the country. This is then the portable Scarlatti Saturday,

<v Speaker 2>a three-hour version of the eight-hour extravaganza held at Symphony Space. <v Speaker 2>This program is made possible in part by funds from Bunko DiNapoli New York Branch <v Speaker 2>Groh Tunneling George and Cecily Fox. <v Speaker 2>Keith Shermer Incorporated Forum Gala in New York. <v Speaker 2>The Frank Strict Foundation District Council 37. <v Speaker 2>And the New York Council for the Humanities. <v Recording>[Piano music plays]. <v Recording>[Opera music plays]. <v Recording>

<v Announcer 2>And there was the applause for the artists out onstage to play for you. <v Announcer 2>The sextet for strings opal 70 of Tchaikovsky, dubbed Souvenir <v Announcer 2>of Florence, the violinists are Salvatore Accardo and James Boswell <v Announcer 2>the oldest Walter Trembler and Steven Tenenbaum, the cellist Lesley Parness <v Announcer 2>and Fred Shourie.

<v Recording>[String music plays]. <v Speaker 3>Rodgers and Hammerstein. Love scene in which actually no one says I love you, <v Speaker 3>the song. If I Loved You is the big hit song. <v Speaker 3>The scene last about 10 minutes from the song sung twice. <v Speaker 3>But the amount of time that that song takes is about two minutes and that ten because <v Speaker 3>Rodgers was more than a songwriter, but he was a composer and he composed a very <v Speaker 3>almost operatic scene for two people who fall in love during the scene. <v Speaker 3>It's extraordinary scene we have tonight to perform it.

<v Speaker 3>John Garrison, whose song all over the world and is leading tenor at the Sydney Opera, <v Speaker 3>and Lauren Wagner, who few years ago won the Met auditions. <v Speaker 3>And this year when the San Fransisco opera auditions. <v Speaker 3>So, Lauren and John, please. <v Lauren Wagner and John Garrison>[Sings If I Love You.] <v Lauren Wagner and John Garrison> <v Announcer 2>Every weeknight, WNYC presents Kids America to many stations around the U.S.

<v Announcer 2>radio that listens to kids. <v Host 1>[Singing] Stump the duke duke duke, stump the duke duke duke, stump the duke duke duke, stump the duke duke duke, <v The Duke>And you know, it is stumping time. <v Host 1>Stump the duke duke duke. <v The Duke>Pick a word I can spell just fine! Pick a hard one and I will fall on my face. <v The Duke>Yes I will. <v Host 1>Now Duke, no. <v The Duke>Yeah. But now. Now, now. <v Host 1>You won't fall on your face. But somebody will win a prize for stumping you. <v The Duke>Well, I might fall on my face. You just won't see me out there in radio land. <v Host 2>Stephanie from Livingston, New Jersey is with us to try to stump the duke. <v Host 2>Hi, Stephanie. <v The Duke>Stephanie! <v Host 1>Hi. What's your word to stump the duke? <v Stephanie>Sanctimonious. <v The Duke>Sanctimonious. And what does it mean? <v Stephanie>Um, making a show of holiness putting on an air of sanctity. <v The Duke>How can you tell the sanctimonious from the truly holy? <v Host 1>Oh, Duke, this isn't the duke of philosophy it's the duke of words! <v The Duke>It's a very good question. Anyway, sanctimonious? <v The Duke>Yes. Putting on airs of being holier than thou perhaps sanctimonious

<v The Duke>s a n c t i m o n <v The Duke>i o u s. <v Stephanie>Right. <v The Duke>Oh, boy! <v Announcer 2>WNYC also presents a variety of radio, drama and literature. <v Announcer 2>Selected Shorts, a production of WNYC is a celebration of short fiction <v Announcer 2>with readings by accomplished actors. <v Speaker 4>Next, we turn to the letters of Groucho Marx. <v Speaker 4>His letters to Warner Brothers and to Gummow Marx. <v Speaker 4>They will be read for us. In a stroke by Symphony Space of Imaginative and Unobvious <v Speaker 4>Casting by the wonderfully comic actress and singer Phyllis Newman, who <v Speaker 4>in an unguarded moment said she'd love to read them. <v Speaker 4>And so we said yes. And here she is, Phyllis Newman. <v Phyllis Newman>Thank you. These are a series of letters that Groucho wrote to <v Phyllis Newman>Warner Brothers when the Marx Brothers were about to make a movie called <v Phyllis Newman>A Night in Casablanca.

<v Phyllis Newman>There were threats of legal action from the Warner Brothers, who five years before had <v Phyllis Newman>made a picture called simply Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman <v Phyllis Newman>as stars, whereupon Groucho, speaking for his brothers and himself, <v Phyllis Newman>immediately dispatched the following letters. <v Phyllis Newman>Dear Warner Brothers, apparently there is more than one <v Phyllis Newman>way of conquering a city and holding it as your own. <v Phyllis Newman>For example, up to the time that we contemplated making this picture, <v Phyllis Newman>I had no idea that the city of Casablanca belonged exclusively <v Phyllis Newman>to Warner Brothers. <v Phyllis Newman>However, it was only a few days after our announcement appeared that we received your <v Phyllis Newman>long, ominous legal document warning us not to use the name <v Phyllis Newman>Casablanca. It seems that in 1471 <v Phyllis Newman>Ferdinand Balboa Warner. <v Phyllis Newman>Your great-great-grandfather while looking for a shortcut

<v Phyllis Newman>to the city of Burbank. <v Phyllis Newman>Had stumbled on the shores of Africa and raising his alpenstock, <v Phyllis Newman>which he later turned in for one hundred shares of the common, <v Phyllis Newman>named Casablanca. <v Phyllis Newman>I just don't understand your attitude. <v Announcer 2>In April of 1986, WNYC celebrated the 80th birthday of Samuel Beckett <v Announcer 2>with discussions on Beckett and a performance of the play for radio. <v Announcer 2>All that fall. <v Speaker 5>Diedre Bair, today is Samuel Beckett's 80th birthday. <v Speaker 5>How is he celebrating it? <v Diedre Bair>He's celebrating it very quietly and probably alone. <v Diedre Bair>Although there are lots of festivals and symposia and various theatrical <v Diedre Bair>occasions planned for him throughout the world, he will probably be at <v Diedre Bair>his Paris apartment spending the day very quietly. <v Diedre Bair>He has never, to my knowledge and to the knowledge of most people who know

<v Diedre Bair>him well, seen an opening night of one of his productions. <v Diedre Bair>He's not the sort of writer who makes a habit of going to literary occasions, <v Diedre Bair>cocktail parties, openings, things of that nature. <v Diedre Bair>He's been invited, of course, to take part as much as he cares to <v Diedre Bair>in the various programs happening in New York, in Paris, in Germany, <v Diedre Bair>in South America. But he won't do this. <v Diedre Bair>He'll probably write, read, take a little <v Diedre Bair>walk, perhaps see a friend, perhaps chat on the phone. <v Diedre Bair>Other than that, he won't make an effort of celebrating the occasion, <v Diedre Bair>as he said to me and to many of his other friends <v Diedre Bair>on various occasions of his birthday. <v Diedre Bair>I wish it would just go away or. <v Diedre Bair>Oh, dear. Is it that time again? Or why does anyone bother? <v Diedre Bair>One thing I do know, he'll probably need help getting the mail upstairs to his apartment <v Diedre Bair>because he'll be deluged with good wishes from many, many

<v Diedre Bair>people throughout the world. <v Announcer 2>New York is a crossroads and a home to many important cultural figures. <v Announcer 2>Nancy Shair is able to make use of our location on her program. <v Nancy Shair>Joel Krosnic as cellist of the Juilliard String Quartet. <v Nancy Shair>You're also the newest member, even though you've been there for a decade. <v Nancy Shair>What is it like coming into a renowned organization as the newest member? <v Joel Krosnic>Scary. <v Joel Krosnic>In a word um. <v Joel Krosnic>I guess probably as a as a young cellist, as a young <v Joel Krosnic>student and then a young professional cellist to be a member of an organization <v Joel Krosnic>that carries boldly its convictions about music and about music-making <v Joel Krosnic>before the public in the way that the Juilliard Quartet has for over 36 years <v Joel Krosnic>has to be a dream. I mean, it certainly was something in the back of my mind, <v Joel Krosnic>in the back of my heart as one of the viable

<v Joel Krosnic>things that one could do with one's life to be a member of an organization like that. <v Recording>[Quartet plays music]. <v Announcer 2>WNYC occasionally devotes entire days to composers, musicians and other <v Announcer 2>artists. One of our most recent celebrations was the 90th birthday of Virgil <v Announcer 2>Thompson. <v Recording>[Instrumental music plays]. <v Virgil Thompson>To anyone brought up there, as I was, Kansas City,

<v Virgil Thompson>always meant the Missouri one. When you needed to speak of the other. <v Virgil Thompson>You use its full title. Kansas City, Kansas. <v Virgil Thompson>And you did not speak much of it either or go there unless you had business. <v Virgil Thompson>Such business was likely to be involve the stockyards or the packing houses <v Virgil Thompson>which lay over the Kansas line and bottomland. <v Virgil Thompson>The Union Depot Hotel, live banking theaters, shopping <v Virgil Thompson>all their vanities were Missouri, so it was open vice. <v Virgil Thompson>One block on State Line Avenue showed on our side nothing but saloons. <v Virgil Thompson>And just as Memphis and Centralis had their blues, we had our Shurlee <v Virgil Thompson>Older Twelfth Street Rag proclaiming a joyous, low <v Virgil Thompson>life. Even as recently as the 1920s, H.L. <v Virgil Thompson>Mencken boasted for us that within a half-mile around Twelfth and <v Virgil Thompson>Main were two thousand second-story hotels. <v Virgil Thompson>We were no less proud of these than of our grand houses, stone churches

<v Virgil Thompson>and slums, our expensive street railways and parks, <v Virgil Thompson>and the political machine whose corruption was for nearly half a century <v Virgil Thompson>an example to the nation.