Will You Help Save These Shows Before They Disappear?

Dear All:

 

Our young friends from Stile Antico are back, and shared their excellent new Christmas recording "A Spanish Nativity" with us. It is both our holiday special program on the site (below), and we also have a limited number of copies of their recording to share with you for new members, gift memberships, and membership upgrades.

 

There are a couple of big announcements, and in one of them we need your help. First, a word about technology.

Before audio went all-digital, there were various media used to transcribe sound, as you know: we evolved from recording on vinyl, to wire, to a reel-to reel system that used magnetic particles to preserve the sound.

 

When we began with early music on Millennium of Music in the 1970s, and indeed for some 15 years, the magnetic tape audio was the standard. No one at the time predicted just how rapidly this technology would decay, but decay it did.

 

My own archives are housed at the National Public Broadcasting Archives at the University of Maryland; they consist of hundreds of tapes. Unfortunately, the process of transferring this material is complicated and expensive: each tape must be baked and run through a drying and sometimes a cleaning process (the tapes can actually mold!) before being transferred digitally. And, you get one shot to do so. After this complex heating and drying, there is only one good play. The tapes at that point are not worth keeping.

 

Time is running out to preserve these early shows which some of you remember with such appreciation.

We have tried with a limited number of programs to have this work done by a professional audio specialist, and while successful, it is very expensive. So, here is the new plan:

 

We are making a special underwriting level available just to preserve old programs. For $100, your name, the name of a loved one, or a person who you wish to remember, will be permanently attached to the audio file of that program. 

 

Each show would have the dedication attached to the play list with a line saying:

 

 

 

 

In addition at this level, we will make a one-year Bronze membership available to you as the donor, as well as send along a CD of your choosing.

 

The second announcement is this: To celebrate this new source of support, we will make available an additional two years of shows going backwards for each and every Bronze and Silver member. 

 

If you are in one of those categories, and now wish to upgrade to a Gold membership, please upgrade at this link, so that we can also put that income into underwriting one of our older shows.

 

And, since these older programs will in fact be funded on a one-at-a-time basis by you, the older programs will be available to all members starting right away as each one comes on line.

 

We will report on this page as each “new” old program is unlocked and made available, and I hope you check by the site often to discover treasures from the past (many of which no one has heard for decades).

 

Thank you all as always for making it possible to keep this 40-plus-year labor of love alive. 

 

RAD