To: WAMC Northeast Pirate Network -
Finally something really interesting on the Internet.

The sad story of classical music on WAMC has been closely examined recently with the passing of RJL and the unavailability (to us) of Morning Pro Musica.  The "replacement", hour-for-hour, with other classical programming really doesn't fill the bill because the replacements are of extremely poor quality.  It's another demonstration of the dumbed-down world's endless search for the 14-minute piece; if that means playing Mozart serenades with fewer movements than he actually composed, well...

The crucial moment in this story actually happened almost two years ago. Doctor Chartock canceled WAMC's oldest program, the Friday-afternoon Boston Symphony live broadcast. This was a cultural disaster for the entire area.

Of course, the program was a challenge to present properly, particularly for those who don't understand--or like--music. The concerts were spread out from September to April; there could be one concert per month, or two, or three; the scheduling of one of Doctor Chartock's few programs of merit, Vox Pop, during the same time period meant that he could rely on the ever present news junkies to persistently complain, as well as practically the entire staff, who are all uncomfortable with pronouncing all those foreign names.

As is the great tradition, the departure of this sterling program, much higher in quality (musical and technical) than the Tanglewood relays, went completely unnoticed by everyone precisely because of the above challenge--it's really hard to realize something is missing and hasn't returned after the summer. I have had several conversations to this effect; I hope they all wrote letters, but....

I hope the site succeeds as a "Friend of WAMC" area, please use my name and e-address.

TRACY KILLEEN
<killeent@crisny.org> 
Monday, June 26, 2000