WYSU at 50

“An anomaly...in a good way”

Editor’s note: As 88.5 WYSU-FM celebrates its golden anniversary, we asked Gary Sexton, the radio station’s director for the past 19 years, to share his thoughts on one of WYSU’s bedrocks: classical musical.

By Gary Sexton

Speaking for the YSU Board of Trustees and President Albert Pugsley on the very first broadcast of 88.5 WYSU-FM, which occurred on Oct. 23, 1969, at 10 a.m., William Coffield, YSU vice president for Academic Affairs, promised that WYSU would bring to the community, “carefully selected educational programs, with specific attention to classical music.”

He went on to say, “Radio broadcasting is another effort in our (YSU) fulfillment of our responsibility to continually contribute to the educational and cultural environment of this community.”
From the first station director Steve Grcevich, program director Richard Stevens, and classical music host Bill Foster on, the staff of WYSU has been true to that mission for all of its 50 years of existence.

As director of WYSU and host of a classical music program on the station, I am on a mission to keep classical music alive and available to everyone in our community on WYSU. I truly believe the world would be a better place if we all had a good healthy dose of classical music every day. If we can spare a few minutes from time to time, classical music can be a meditation for centering us, inspiring us, calming us, and preparing us for the challenges of the day.

I enjoy sharing with listeners one of the pinnacles of human achievement: music that enhances our well-being, music that can instantly reach our deepest emotions, music that spans centuries, but is as fresh as the day it was composed. Consider the intimacy of a Schubert song, or the delicacy and humor of a Haydn string quartet, or the range of emotions in a symphony by Tchaikovsky. All that and much more can be found in music that spans six centuries.

Unfortunately, through all my years in classical music, including 30 years at WYSU, I have been a frontline witness to its steady decline in our society. This was a little before my time, but symphony concerts aired regularly on television in the 1950s, the Young People’s Concerts featuring Leonard Bernstein were quite popular on TV in the 1960s, and at least by the 1970s, every city of size had its own commercial classical music station and symphony orchestra. Classical music was the primary format of the first public radio stations in the ‘60s and ’70s, including WYSU.

When I began at WYSU in 1990, classical music was still a primary format on radio. But now, there are very few commercial classical stations, and many public radio stations have abandoned the format. As for symphony orchestras, quite a few are experiencing financial difficulties and have reduced their concert schedules. WYSU is now something of an anomaly – in a good way, in my opinion.

I have been lucky. I have been connected to classical music most of my life, but then so have you. Did you know that when you watched the Lone Ranger as a kid, you were hearing Gioachino Rossini’s William Tell Overture; or that in the 1981 movie Excalibur, King Arthur and his knights rode into battle to music from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana; or that the Seven-Beer Snitch episode of The Simpson’s opened with the Springfield Orchestra playing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony? Classical music is frequently drawn on to create just the right mood in countless movies, TV shows, cartoons, commercials and video games. Classical music is deeply woven into our everyday life.

I consider it a great honor and an enormous responsibility to be the director of a station that offers classical music to the community, and to carry on the excellent classical music hosting tradition of Bill Foster, Ann Cliness, Michael Cervone and Barbara Krauss here at WYSU. The part of my job I cherish the most these days is to host a classical music program.

I understand that times change and nothing lasts forever, but I am proud that classical music continues to not only exist at WYSU, but also actually thrive.

(“Classical Music with Gary Sexton” airs weekdays 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on 88.5, WYSU-FM.)