Another public radio station has announced it’s dropping classical music in favor of news — a common enough occurrence that maybe I should just write a boilerplate post about the phenomenon and change the links, cities and call letters where appropriate.
This time it’s WUFT in Gainesville, Fla., which makes the switch Aug. 3. Like WGCU in Fort Myers, Fla., which dumped classical last year, WUFT will move the music to a 24/7 stream available to listeners with digital radios.
Venerable classical broadcaster Norman Pellegrini passed away early this morning in Chicago. He was 79 years old.
Pellegrini started at Chicago’s legacy station WFMT at its founding in 1951, and served as the station’s Program Director for an amazing 43 years. He was responsible for the station’s eclectic mix of classical music by day, plus comedy and folk music on The Midnight Special. Norm hated the loud advertising and ubiquitous jingles on most commercial classical stations, and he is revered for sticking to his principles and keeping the advertising on WFMT quiet and dignified.
Chloe Veltman is a blogger on ArtsJournal.com and at VoiceBox – The Radio Show, but she’s also a new classical radio announcer on KALW in San Francisco. She agreed to be a guinea pig on this blog and reveal her innermost fears and joys at this new experience.
You care about music, right? Well, you’ll care about this. And thus I justify a somewhat off-topic post, but this is too cool not to write about.
Archaeologists have dug up a 35,000-year-old flute that is believed to be the oldest musical instrument yet found. Unearthed in a cave in Germany, the five-holed flute was made from the radius bone of a griffon vulture.