Incredibly, That Crank Mr Cogito Lets Loose With Another So-called Editorial On The Sad State Of The Current Classical WETA-FM In The Nation's Capital

"If the new Classical WETA-FM were properly connected to American classical music as well as to Mr Jim Allison’s favorite European classical music — and additionally connected to the diverse audiences of Greater Washington which WETA [Washington Educational Television Association] once professed to serve — then it would, in my opinion, find a way to program, now, from these 8 NAXOS CDs conducted by the outstanding American classical music conductor — and Washington, D.C. native — John McLaughlin Williams. Could my membership contribution for this year be dedicated to purchasing some of these 8 NAXOS CDs of American classical music conducted by this outstanding younger American classical conductor?

American Classical Artist John McLaughlin Williams Conducting American Classical Music


AMERICAN CLASSICS SAMPLER 8.559118
CARPENTER: Adventures in a Perambulator / Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 8.559065
EXPLORE AMERICA 8.559187
FLAGELLO: Piano Concerto No. 1 / Dante’s Farewell / Concerto Sinfonico 8.559296
HADLEY: Symphony No. 4 / The Ocean / The Culprit Fay 8.559064
MCKAY: From a Moonlit Ceremony / Harbor Narrative 8.559052
MCKAY: Violin Concerto / Sinfonietta No. 4 / Song Over the Great Plains 8.559225
STORY OF AMERICAN CLASSICAL MUSIC (THE) 8.558164-65

PROBABLY OVER 500 MINUTES OF WONDERFUL, LITTLE KNOWN, PROFESSIONALLY PRE-SCREENED, RECORDED, PRODUCED, AND INTERNATIONALLY DISTRIBUTED AMERICAN CLASSICAL MUSIC, AS CHAMPIONED BY AN AMERICAN CLASSICAL MUSICIAN WHO SHOULD BE A “WETA HOME-TOWN HERO”!!!

Those non-WGMS refugees here may also remember Mr Williams championing American classical music on a former WETA-FM classical music show, “Performance Today;” a show which highlighted American classical music, as well as European, and some Asian, classical music.

And because the new, culturally unconnected Classical WETA-FM Lite, in the Nation’s Capital, does not offer broadcast exposure to outstanding emerging American classical artists such as John McLaughlin Williams, Mr Williams will not receive the guest conducting invitations - (or, the horror; the horror!) — the permanent guest conductor or permanent music director positions with a major American orchestra such as the National Symphony Orchestra. It is one thing to be a woman conductor of privileged background in America; another to be an ambitious American classical musician of African-American ancestry from the Nation’s Capital. Look what professional, prize, and monetary awards Ms Marin Alsop’s recordings of European AND American classical music on the NAXOS label led to!!

Here is a link to Ms Marin Alsop conducting both European and American classical music on the inexpensive NAXOS label:

European and American Classical Music

And here is a link in case the next Music Director at Classical WETA-FM wants to celebrate Cherry Blossom time by programming from the riches of NAXOS’S inexpensive catalogue of outstanding and sensitive Japanese Classical Music:

Japanese Classical Music

And who says that it would be impossible to curate Classical WETA-FM, in the Nation’s Capital, as thoughtfully as the classical art and music curating at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian American Art Museums, the Smithsonian Freer-Sackler Galleries, and the National Gallery of Art’s European and American Classical Galleries?"

Source: Classical WETA-FM The Blog For Classical Music Lovers March 28, 2007














Cherry Blossoms on the Tidal Basin in Washington, D. C.

Photo credit: The Official Web Site of the National Cherry Blossom Festival via the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., United States. With thanks.