My favorite radio station, KUSC (91.5FM) has an annual program called “Love at First Listen” in which they solicited listeners to share the classical music that had a profound impact on them whether it was something they heard as a child or something heard last week and then air them throughout an upcoming week.
A twist this year was that they were seeking audio submissions rather than just written ones and I was happy to make my request via that format.
I dutifully sent my long-winded recording earlier this month and then waited for last week in hopes that mine made the cut, but frankly I was a bit skeptical because I imagined I was very much not the only one picking Rossini’s “William Tell Overture,” coupled to the fact that in classical music circles the piece had become something of a pop culture cliché since the way I had discovered it was, like so many others, through “The Lone Ranger” TV series.
But I didn’t let that stop me, and I listened as much as I could on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, while checking the playlists they regularly update on the station’s website and nothing. Then, on the last day as luck and good timing would have it, I happened to be listening to the station Friday afternoon during my lunch break at work when host Dianne Nicolini announced something along the lines of “Love at First Listen continues and when we come back we’ll hear from Will Campbell.”
I nearly jumped out of my chair and then hustled to set up a digital recorder set next to my iPhone’s speaker and this is what made it on air:
I totally get and appreciate the editing job involved, after all the audio file I sent was more than 5 1/2 minutes long, but in the interest of posterity, I share that rambling unedited version with you:
Last but not least, is the overture itself in its 12-minute entirely, courtesy the Toob of Yoo:
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