People
Gene Parris, 82
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Gene Parrish, a longtime pubradio broadcaster known for his programs on classical, jazz, opera and choral music, died Jan. 2 [2009] of lung cancer in Harbor City, Calif. . . .
Programs/Content
Casual, serious listeners agree on sounds of music: some you love to hear
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Most listeners to classical music radio decide whether or not to listen based primarily on the sound and the emotional impact of the music, not on technical or musicological aspects of the music.
Programs/Content
Study’s answers are questionable — and the question aims too low
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The Midday Classical Music Testing Project, presented by Public Radio Program Directors at its conference in September [2007], is fundamentally flawed in two ways, casting serious doubt that programmers could draw any useful conclusions from it.
Programs/Content
Media veteran brings wary revolution to a fortress of tradition
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In the 1980s, Peter Gelb produced 25 Metropolitan Opera broadcasts for PBS. Now, as the Met’s general manager, he runs the red-carpeted center of the opera world. The first media guy to run the hallowed New York institution has begun an ambitious but carefully modulated makeover of the Met. He’s putting its operas on more media platforms than ever before but using electronic media to reproduce the gilded in-theater experience. He’s bringing in a new breed of directors for fresh staging but relying largely on the beloved music of the past.Hired two years ago, Gelb was off to a running start in August when he took charge.
People
Grammy academy salutes McPartland for ‘timeless legacy’ of music
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The Recording Academy presented a 2004 Trustees Award to jazz pianist and public radio host Marian McPartland. The award recognizes “music people who have made the greatest impact on our culture,” said Neil Portnow, president of the Academy. “Their outstanding accomplishments and passion for their craft have created a timeless legacy that has positively affected multiple generations and will continue to influence generations to come.” Through her public radio series Piano Jazz, McPartland has introduced generations of listeners to the genre. The series, which received a George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting, celebrates its 25th anniversary this spring.
Programs/Content
Triple-A strikes chord with disenchanted listeners
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One musical voice gaining ground on public radio sounds a little scruffier than the rest. Rather than a viola or sax, it bears a six-string axe and a heavier backbeat than your average chamber ensemble. Triple-A, an eclectic format that blends rock, folk, blues, world music and other genres, has already proven popular and lucrative for stations such as New York’s WFUV, Philadelphia’s WXPN and southern California’s KCRW. But smaller stations in fly-over country, inspired by the format’s major-market success, are also displacing jazz and classical music for newer musical genres that carry themselves like outsiders. As a result, listeners may be tuning in to the sultry lilt of young chanteuse Norah Jones or the twang of O Brother blues rather than Mozart and Gershwin.
People
Marian McPartland: still going full tilt
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When the NPR-distributed program Piano Jazz had its 20th anniversary in 1999, Current Contributing Editor David Stewart wrote this profile of the program and its host. Marian McPartland is the host of the longest-running jazz program in the history of network radio. Her Piano Jazz has also enjoyed the longest run of any entertainment series on NPR. In March 1998, she celebrated her 80th birthday on stage at New York’s Town Hall. Billy Taylor, himself the host of an NPR jazz series, Billy Taylor’s Jazz from the Kennedy Center, kept up the musical action as a parade of Marian’s friends came to perform and wish her well: pianists Tommy Flanagan, Jacky Terrasson and Ray Bryant, bassists Christian McBride and Bill Crow, drummers Joe Morello, Grady Tate and Lewis Nash, and trumpeter Harry (“Sweets”) Edison, among others.
Programs/Content
Jazzcasters try music testing to pick cuts
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The minority of public radio stations that use listener preference data to choose music is becoming a little less minor as music testing spreads to jazz this fall.
Programs/Content
Who public radio broadcasters are: members of a congregation, with our listeners
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This is the view from Martin Goldsmith, then host of NPR’s daily classical music program Performance Today, who served as announcer, producer and program director at Washington’s WETA-FM between 1974 and 1986. From the same thinking that has offered “seamlessness,” “affinity,” “modes” and “appeal-driven programming” as ways of capturing the public radio audience now comes “customer service.” At first glance, this concept seems perfectly reasonable, even admirable. It conjures up images of the radio programmer as shopkeeper, hustling to fill his customers’ orders, keeping them satisfied so that they’ll continue to place their orders at that familiar stand on the dial. With customer satisfaction, so the theory goes, comes customer loyalty …
Programs/Content
Rock ’n roll pilgrimage
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Admired series disappears into copyright limbo
Followup, 2008
The series contained so many musical clips that the producers apparently didn’t want to spend what it would take to extend their broadcast rights. For years, as a result, the series has not been available for broadcast or for purchase on DVD or videocassette. As a result, PBS’s online store began selling videos of Time-Warner’s rock history series not originally made for public TV, The History of Rock ‘N Roll. New York Times critic John O’Connor preferred the BBC/WGBH series. Buying extensive new rights to resume broadcasts of the famed doc series Eyes on the Prizecost hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2006.
Programs/Content
Once you’ve chosen your target audience, ‘modes’ help you choose music for them
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Not all classical music is created equal. Exactly what is meant by this seemingly heretical statement? Simply, that in the ears of listeners, some classical music is appealing and some is not.