KBYU-FM NEEDS TO EXPAND ITS CLASSICAL HORIZONS TO INCLUDE MORE CONTEMPORARY MUSIC

For an FM radio station that likes to term itself "Classical 89," KBYU seems to think that "classical music" ends around the year 1900.  It would appear that KBYU's management has no taste for contemporary classical music and thus omits to broadcast it on a regular basis.  Marcus Smith, KBYU's general manager, admitted that he knew little of contemporary music.  Not a good omen for listeners wanting a broader horizon in classical broadcasts.

Consider the piece by Olivier Messiaen, Des Canyons Aux Ètoiles, recently performed by the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra led by Jeffrey Tate in a small music performance hall in Brooklyn.

Anthony Tommasini writes in The New York Times:

"Everything about Messiaen’s “Des Canyons aux Étoiles” (“From the Canyons to the Stars”) is vast. This audacious 100-minute work is scored for 44 individual instruments, including all manner of percussion, and features a formidable solo piano part. It was inspired by Messiaen’s 1972 visit to Bryce Canyon and Cedar Breaks in Utah, where he looked in awe at craggy rock formations and reddish-orange geological vistas."

Why can't we hear a piece like this on KBYU?  Why the animus for contemporary composers and their recent works on Classical 89?  Listeners who are interested in classical music deserve being able to hear the Messiaens, the Ligetis, the Ned Rorems, as well as the Bachs, Mozarts, Brahms.

I call on Marcus Smith and his assistant Eric Glissmeyer  - loosen up on your play list.  As it is, the music played on KBYU appears too conservative, too intolerant of contemporary composers.  Classical music is much more, much, much more than your current play list would have it seem.