david garland

radio

below: Composer/pianist Sufjan Stevens and his orchestra perform on Spinning On Air, premiering parts of “The BQE.” Info on wnyc.org. Links to additional Sufjan Stevens Spinning On Air sessions.

David Garland has been hosting, programming, and producing radio shows in New York City for 26 years. Since 1987, he has programmed and presented music on WNYC-FM 93.9, America’s most listened-to public radio station. His shows Spinning On Air and Evening Music offer wide-ranging variety, including in-studio performances, imaginative recordings from the past, premiers of new works, in-depth features, and nine centuries of great music. Hear WNYC broadcast live on the Web; many past programs are available in a Spinning On Air audio archive at www.wnyc.org.

gallery of guests

In addition to documenting my Spinning On Air guests with microphones, I’ve also brought my camera to many sessions since 2004. The links below each photo lead to RealPlayer audio of the shows archived on wnyc.org (), Flickr slideshows if they’re available (), and more information on wnyc.org (). The alphabetical list below is a more complete list of Spinning On Air guests since 2002. All photos © David Garland, except photos of Robert Wyatt, Stew, and Johann Johannsson; and photo of Andy Partridge © Steve Gulick.

2011

2010

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2007

2006

2005 & earlier

Ear to Ear

Ear to Ear interviews are heard on Evening Music, and feature extensive interviews with interesting, innovative composers and musicians. The online archive lets you listen any time to guests such as John Zorn, Okkyung Lee, Phil Klein, Maria Schneider, Robert Ashley, Ben Monder, Fred Ho, Taoufiq Ben Amor, Min Xiao-Fen, Benjamin Bagby, and Amir Elsaffar.

Spinning On Air

Since joining WNYC Garland has been presenting Spinning On Air, a far-reaching music program, now airing Sunday evenings at 7 pm. Spinning On Air has always been about unusual music, and recently its emphasis has been on in-studio performances by passionate, personal, adventurous songwriters. Guests who've recently performed and been interviewed include Sufjan Stevens and the Illinoisemakers, Akron/Family, Antony and the Johnsons, Devendra Banhart, Jose Gonzalez, Michael Gira's Angels of Light, M. Ward, John Vanderslice, A Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band, Diane Cluck, Dave Deporis, Mike Wexler, The Wingdale Community Singers, Hannah Marcus, Brian Lipson, Brother Danielson, Michael Holt, Colleen, Doveman, Dirty Projectors, Viking Moses, and Jana Hunter. Amy Kohn’s radio opera “1 Plum Sq.,” was specially produced for broadcast on Spinning On Air in 2005. David Garland specializes in making connections, offering surprises, and bringing attention to the neglected, forgotten, and uncategorizable.

Spinning On Air brings listeners to the meeting points of Art and Pop. The program is uninterested in formula or categorization, but very interested in the mysteries of communicating through music. Listeners to Spinning On Air are likely to discover something surprising. The music might surprise because it’s so new, or because it’s old, or maybe it’s the surprise of hearing something familiar in a new context. The program deals with a huge variety of music, offering focusses on a particular artist, style, time period, genre, or conceptual theme. Spinning On Air is sometimes whimsical, never frivolous.

In the past, Spinning On Air offered many listeners their first exposure to the music of Esquivel, Martin Denny, Les Baxter, and Raymond Scott, and Garland has been credited with spurring the revival of so-called Space Age Bachelor-Pad Music, Exotica, and Spy Jazz. One of Garland’s more outrageous programs was the Hawaiian War Chant Extravaganza, which featured 75 different arrangements of the pseudo-Hawaiian ditty, and which was covered in the Wall Street Journal and featured in Honolulu Magazine. Garland offered listeners a suitable-for-framing diploma to anyone who survived the ordeal, and received many requests.

guests & topics

Here’s just a partial list of some favorite Spinning On Air topics, and the talented folks who’ve been on the show to talk about their work:

Singer/songwriters: Sufjan Stevens, Devendra Banhart, Akron/Family, Antony and the Johnsons, Diane Cluck, Jose Gonzalez, M. Ward, John Vanderslice, Lisa Germano, Dory Previn, John Linnell, John Simon, Brian Dewan, Fay Lovsky, Karen Mantler, Michael “Sport” Murphy, Ed Askew, Marianne Nowottny, P.F. Sloan, Annette Peacock, Jim O'Rourke, Michael Gira, Donovan, The Incredible String Band,

Singers: Jeri Southern, Helen Merrill, Keely Smith, Margaret Whiting, Dominique Eade, Diana Krall, Theo Bleckmann

Film score composers: John Barry, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, Mychael Danna, Carter Burwell, Gerald Fried, David Shire, Les Baxter

Composers: John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Bobby Previte, Jimmy Giuffre, Bill Smith, Tod Machover, Will Holshauser, Christian Marclay, Heiner Goebbels, Chris Cutler, Michael Mantler, Steve Beresford, Don Was

Programs devoted to the theremin, one of the earliest eclectronic instruments, have featured synthesizer inventor Robert Moog, filmmaker Steve Martin, the world’s greatest thereminist, Clara Rockmore, and in-studio performances by young virtuosos Lydia Kavina and Pamelia Kurstin.

Some of the artists and writers redefining Comic Books: Art Spiegelman, Scott McCloud, Charles Burns, Chris Ware, Joost Swarte, Cosey, Seth, Adrian Tomine, Dennis O’Neil, Mark Badger, Kim Deitch, Harvey Pekar, Craig Thompson

And: Icelandic band Múm; New York-based band The Four Bags; Dave Harris, original saxophonist with Raymond Scott’s Quintette; Jim Copp, creator of extraordinary Kiddie records; record producer Irwin Chusid; Ellery Eskelin on his father Rodd Keith’s “song poem” career; Eric Bentley, translator and performer of Brecht; Gert-Jan Blom, of the Dutch group The Beau Hunks; and Joseph Lanza, author of the books “Elevator Music” and “The Cocktail”

John Zorn—avant garde composer, virtuoso record collector, and hub of the downtown music scene in New York City—has been a frequent visitor to Garland’s radio shows since 1983. Garland and Zorn coordinated and co-hosted the “Exotica Festival” on WKCR in 1984, long before the current Space Age Bachelor Pad music revival. When the Knitting Factory presented a “Month of Zorn” retrospective in 1993, Garland broadcast on WNYC each evening tapes of the previous night’s concert. Many of Zorn’s compositions have been premiered on Garland’s radio shows, and together Garland and Zorn have hosted many programs reflecting their wide-ranging musical interests and knowledge.

A few broadcast premiers on Spinning On Air: Numerous works by John Zorn; Tod Machover’s opera “Valis” (based on the book by Philip K. Dick); the first official release of The Beach Boys’ “Smile” recordings; Gerald Fried’s original score for “The Hot Number Affair” episode of The Man From UNCLE.

Evening Music

Evening Music with David Garland is heard Fridays from 7 to 11 pm, Saturdays 8 to 11 pm, and Sundays 8 to 10 pm, on WNYC-FM 93.9 in New York City. Evening Music, which Garland began hosting in 1990, features classical music programmed with a thoughtful ear and a sensitive balance between large- and small-scale works, new and old, familar and unfamiliar. The show encompasses nine centuries of European concert music tradition, as well as modern extensions of and diversions from that tradition. Evening Music also includes classical traditions of other cultures, such as those of Asia and Africa. Garland specializes in making unusual musical connections among diverse pieces.

Every week on Friday at 10 pm, Garland presents new and old film scores, emphasizing the uniqueness of movie music.

Sometimes guest co-hosts are invited to share their selections on Evening Music, and guests have included conductors Loren Maazel, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and Sir John Elliot Gardiner. In the autumn of 2005 Evening Music began a "Spotlight" feature on Saturday nights, for which Garland is joined by guests from music ensembles and presenting organizations who have unique music to share. Evening Music playlists are included on the WNYC website.

Garland served as acting Music Director at WNYC from 1997 to 1998. He also produces cultural reports for local broadcast in NPR’s Morning Edition, has written and produced fundraising skits, hosted live remote broadcasts, and produced concert recordings for broadcast. Garland's start in radio was presenting a weekly afternoon eclectic music program on WKCR-FM, the radio station of Columbia University in New York City, from 1983 to 1987. Guests on that show included John Cage, John Zorn and others.

“Radio is uniquely effective at reaching many people intimately. It can be a means of discovery: whole worlds can be revealed through your radio. One of the nicest things I can hear from a listener is that my shows have added a dimension to their lives by exposing them to something new.” —David Garland