Friday Morning Classics, 8:00 AM to noon

Saturday Afternoon Classics, Noon - 3:30 pM

Gary Fountain’s life with classical music began when he was a teenager in Upstate New York who tuned in to Thursday evening concerts of The Cleveland Orchestra, fighting through the static, on a small radio in his bedroom. Several years later, when in Cleveland for a professional conference, a music critic on assignment invited him to be his plus one for the opening concert in a renovated Severance Hall, and that particular dream from the wavelengths of his youth was fulfilled. Now he is himself a broadcaster of classical music on a public radio station.

Following graduate work—a M.A. in religion and a Ph.D. in English and American Literature—Gary taught both English and religious studies at the Ethel Walker; chaired the English Department at Miss Porter’s School; was an associate professor of English and American Literature at Ithaca College; and served as Rector (Head of School) at Chatham Hall, an Episcopal girls’ boarding school in Virginia, where, in addition to major program and building projects, his work was central to the success of a $60.5 million capital campaign.

Gary has published a biography of the modern poet Elizabeth Bishop (University of Massachusetts Press, 1994) and several articles on her poetry. He has also published numerous reviews of new recordings of opera and classical vocal music in Listener magazine.

Gary’s Friday morning and Saturday afternoon programs on WMNR Fine Arts Radio feature new recordings, current and traditionally underrepresented performers and composers, and promotions for concerts in the region. He developed and broadcast WMNR Concert Hall for three years, a program on Sunday afternoon that features concerts from regional ensembles. During the summer months, in addition to his two weekly programs, he broadcasts a weekly program that features concerts from the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and Chestnut Hill Concerts (in Old Saybrook).

Gary has no formal training in classical music; his knowledge is based upon years of listening, reading, and conversation, a path that has extended from the Boston Symphony and Boston Lyric Opera while he was a graduate student, to, currently, a range of regional concert series, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, and Carnegie Hall. He collects recordings of classical music and opera, an interest that developed when he was an undergraduate and worked in a library where he had access to new recordings as they were being cataloged and could listen to them before they hit the shelves.

That said, Gary is an advocate, on and off the air, for classical music lovers attending live concerts. In fact, a central reason why he and his wife, Melissa (his tireless and devoted concert companion), returned to New Haven for this phase of their lives together is the rich regional classical music scene. For Gary, no recording or live broadcast can replace the vibrancy and emotional immediacy of being in the concert hall or opera house.

Gary recently chaired Fine Arts Radio, Inc., an advisory Board for WMNR Fine Arts Radio, during which tenure the first endowment for the Station was established. He is currently a member of the Board of Music Mountain, the Board of Chestnut Hill Concerts, and the Vestry at Christ Church New Haven.