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Dan Coren
I've seen the future, and its name is WPRB
DAN COREN
As I’ve already written on a few occasions, my favorite radio station is WPRB 103.3 FM, the commercial non-profit station run mostly by Princeton University undergraduates. If you see a navy blue Camry with a WPRB bumper sticker around town, it’s probably mine.
The station's programming is an eclectic mix, including many musical genres, interviews, and even a thoughtful sports talk show. Weekday mornings are devoted to classical music. These days, the DJ early on Friday mornings is a fellow named Andrew Jones. His knowledge of the classical music repertory is phenomenal. His enthusiasms include Glenn Gould, Gilbert and Sullivan, Richard Strauss and Mendelssohn.
The other morning Jones played a recording of Strauss’s Second Horn Concerto, preceding the performance with a little speech about the
legendary (to my 60-ish generation, anyway) French horn player Dennis Brain. I still remember, in my childhood household, our little ten-inch LPs of Brain performing the Mozart Horn Concertos. But Brain died in a car accident in 1957 at the age of 36.
So I phoned the WPRB studio and asked Jones how old he is. Twenty, he said. Twenty! How has someone that age managed to amass such a deep knowledge of the repertory? It just doesn’t seem possible. It’s indicative of the quality of WPRB that Jones seems more representative of the station than exceptional.
WPRB broadcasts on the Web as well as on FM radio.
To read a response, click here.
DAN COREN
As I’ve already written on a few occasions, my favorite radio station is WPRB 103.3 FM, the commercial non-profit station run mostly by Princeton University undergraduates. If you see a navy blue Camry with a WPRB bumper sticker around town, it’s probably mine.
The station's programming is an eclectic mix, including many musical genres, interviews, and even a thoughtful sports talk show. Weekday mornings are devoted to classical music. These days, the DJ early on Friday mornings is a fellow named Andrew Jones. His knowledge of the classical music repertory is phenomenal. His enthusiasms include Glenn Gould, Gilbert and Sullivan, Richard Strauss and Mendelssohn.
The other morning Jones played a recording of Strauss’s Second Horn Concerto, preceding the performance with a little speech about the
legendary (to my 60-ish generation, anyway) French horn player Dennis Brain. I still remember, in my childhood household, our little ten-inch LPs of Brain performing the Mozart Horn Concertos. But Brain died in a car accident in 1957 at the age of 36.
So I phoned the WPRB studio and asked Jones how old he is. Twenty, he said. Twenty! How has someone that age managed to amass such a deep knowledge of the repertory? It just doesn’t seem possible. It’s indicative of the quality of WPRB that Jones seems more representative of the station than exceptional.
WPRB broadcasts on the Web as well as on FM radio.
To read a response, click here.
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