Music of brass band festival to fill airwaves

By Vicki Stevens
Staff Writer

The sounds of the Great American Brass Band Festival will be heard in various places all over the country this year, thanks to National Public Radio.

WEKU, the Eastern Kentucky University radio station and a NPR affiliate, plans to tape bands as they perform on Saturday and Sunday during the festival.

The performances will be compiled into a one-hour program of music to be broadcast at 9 a.m. on the Fourth of July.

``We're working with George Foreman and his staff to put together a one-hour program to air on the Fourth of July here on our station and National Public Radio stations across the country,'' said station manager Tim Singleton.

``We're going to tape as much as we can and then we'll decide after we are finished taping which ones will fit the timing. ... We don't know until after the program's done which bands will actually appear. We'll try to get as much in as we possibly can.''

John Francis, the station's operations supervisor, initiated the project. He and other WEKU staffers have been to the festival in past years.

``We all have,'' said Singleton. ``A couple of years ago we recorded a short feature that aired on National Public Radio, about 10 minutes long.''

This year's program is the first of its extent, though. ``We have done features that have aired on National Public Radio before but nothing of this degree,'' said Singleton.

``We're kind of excited about the possibility of getting the music of the Brass Band Festival across the country on radio stations ... as well as getting it on the program here.''

As of mid-May, more than 30 NPR affiliates -- in California, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Virginia, to name a few - had expressed an interest in the program.

``It's up to individual stations whether they're interested or not. There's tons and tons of programming out there available so you have to make decisions about what works and what doesn't,'' said Singleton. Altogether, there are about 500 NPR stations.

``With the two stations we have - we have a repeater in Hazard - we cover all of central Kentucky and much of southeastern Kentucky and parts of Virginia and West Virginia and Tennessee,'' said Singleton.

The station in Richmond is WEKU 88.9 FM and the one in Hazard is WEKH 90.9.