Bill McGlaughlin at the microphone |
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| Genre | Classical music education |
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| Running time | 60 minutes, daily |
| Country | USA |
| Home station | WFMT |
| Syndicates | 40+ NPR stations |
| Hosts | Bill McGlaughlin |
| Creators | Steve Robinson Bill McGlaughlin |
| Writers | Bill McGlaughlin |
| Producers | Noel Morris (emeritus) Jesse McQuarters Cydne Gillard |
| Exec. producers | Steve Robinson |
| Recording studio | WQXR New York City |
| Air dates | since 2003 |
| Opening theme | Exploring Music by Bill McGlaughlin[1] |
| Website | www.exploringmusic.org |
Exploring Music is an internationally syndicated radio program featuring classical music, with commentary and analysis by host Bill McGlaughlin. It is a daily, one-hour show with a single in-depth theme each week. The show, which debuted in 2003, is produced by WFMT Radio Network. Exploring Music is in many ways the heir to the late Karl Haas' popular long-running show, Adventures in Good Music, expanded and updated for a 21st-century audience.[2][3]
As of 2008, Exploring Music airs on over 40 radio stations[4] and has well over 500,000 listeners,[5][6] and is also listenable online.[7] In Australia, Exploring Music airs on 4MBS, at 7 PM.
Contents |
Exploring Music delves into a wide variety of topics in classical music, and each five-program (one week) series has a single theme. Weekly themes have included weeklong studies of the music of dozens of composers, explorations of various cultures, styles, forms, and time periods, and dozens of other topics and areas of exploration.
A very small sampling of weekly topics includes such themes as:[8]
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Over two dozen classical composers — running the gamut from Schumann to Bartok, Grieg, Debussy, Vaughan Williams, Stravinsky, and Bernstein — have also had weekly themes devoted exclusively to their lives and music. These programs are intimate biographies which include the composer's early life, education, historical and musical influences, personal lives, and emotional and musical development, plus numerous musical pieces each day. Several composers, including Schubert, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and Shostakovich, have had a two-week theme devoted to their lives and works. Approximately one week per month is devoted to the life and works of a single composer.
Exploring Music is geared to all ages and to any level of musical knowledge. Host Bill McGlaughlin guides the listener into the music through various means: revealing the stories behind compositions, adding analysis and illustrations at the piano, exploring the interlocking nature of music and ideas, and also giving his insight as a professional musician, conductor, and composer.
Each week McGlaughlin aims to weave an intriguing, ever-deepening tale around the topic at hand, and to make exploring classical music fun. "Drawing people inside the music seems the clue to me," he says. "Human beings are wired for delight when we figure something out."[9] Occasionally music from other genres — such as jazz, ethnic/world music, folk/traditional music, or pop standards — is aired, to liven up the discussion and illustrate points.
The piano is another tool McGlaughlin frequently employs to get concepts across. Of his original decisions about the show's format, McGlaughlin says, "It’s very hard to talk about music on the radio unless you can hear a sound, so I said I need a piano. Instead of saying 'a minor third,' I can play it. I wanted to make certain that what you could hear was prominent." [10]
In 2002, Steve Robinson, Vice President of WFMT Radio Network, approached Peabody Award-winner Bill McGlaughlin to host a new daily radio show, which would showcase and explicate great works of classical music.[10] McGlaughlin had spent 22 years as host and music director of Saint Paul Sunday, the nationally syndicated weekly chamber music performance and interview show. His credentials also included decades as a professional musician, conductor, and composer. Regarding his choice of McGlaughlin as host, Steve Robinson states, "As far as I'm concerned, no one can top Bill in the way he conveys his passion for music on the radio."[9]
Development of the new program was funded by a special grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, in November 2002.[11] The show debuted nationally on October 6, 2003.[11] Exploring Music in essence replaced Karl Haas' long-running show, Adventures in Good Music,[2][3] since the aging and retired Haas had recorded no new episodes of his show after 2002. When encore broadcasts of Adventures in Good Music ceased entirely on June 29, 2007, Exploring Music gained an even wider national listenership, as it was then scheduled in the retired show's time slot on many radio stations.
McGlaughlin's highly informed, yet relatable and enthusiastic presentation has proved a hit with audiences, including younger listeners.[12][13] Executive Producer Steve Robinson reports:
Media response echoes this:
As of 2008, Exploring Music has over 500,000 listeners.[5][6] Acclaim and appreciation for the show has garnered host and music director Bill McGlaughlin the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004 from Fine Arts Radio International, which stated that, "Exploring Music, with its weekly thematic concept, provides the classical radio listener with both in-depth education and compelling radio listening, a balance that is rarely achieved."[3] The show has also garnered Bill McGlaughlin and producer Steve Robinson the Dushkin Award from the Music Institute of Chicago, in 2008.[6]
Since McGlaughlin lives in New York City, and the WFMT production studio is in Chicago, production of Exploring Music occurs in two locations. After choosing a topic, McGlaughlin does extensive public library research in New York. The Chicago producers collect 30 to 50 hours of relevant music selection samples (with their liner notes), from WFMT's extensive library in Chicago, and send them to McGlaughlin, by making MP3 (low-resolution) files of them, burning them onto DVDs, and Fed-Exing them to McGlaughlin. In New York, the team at radio station WQXR also combs their music library for more possibilities, and places the audio into iTunes for McGlaughlin to review.[15]
After sorting through and choosing which music selections to present, and finalizing his research and ideas, McGlaughlin then records the voice-track portion of the week's five one-hour shows, in the studios of WQXR in New York. The recording session is monitored in real time in Chicago via either ISDN or telephone. This allows McGlaughlin, his New York recording engineer, and the Chicago producers to interact freely, as if they were all in the same recording studio. McGlaughlin often voices the same narration section multiple ways, attempting to find the most concise and entertaining way to present the information, which also gives the producers editing options when they finalize each show.
The voice-track audio files for the week's five shows are then sent to Chicago, where they are edited for time, and the high-resolution music selections are added in. This post-production process involves making artistic choices regarding which of Bill's narration samples to use, and how to present and place Bill's piano examples, snippet examples from CDs, and the musical pieces themselves. Choices are also made with timing in mind; extra movements or an extra unannounced musical snippet at the end of the show are added if a show runs short.[16]
Once each program is completed, a CD is made and given to the WFMT uplink department. The show is then distributed to radio stations around the country three ways: Physical duplicates are made of the master CD and shipped; the show is uploaded to the Content Depot[17] server for automatic Internet distribution; and the show is also uplinked over satellite. Listeners nationwide and even worldwide are then able to hear Exploring Music, either broadcast on their local radio station, or via the Internet through any one of 36 online radio stations.
Exploring Music airs daily on over 40 public and commercial radio stations in the U.S. It can also be listened to worldwide at various times of the day and night via the numerous radio stations that offer free live streaming audio online.[7] In Australia, Exploring Music airs on 4MBS, at 7 PM.
Playlists for every episode of Exploring Music since its inception are available on the program's official site.[8] Composer biographies and recommended recordings for over one hundred featured composers are also listed on the site. The official website also has a blog, which includes audio excerpts from the show, and a message board.
| “ | I don't know any scientific proof that human beings must have music in their lives to flourish, but I've noticed that if we don't, there's an empty spot. With our programs we try each week to take you into a new area, and hope it's just that we'll find that hollow spot in all of us, and nourish it. And it's like having extra rooms in your house — wonderful rooms — and you let the light in, and you find you have new vistas you didn't imagine. | ” |
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—Bill McGlaughlin, speaking about Exploring Music [18] |
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Listening
Topics and Composers
Production