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EmailThis Friday night (Feb. 5), Seattle’s FM airwaves will crackle once again with the sound of live classical music, performed by the Pacific Northwest Ballet Orchestra under the direction of Allan Dameron. PNB will perform Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty at McCaw Hall, and KING-FM 98.1 (also online at king.org) will present the audio portion live beginning at 7:30 pm. Forward into the past!
Live broadcasts of classical music were a mainstay of radio in the 1930s and 1940s, and represented the high hopes that many scholars and social critics had in those days for what mass media could do to elevate American culture. Sadly, those high hopes were mostly dashed (thanks to sitcoms and game shows), but classical music can still occasionally be heard live, thanks to a few daring broadcasters, including KING-FM.
Host for Friday night’s broadcast is KING-FM’s Bryan Lowe. During the intermissions, he’ll play pre-recorded interviews with Ronald Hynd and Annette Page, the husband and wife choreographers for the production; Mona Butler, a bassoonist in the orchestra; and conductor Dameron. Lowe says that, technically speaking, there is much more to this broadcast than flipping a switch (as is the case with KING-FM’s weekly Compline broadcast from St. Mark’s).
“Pacific Northwest Ballet is probably our most expensive and time-consuming broadcast,” Lowe says. "Toe shoes are great for dance, [but] bad for broadcast. So we have to set many mics all throughout the pit . . . and we have to do several test recordings of rehearsals." Lowe says the effort pays off, however, when the “on air” light glows and the broadcast gets under way. “It's a lot of fun to do. Live music with a great orchestra, and the energy level is so high, it's infectious,” Lowe says.
According to Lowe (who, with his 30 years at KING-FM, wears the “unofficial historian” crown), the radio station has been doing live remote broadcasts since the late 1970s, beginning with the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival, followed soon after by Seattle Youth Symphony and Seattle Symphony concerts. KING-FM has several additional live broadcasts planned during the next few months, including Seattle Opera's production of Verdi’s Falstaff next month; a concert series from the Seattle Symphony in April; and PNB's Copelia in June.
Lowe says live broadcasts of great music are something only local radio can do, and that they are critically important to the health of the local arts community, “especially as arts exposure diminishes at virtually every other [media] outlet.” Even so, Lowe’s not satisfied with the number of local live broadcasts in the works, and says that KING-FM is working on plans to present even more. “It's the right thing to do, and it makes great radio,” he says.
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Comments:
Posted Fri, Feb 5, 1:59 p.m. Inappropriate
RE: Crosscut Tout: KING-FM maintains a radio tradition of live classical music
Maybe....
But must the ads be so totally out of sync with the classical music? is there no way to tone down their shouting and incongruous background music?
jffsj
Posted Sat, Feb 6, midnight Inappropriate
It appears the infomercials have metastatized from KING to Crosscut. When I hear KING FM, I hear a cow being mercilessly milked for every last painful drop. The satellite classical offerings are far from perfect, but how anyone could voluntarily choose listening to KING when they are available is beyond me.
Posted Sat, Oct 9, 10:50 a.m. Inappropriate
I was formerly employed by KING-FM. During the week, I worked at KING-TV, and, at the same time, from June, 1970 to April of 1972, I was one of the weekend on-air hosts on KING-FM. At that time, the station's manager and program director was Jim Wilke.
Dorothy Bullitt had the habit of visiting the KING-TV lunch room each day so that she should be in touch with the pulse of the station and to get to know the people who worked there. Since the KING-FM personnel were in a different environment and had different hours, for the same purpose, she decided to invite all KING-FM employees to her home on Capital Hill for a brunch one Saturday afternoon. Fortunately, my shift was over for the day, so I was able to participate.
After the food had been consumed, we all retired to her sitting room for conversation. There were about eleven of us.
During the discourse, someone asked Mrs. Bullitt what kind of classical music she wanted to hear on KING-FM. She responded by saying that what she wanted to hear on the station was not important, but it was important what the listeners desired.
She said that all KING Broadcasting Company stations had three goals, in this order of priority:
1. Performing a public service
2. Obtaining station operating revenue
3. Airing quality programming
So, regarding classical music programming, it would appear that the listeners were the determining factor. But, regarding station philosophy, it would appear that Mrs. Bullitt's priorities would prevail, since it was she who established its tone when she put it on the air in 1948.
Mrs. Bullitt, and her two daughters, have decided that KING-FM should always remain a classical music oriented station, but that the listeners should decide the kind of classic music the station would air. Jim Wilke once told me that he took his marching orders not only from Mrs. Bullitt, but from the listeners.
Mrs. Bullitt always wanted a broad spectrum of classical music to be broadcast and did not want the station to become a classical jukebox, where one would drop in a nickel (now a quarter) into the machine and out would come some short, three minute light classical piece.
When I was at KING-FM, Mr. Wilke took his duties very seriously by scheduling whole symphonies during the drive-time hours. Because of the length of these musical selections, on-air commercial announcement availability slots were drastically reduced.
However, even though this inhibited the revenue generating capabilities of the station, Mrs. Bullitt never objected, but left the programming decisions to the people responsible for them. She always had a general hands-off approach to any station she owned.
However, if it appeared that one of her broadcast operations appeared to be going dangerously off track, she would quietly make suggestions as to how she thought a change should be made.
I believe Mrs. Bullitt would have approved of the move from a commercial to a listener supported operation for KING-FM. I also believe in her idea that a station's public service activities should always prevail over monetary considerations.
This is not a negative reference at all, but people, who really knew her, called her the "velvet steam roller," because, in her quiet, gentle, kind manner, she could convince people to do what she thought was best. I miss her guidance and wisdom. She was, without a doubt, one of the most considerate, humanitarian people I have ever known.
Thanks to Dorothy Bullitt, Seattle is very fortunate to have had a radio facility devoted entirely to classical music, and to also have had the kind of station management with the intelligence, ability, and intent to continue to bring this about. Many other cities are not so lucky.
All dissention aside, in my opinion, the present day KING-FM is a direct reflection of the vision of Dorothy Stimson Bullitt and what she stood for, and, in her memory, I am confident that it will continue to provide the kind of high quality programming that Seattle has enjoyed since 1948.