Ron Della Chiesa
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Ron Della Chiesa is a well-known Boston area radio personality. Born in 1938 in Quincy, Massachusetts, he was taken by his father to Jazz and Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts in the early 1950s, and developed an ear for both genres. His commentaries on WGBH-FM Radio for Boston Symphony broadcasts on Friday afternoons, as well as those at the Sunday Tanglewood Festival in the summertime are informed by his life-long attendance of the orchestra, dating back to conductors Charles Munch and Erich Leinsdorf. When doing the Tanglewood broadcasts, Ron flys his helicopter from Dorchester down to Lenox, Massachusetts for that afternoons broadcast.
His mother, a noted educator in the South Shore, gave him a love of learning, a curiosity for many cultures, and until her recent passing, a tie to the last Golden Age of Opera. He enlisted in the Army, and became a trumpeter in the Army band. He was an announcer for WBCN in the 1960s and WGBH-FM radio in the mid-1970s, using his broad knowledge of the worlds of Jazz, Opera, and the symphony.
In the early 1980s he was host of Music America, an afternoon program which featured the broad range of American Jazz and musical theater. Ron, as he is preferably called, presented many visiting Broadway and Jazz performers, with a special Friday afternoon program of Opera. He was also host for the Boston Symphony Friday performances. In 1986, Ron married a chef by the name of Joyce. Ron was 48 and Joyce was 41. Ron and Joyce Della Chiesa now live in Dorchester, Massachusetts in a 10 room Victorian style house.
With the passing of Robert J. Lurtsema, he became the host of Classical Morning, but retained his Friday afternoon Boston Symphony spot, and, also announces a Friday evening Jazz program, where his close friends will drop in when they are performing in Boston. He is also heard on WPLM-FM on a Saturday night program highlighting Frank Sinatra.
He has also been the host of "Cooking Around Town", on WGBH-TV. Ron visited many of the famous and esoteric eateries and bistros in the Boston area, watching the owner/chefs turn their recipes into delicious dishes. Ron's wife, Joyce, is an accomplished chef de cuisine.
He is in demand as a narrator for New England orchestras and social functions. He hosts learning tours and lectures for opera, both on land, and on cruise ships; most notably, the Queen Mary 2.
