To: WAMC Northeast Pirate Network
I want to thank you not only for posting my e-mail on the Morning Pro Musica situation, but also for following it up with personal interviews with "Dr." Alan and the "Winchell gang" at The Berkshire Eagle. Thank you for exposing their lies. I wrote a letter to the Schenectady Daily Gazette on this 
very subject, but they never published this letter.

When I wrote you on June 11th, I said that Robert J. was out with bronchitis, which is what Doug Briscoe said that previous weekend on the show. Two days later, Robert J. died. At the end, he was on life-support, I later learned -- a very sad end indeed, especially since I caught one of his last two
shows, and indeed he sounded terrible.

You and your readers should know, then, that when Robert J.'s death was announced, within a day or two, WGBH-FM in Boston canceled almost all of its regularly-scheduled programming, postponed its pledge drive by one week, and devoted their classical schedule to Robert J.'s memory.  During Ron Della Chiesa's "Classics in the Morning" program, Robert J.'s favorites were played, and there were tributes and reminiscences by the show's host, producer, and, later, Richard Kneisly, who hosts the "Classical Performances" program on 'GBH.

For the weekend of June 17th, Briscoe devoted Morning Pro Musica to playing Robert J.'s favorites, and on July 1st and 2nd, MPM did a massive RJL retrospective of interviews and live performances, of everyone from the late E. Power Biggs and David Munrow (in the 1970s), to Jean Redpath to John Cage, and even to Albany's own (now-defunct) St. Cecilia Orchestra. There were verbal tributes from Yo-Yo Ma, Eugenia Zukerman, Peter Schickele, and Russell Sherman. It was a major, unforgettable tribute, ten hours of great radio.

WGBH announced during the show that it could not issue it as a set, but that it wouldn't mind people taping it off the air, so that's what I did -- tape it off the internet, already a precious keepsake.

Taken over the course of two weekends of MPM, plus "Classics in the Morning", WGBH honored RJL's passing with no less than 30 hours of on-air retrospectives and highlights. Almost all of this I heard on WGBH-FM through its website in streaming audio, which, for all its technical flaws, was 
good enough to get the show across.

Sadly, WAMC listeners were denied this memorial, because Chartock took MPM off the air while Lurtsema was still alive -- a very strange concept of friendship, if this incident is any example.  "Dr." Alan didn't have the decency to wait a few weeks more to yank the show, he did it while his "friend" was on his deathbed.  And from what your website tells us about "Dr." Alan and sexual harassment, and about his pals at The Eagle, it is clear that friendship, for Chartock, means venality and lies.

Thanks to personal computers and the Internet, there's an entire world of radio out there for music lovers -- from BBC Radio 3 (the world's greatest classical broadcaster) to Radio Bartok/Hungary; from WCLV/Cleveland to WHRB/Boston; from WCNY/Syracuse to WFMT/Chicago. Sure, it will cost 
more, but at least we don't have to support backstabbers and fair-weather friends.  At last, we can break the yoke of Radio Chartock.

Best wishes,

Don Drewecki
<drewed@rpi.edu>
Monday, July 10, 2000