WDAV assumes production of World of Opera

WDAV in Davidson, N.C., announced Friday that it will be taking over production of NPR World of Opera from the D.C.-based network. Ben Roe, now general manager at WDAV, previously worked as NPR’s director of music and brought together the show’s host and producer. The show airs on 87 stations. Here’s the full release:

WDAV 89.9 CLASSICAL PUBLIC RADIO TO PRODUCE NPR WORLD OF OPERA

December 18, 2009 | DAVIDSON, NC — WDAV 89.9 Classical Public Radio announced today that as of January 18, 2010, the station will take over production of National Public Radio’s World of Opera, keeping in place NPR’s successful creative team of host Lisa Simeone and producer Bruce Scott. WDAV General Manager Benjamin K. Roe is the new executive producer. The show will continue to be marketed and distributed by NPR.

NPR World of Opera, carried now by 87 public radio stations across the nation, is the only radio show in America devoted to broadcasting full-length operas captured in performance from around the world. Productions from La Scala, Bayreuth, Vienna, Paris, and Geneva regularly grace NPR World of Opera’s airwaves, as well as performances from great American opera companies, including Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Glimmerglass, Santa Fe, and New York City Opera. The production team of Simeone and Scott has been together since 2002, when Roe, then NPR’s Director of Music, paired them. While this new partnership is a first for WDAV, the organization is poised for the opportunity.

“In the last 18 months, we’ve been working to re-position WDAV as a strong source for original classical music productions from the Carolinas and beyond,” explains Roe. “This partnership with NPR puts us squarely now in front of a national audience — a step we welcome. I’m especially thrilled to be reunited with Lisa Simeone and Bruce Scott — two of the most creative and dedicated talents I’ve known in my thirty years of broadcasting.”

Adds Anya Grundmann, Executive Producer for NPR Music, “We know NPR World of Opera is in good hands, given Ben Roe’s history with the show and his award-winning classical music production credits. For NPR, this arrangement lets us continue our long, proud history of supporting opera in performance, beginning with the 1972 World Premiere of Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha — the work that subsequently won Joplin the first posthumous Pulitzer Prize in Music.”

About Mike Janssen

Mike Janssen Served as Scanning The Dial's original co-authors from Mar, 2008 to Jan, 2010 and is a freelance writer, editor and media educator based in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. He has written extensively about radio, mostly for Current, the trade newspaper about public broadcasting, where his articles have appeared since 1999. He has also worked in public radio as a reporter at WFDD-FM in Winston-Salem, N.C., where he began his career in journalism and filed pieces for NPR. Mike's work in radio expanded to include outreach and advocacy in 2007, when he worked with the Future of Music Coalition to recruit applicants for noncommercial radio stations. He has since embarked on writing a series of articles about radio hopefuls for FMC's blog.

Mike also writes regularly for Retail Traffic magazine and teaches workshops about writing, podcasting and radio journalism. In his spare time he enjoys vegetarian food, the outdoors, reading, movies and traveling. You can learn more about Mike and find links to more of his writing and reporting at mikejanssen.net.

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