soiveheard #2, wallpaper endangered REPOST

since i can't seem to find this anywhere on the interwebs i will repost this. its from alan rich's new blog (soiveheard.com) which seems to be down...

soiveheard#2 by Alan Rich

Wallpaper Endangered: According to one survey or another, anywhere from 30 to 50,000 people listen to classical music all day. That number can include doctors’ secretaries trapped in their offices (I speak for my friend Addie, prisoner of KUSC) as well as people who just can’t find the on/off switch and have come to regard music as a form of wallpaper. It also includes a large number of people who care what they’re hearing, who value a station that offers the stimulation of music chosen across the broad historical band, including the so-called “difficult” repertory on which the ink may still be wet, or the paper wrinkled after many centuries.

Just as we need more than one critic in town, we need more than one music station. KCSN-FM, the station of Cal State Northridge, is hard to hear in some parts of town; I hear it on one side of my house in West L.A. and less well on the other But their programming is excellent: Martin Perlich’s classical choices during the week, intelligently chosen Bluegrass and other, for me, mind-expanding stuff on weekends. Martin has brought composers onto the station, including young unknowns. As I understand the current crisis at KCSN, Martin’s job is not immediately threatened; other jobs have already been lost, that have given the station its uniqueness, and it looks to me – as someone recently bruised in this whole tragic shrinkage in the realm of culture -- that nobody is safe anymore. The following report from the battleground pretty well sums up the KCSN situation, and you may extrapolate far and wide.

So I hear: In an ominous move officials at Cal State Northridge have taken the unprecedented step of cancelling the Pledge Drive of KCSN-FM, the feisty little public radio station for which they hold the license. The station, which was awarded “Best of LA” by Los Angeles Magazine in 2006, calls itself ÁRTS & ROOTS Radio” offers the most exciting classical music programming in the city (and maybe the country) – often presenting music by living composers as well as an unusually generous amount of 20th century music (as well as ancient music, rare and ‘difficult’ music and daily chats with a broad group of members of the Arts community (cutting-edge composers, musicians, writers, choreographers, filmmakers, playwrights, jazz players, etc. by acclaimed interviewer Martin Perlich (author of The Art of the Interview).

While classical music is presented every weekday 6am – 6pm, weekends are occupied by unique “Roots” programming: “Bluegrass, classical country, singer-songwriter, world music, blues, a 2-hour program devoted to Bob Dylan and more.

Recently University Management, through KCSN’s GM Fred Johnson, fired Les Perry, the station’s best programmer and fundraiser, and other popular shows. The subsequent outcry from listeners and members -- 90% of the station’s operating budget is provided by listener-members -- has caused new Dean Robert Bucker (backed up by CSUN president Jolene Kester and Provost Harry Hellenbrand) to cancel the Pledge Drive out of “sensitivity to ‘the community’ which, responding negatively to the program changes, will negatively affect progress on CSUN’s new $125 million-dollar Valley Performing Arts Center whose groundbreaking was celebrated last week.

Observers believe that in cutting off funding through cancelling the Drive, the University higher-ups have signaled their long-expressed desire to change KCSN’s format – possibily handing off (as KPCC recently did) to large national pubcasting networks like Minnesota Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Radio or a similar entity, leaving Los Angeles with one classical station, whose classical programming is far less enterprising than KCSN’s

CSUN President
Jolene M. Koester
818-677-2121

Jolene.koester@csun.edu

Dean of Arts, Media, and Communication
Wm Robert Bucker
818-677-2426
robert.bucker@csun.edu

CSUN Provost & VP of Academic Affairs
Harry Helenbrand

818-677-2957

harry.hellenbrand@csun.edu