Hi - A bit late responding to John Nunes' affirmation about the
dislike from "audiophiles" of live performance and of their
distain for it. (All reminding me of the conductor who said, on
the radio, that he so liked the recorded sound of his orchestra
that he was changing their sound to conform to the recorded
result.)
 
One must point out that John Nunes' record player was the only one
which has ever fooled me into looking around the room for the piano.
John is also a harpsichordist, organist, and sometime organ
builder.
 
Up here in Seattle, we have the oddity of a commercial "classical"
station which competes head to head with the other commercial outlets
and actually seems to make money. True, their "24 hour classical"
format on a random sample is more likely to give you talk or a
commercial than music, and they have a "top 100" list which they
play down over, and over, and over. But they also do live opera
both from Texaco and locally, and in-studio performances "hosted"
by an obnoxious but knowledgable practicing musician - and, having
been given by a socially responsible family to a foundation, their
profits go to Symphony, Opera, and a Corporate Council for the Arts!
 
San Francisco had the odd fortune of having _two_ "classical"
stations almost adjacent up in the commercial section of the
dial; I could knock off from slavery at MusicSources {(;-)} and
lie on my straw pallet flipping from one to the other. The "public"
stations are all talk with KPFA's occasional _very_ exotic music
programme. Possibly one will do better than two?
 
In Portland, we built KBOO in the late '60s on the imputus of the
sale of the last "classical" commercial station. It was the late '60s,
so the "classical"format never happened, 'tho we did do some
interesting things. State Radio there has upped and down on "classics;"
these days they're down, and the "format" is being handled by another
"Public" station, from the local technical high school! There's
also wall-to-wall jazz from a community college, as there is here
from another private colleg station.
 
Evidence from the sellout crowds at Seattle's new concert hall
seems to be that for the moment enthusiasm is up - even if the
taxpayers are building _two_ new stadia! But things never stay
the same; Zeno was overtaken by Heraclitus!
 
                                                        calhoun
 
in the busiest music month of the year.