American Music Festival

Conceived in 1939, the first WNYC American Music Festival hit the air in February 1940. For more than forty years, it was a station tradition, with live events and concerts, reflecting "the culture of a peaceful people, in a land where men and women of any race and creed were free to compose and perform music based on any and all themes." From Lincoln's to Washington's birthdays, the festival filled WNYC's airwaves, providing listeners with the full range of live American music from classical, to folk, to jazz and everything in between both in-studio and from concert stages around the city.

The festival was a response to the dominant Euro-centric musical attitudes of the time. Reflecting on the festival's birth, station Director Morris Novik wrote in 1945, "It was obvious that something should be done to fill the gap that was a serious hindrance to the furthering of the cause of native American musical genius. There were no provisions for encouraging and fostering this talent, and only a very limited means of presentation of Americans works that deserved to be heard." Novik saw four objectives for the American Music Festival:

1. Provide a sounding board for talented young American musicians.
2. Grant a hearing and performance to any meritorious works or compositions of native composers.
3. Promote the cause of American classical music, which is heard all too rarely on concert programs.
4. Interest the public in the appreciation of good American music.

It seems they were able to meet those objectives and more: In its first six years listeners heard Morton Gould, Leonard Bernstein, Paul Bowles, and Deems Taylor, all masters of American classical music, some of them making their radio debut. But listeners heard more than just classical music. On the folk front, Woody Guthrie, Josh White, Burl Ives, and Pete Seeger were all regular performers. And in jazz, they heard from Miles, Monk, and more, including Benny Goodman, Sam Price, and Albert Ammons.

During a concert intermission at one of the early festivals, the final concert of the 1941 season, Aaron Copland stated that the radio audience was key to developing American music. In fact, he closed his remarks by hoping for "bigger and better WNYC festivals in the future." Following his intermission speech, the Brooklyn Academy audience heard a world premiere of a choral work by another American composer, Roy Harris.

• Read the transcript of Copland's speech

The American Music Festival continued through the 60s and 70s with intermittent triumphs, but by the mid-1980s WNYC's American Music Festival had run its course. The last few festivals were a shadow of their former glory as eleven days of live concerts were compacted into a day-long "Americathon". This single day of performances was sandwiched between broadcasts of American music from the studios on record only.

In the early 21st century the days between Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays were still a time for WNYC to focus on American music, though the festival had long since ended: In 2001 the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) recognized WNYC with one of their first-ever Concert Music Awards, honoring WNYC for "75 years of enlightened broadcasting featuring the music of our time." 

This collection comprises recordings reformatted from transcription discs originally created between the years 1940-1955, culled mainly from the New York City Municipal Archives WNYC Collection. Other recordings came from Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies and from bootleg recordings.