Radio My Way: Featuring Celebrity Profiles from Jazz, Opera, the American Songbook and More (Hardcover) - Hardcover

Della Chiesa, Ron

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Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0205252702 ISBN 13: 9780205252701

Publisher: Pearson, 2011

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With a voice as smooth as a Charlie Parker alto saxophone solo, Boston broadcasting icon Ron Della Chiesa has brought music and musical legends alive for over thirty-five years. These are the inside stories of Della Chiesa’s career in radio. Discover Boston's vibrant music scene as only Ron can tell it: through his interviews with everyone from opera greats Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo, to jazz artists Dizzy Gillespie and Dave McKenna, beloved song legends Rosemary Clooney and Bobby Short, composers David Raksin and Andre Previn, the brilliant raconteur Jean Shepherd, to his close friend, musical legend Tony Bennett.

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From the Back Cover:

With a voice as smooth as a Charlie Parker alto saxophone solo, Boston broadcasting icon Ron Della Chiesa has brought music and musical legends alive for over thirty-five years.

The seeds of his passion for radio and broadcasting were planted in a Quincy household in the '40s where his father, Aldo, sang arias in the living room, and where the voices of the great Italian tenors: Caruso, Lanza, Gigli, held forth from the radio on snowy winter evenings. After Aldo brought ten-year old Ron to his first opera, La Boheme, young Della Chiesa promptly set up a makeshift radio studio at home, reading news, taping music, and imitating his favorite radio personalities.

There was simply no stopping his love affair with music and broadcasting that continues to this day.

For close to four decades, Bay State radio devotees have stopped the dial on his programming on a host of stations including WBUR, WBOS, WBCN, WGBH and WPLM. In that time, this "walking musical encyclopedia" has thrilled thousands of listeners with a smorgasbord of shows including "Classics in the Morning," "Morning Pro Musica," the groundbreaking and hugely popular "MusicAmerica," "The Jazz Songbook," and "Strictly Sinatra." Now the host of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in both Boston and Tanglewood, Ron and his wife Joyce, a renowned chef, host WGBH Learning Tours which take place all over the world.

Here are the inside stories of over forty years of broadcasting in Boston through the eyes of radio legend Ron Della Chiesa. Discover Boston's vibrant music scene as only Ron can tell it: through his interviews with everyone from opera greats Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo, to jazz artists Dizzy Gillespie and Dave McKenna, beloved song legends Rosemary Clooney and Bobby Short, composers David Raksin and Andre Previn, the brilliant raconteur Jean Shepherd, to his close friend, musical legend Tony Bennett.

About the Author:

Born in 1938 in Qunicy, Mass., Ron Della Chiesa grew up in a home where they listened to NBC broadcasts with Toscanini and was influenced by his fathers love of opera with Caruso or Lanza playing on the Victrola. His own musical interests expanded when his father took him to classical and jazz concerts and later, after graduation from Boston University, he began working in a variety of radio stations, developing his broadcast style and acquiring a loyal fan base in areas of jazz, ‘American standards,’ and opera.

During his nearly four decade career, Ron has hosted a number of popular radio programs and he has conducted hundreds of celebrity interviews. Well known as a longtime host of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he has also hosted, along with his wife Joyce, the WGBH-TV Learning Tours.

In 1995, receiving the Courage of Conscious Award, he was cited for being a classical and jazz scholar and for being a steward of intergenerational music that binds society and elevates cultural integrity.

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