[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. To end our show today, we now turn to our friends at the WNYC show New Sounds. As some of you may know, WNYC, like so many other news and cultural organizations, has been weathering financial difficulties. Unfortunately, that has looked like it would mean our colleagues at New Sounds are slated to be part of the most recent rounds of staff cuts, but several major donors have stepped up to help. They're now feeling both grateful and optimistic at New Sounds about reaching their goal, but more help is needed. We're going to talk about the show and we're going to talk about the campaign as we welcome none other than the longtime host of New Sounds, John Schaefer. Hey, John.

John Schaefer: Hey, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: You want to update people first on what the status of the campaign to save New Sounds is?

John Schaefer: Well, we were pretty pessimistic at the beginning. As you said, we've had a couple of major donors get us-- Let's put it this way. The finish line is in sight and we have finally opened up the campaign to our full community of listeners to try and get us over the line. It feels like an appropriate time. We didn't want to do it earlier because, as I say, we didn't know if this was going to work. We didn't want to be taking money from people if they weren't going to get what they were donating for.

Brian Lehrer: You've got a specific sort of New Sound-- specific pledge drive is a way to put it and that goes just for another day or two?

John Schaefer: Exactly. This is really remarkable thing. You've been around a long time too, Brian. You know WNYC does not do restricted campaigns like this. When that round of budget cuts came along and it looked like New Sounds was going to be on the chopping block, the administration said, "We will do everything we can to find the money to keep the show, and failing that, find a new home." That's what we've been doing since that announcement came out at the end of February.

Brian Lehrer: How can people help?

John Schaefer: Go to newsounds.org and just click where it says "Save New Sounds." You'll be doing exactly that. We started this last phase of the campaign, I believe, on Thursday. It's just there was a lot of pent-up emotion about the show and about the potential loss of the show. People have been pushing us, as I say, towards that finish line, towards that conclusion. We are pretty optimistic at this point, which is like a 180 from where we were a month ago.

Brian Lehrer: I know. Is there a specific goal you have to meet by tomorrow? Are you framing it like that?

John Schaefer: The goal for the whole campaign was 1.5 million to give us a three-year, fully-funded staff, engineering, studio to get a three-year runway. By which point, the hope is that things will have stabilized and we can go back to business as usual. That is the goal. As I say, it seemed a daunting one at first, but it's in sight now.

Brian Lehrer: Now that we've done the pitch, let's have a little fun talking about the show. There are probably a lot of listeners to this program who are more news and talk-based, who don't even know New Sounds. Give people the origin story, which goes all the way back to 1982.

John Schaefer: Yes, so WNYC was a very different station back then. It was mostly music, except for Morning Edition and All Things Considered. When I arrived on the scene in 1981, WNYC had made the somewhat quixotic decision to go full 20th-century music, really thorny, difficult stuff, and Bernstein and Copeland and all that kind of stuff, which I admired. I also thought, "If you're going to play contemporary music for people, play something they might like." [chuckles] Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno. That was the elevator pitch that we were not giving a full view of what contemporary music was and that there was actually contemporary music that people might like if they weren't being scared off by all the stuff that surrounded it.

Brian Lehrer: If the usual genres we think of are things like rock and indie rock, hip-hop, jazz, classical, world music, is there a Venn diagram where each might overlap with a New Sounds vibe? Because people hear the term "new sounds" and they go, "Well, I don't know what that is." Is it new sounds from this genre, from that genre? Is it just anything that came out in the last three weeks? Explain that.

John Schaefer: Yes. Well, I should say New Sounds was a placeholder title. [laughs] What I like about it, what I liked then and still like now, is exactly what you just said. It could mean anything. What I have taken it to mean over the years is music that does not fit neatly into any of those categories you mentioned. In terms of Venn diagrams, where any two or three of those categories meet, that's interesting to me because those are going to be people and musicians who are not getting probably the attention that they deserve because they're not coloring within the lines. Each of those genres has people off the mainstream, working around the fringes who I would say are of interest to people who listen to New Sounds.

Brian Lehrer: For example, we pulled a clip from your show last night, which revolved around the six-string guitar as played in chamber music ensembles. Here's 30 seconds for your enjoyment.

[MUSIC - Titanic: Te evite (feat. I la Católica & Mabe Fratti)]

John Schaefer: Titanic.

Brian Lehrer: Correct.

John Schaefer: Which is a duo from Mexico City, a guitarist and a cellist. The cellist is actually Mabe Fratti, a very interesting woman from Guatemala who has made herself a central player on the new music scene in Mexico City, which is bubbling and which includes elements of rock and metal and classical music and much, much more, so yes.

Brian Lehrer: Did you mention your New Sounds colleague Caryn Havlik, who's also the captain of the WNYC softball team?

John Schaefer: As soon as I mentioned her, I thought, "I wonder if Brian's going to go there," because, of course, you were the manager of the softball team for a very long time. Yes, that is one of the things that we're looking forward to this summer is getting back out on the diamond, Caryn and myself, because we're veterans on the team.

Brian Lehrer: Well, maybe I'll see you on the infield. In a show called New Sounds, do you ever play new-sounds oldies, it's an oxymoron, new-sounds oldies, but classics from your 40-years-plus of playlist?

John Schaefer: Yes. Actually, just the other night, I played a piece by an English composer named Gavin Bryars, which was a huge, I'll say, hit [chuckles] among New Sounds fans in the mid-'80s. I don't know. Occasionally, I think it's useful to look back at where we've been before we start focusing on where we're going next. Yes, I do occasionally like to pull out the hits as it were.

Brian Lehrer: It wouldn't be a John Schaefer segment without a little spring preview, maybe even a little summer preview, music event preview. You do come on the show to do that from time to time. Want to briefly tell us a few gigs from your gig alerts that you're keeping your eye on?

John Schaefer: Well, the one coming up most imminently is Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on April 17th. As many fans of his know, Nick Cave has been through some very difficult stuff. The loss of two of his kids had put out some bleak but beautiful records in the wake of that. I thought last year's album, Wild God, was a remarkable statement of optimism and hope. As Nick Cave refers to it, hope as a warrior emotion. I just can't wait to see him perform this stuff live.

I'm also looking forward to the annual Long Play weekend in which the Bang on a Can new music consortium takes over dozens of venues in Brooklyn. For me, the highlight will be, and you were talking about the oldies, Terry Riley's In C, the piece that's considered to be the first minimalist work played by the Bang on a Can All-Stars and guests. That's the first weekend in May. Then there's the New York Guitar Festival in its 26th season. That was founded by David Spelman and myself. We had our quarter-century anniversary last year. This year, for the first time, we're doing two free events at Bryant Park on July 3rd and 4th.

Brian Lehrer: Neat. Hosted by you?

John Schaefer: Yes, as ever. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: That is super cool. You know what I want to ask you? In this era of Spotify and other algorithms, where you can start your own "radio station" with one track, and then it tees up things at that genre that you might be interested in. I'll admit, I've been exposed to some artists that way who I didn't know and have come to like. What's the unique value as you see it now, as of you as a human curator?

John Schaefer: Yes, that's a good question. I will say that if I'm on a long car ride, I will put a record on that I like and let Spotify do its thing. I too have found artists that I really like that way, but I also find that I can predict who Spotify is going to be playing based on what I had chosen. I think that the difference with human curation is that element of surprise. You and I are of an age where listening to late-night FM radio, you never knew what you were going to get next. That was a lot of the magic of it was that thrill of discovery.

An algorithm can give you more of the things you already know you like. It's not as useful in the complete left-field option that somebody takes a chance and plays something. That's basically been the history of New Sounds is me just discovering things and sharing it with listeners and finding out what people like and what people are maybe not so fond of at first but might grow to like. It's a real journey and that's a hard thing to get from an algorithm.

Brian Lehrer: Tell people one more time how they can join the Save New Sounds campaign today and tomorrow.

John Schaefer: Just go to newsounds.org. It's pretty obvious. It says "Save New Sounds." Click on that. Thanks to our major donors. You do not need to be a major donor. We just want as broad a community of support for a show that's been on for 40, almost 43 years. We'd like to see how far we can go with it.

Brian Lehrer: Let's keep New Sounds going, folks, and going all the way back to 1984. The Times once said that New Sounds was one of the first, if not the very first, radio program to play the Philip Glass 1984 opera Akhnaten. John, thanks a lot. Good luck with the rest of it.

John Schaefer: Thank you, Brian.

[MUSIC - Paul Esswood and Stuttgart State Opera Orchestra & Chorus: Ahhnaten's Hymn to the Aten from Act II, Scene 4 of Akhnaten]

Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.