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Welcome to the World Classical Network

The World Classical Network has a new home! Now proudly owned and operated by Judson Group, Inc. a company that includes the son and grandsons of broadcasting pioneer Ted Jones, founder of Charles River Broadcasting Company and Boston’s legendary classical music station, WCRB. Judson Group acquired Classical 95.9-FM WCRI from Charles River Broadcasting in 2006 and, alongside Billboard Connection Providence, is deeply committed to carrying on the Ted Jones tradition of radio excellence.

By bringing the World Classical Network into our local broadcast family, we are dedicated to keeping exceptional classical music alive, vibrant, and accessible. Whether you are starting your morning or winding down your evening, our world-class announcers are here to guide you through the greatest music ever written.

Featured Programs & Shows

In addition to popular classical movements and pieces, WCRI also offers special programs & features like these:

WEEKDAYS

Mozart Block at Nine O’Clock: To jump-start your workdays, every weekday morning at 9:00 AM, WCRI presents the *Mozart Block at 9 O’Clock. The world’s most renowned composer and child superstar, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and his music continue to delight, in this program filled with his beloved music.

All-Time Classics: Each evening from 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM, you can relax as you enjoy All-Time Classics. This program showcases the performances of composers, conductors, and orchestras of which you just can’t seem to get enough.

SUNDAY

Sunday Brunch: On Sundays, from 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM, tune in to WCRI and leave it on throughout the day for our Sunday Brunch. This program offers you a time to relax and get away from weekday stresses and distractions. The work week is upon you, so enjoy the calm before the storm with these classical masterpieces.

Specialty Programming for the World Classical Network:

(Subject to changes and additions)

LifeStory

The inside stories of the greatest classical composers. Every month on Saturday. Other specials include Black History Month, Valentine’s Day, Essential Classics Weekend, Great Ladies of Classical and many more …

Here’s this years by month…

January 24th LifeStory…Mozart. Celebrating him all day long.
February is Black History Month…we’ll spotlight African-American composers, conductors and performers all month long.
Saturday February 14th Valentine’s Day…we’ll go all Heart and Soul…Love is in the air.
February 21st LifeStory…admiring Chopin
In March on the 7th LifeStory J.S.Bach
April 3rd at 6 through Sunday the 5th at 10 pm…Essential Classics Weekend with all the “must haves” for your classical library.
In April on the 18th…LifeStory…Music and tidbits surrounding Franz Schubert.
On to May…with the Great Ladies of Classical on Mother’s Day May 10th.
On the 23rd of May…LifeStory…Brahms.
The 6th of June…LifeStory…Handel.
This year American Pops on the 4th of July will be on a Saturday. We’ll celebrate Independence Day with a day and night filled with the Best of America’s Pops Orchestras, Symphonies and Performers.
On the 11th of July…LifeStory of Felix Mendelssohn.
August heats up with Ebony and Ivory Weekend. It’s a chance for the keyboards to shine the weekend of August 1st and 2nd…all the superstars of classical piano.
Saturday August 15th…LifeStory Tchaikovsky.
Saturday September 12th…LifeStory…Antonin Dvorak.
The weekend of October 3rd and 4th…it’s all about the family on The Classical Station…Moms, Dads, Sisters, Brothers…with All in the Family Weekend.
On the 17th of October…LifeStory Joseph Haydn.
Halloween is on Saturday the 31st and we’ll have the scary music and stories to go with it all day and night long for our Classical Halloween.
Saturday November 7th…LifeStory Robert Schumann.
As always Holiday Music begins the day after Thanksgiving. Just a few to start with more and more as we get closer to holidays.
Our last LifeStory of the year happens on December 12th…Celebrating Beethoven’s Birthday. The All Time Classic that night is the 9th Symphony 9pm to about 10:15 with no commercial breaks.
Thursday December 24th at 6pm right through Friday the 25th at midnight starts The Joy of Christmas…our very popular 30 consecutive hours of Holiday Music.

Our Daily Lineup

6:00 AM – 10:00 AM: Laura Carlo

LAURA CARLO – served as the Morning Program Host for WCRB 99.5 for almost 3 decades, winning numerous “Best Radio DJ” awards, including being inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 2022. She is also a journalist and the newest columnist for Boston’s 110-year old weekly, the Post-Gazette. In addition to her daily program, she wrote well over 100 blogs about different classical music topics for the station’s website, (still archived and viewable at classical.org). She wrote, produced and hosted numerous features and programs for WCRB including “ArtsAlive!” “Laura’s Book Nook” “CEO Spotlight,” “Making Waves,” and “Baroque in Boston.” Under the station’s original (commercial) ownership, she also hosted the morning show for the World Classical Network, syndicated in 16 major US cities, making her the “most listened to stand-alone female music announcer in America,” according to the Arbitron ratings service. She has been both a part-time Music Host and News Anchor on New York’s WQXR. In Boston, Weekend News Anchor on WBZ Radio, and Weekend News Writer and News Producer for WCVB-TV 5; Afternoon News Anchor for Channel 27 (WHLL, Worcester); and News Director/Morning Anchor on Fall River’s WALE Radio. Under her leadership, WALE and WCRB won numerous “Best News” awards from UPI, including a National 1st Place Award for Best Local News/Small Market, and from several prestigious journalism competitions. Through her company, “Get Me Laura Carlo!” Ms. Carlo is the female voice for AT&T’s national voice recognition system, as well as for entities as diverse as Roche Diagnostics, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department (Arizona), Unitel, Banamex, and Macy’s of Southern California. She is also an in-demand narrator for audiobooks. She is a frequent guest speaker for college communications majors, an organic gardener, a fearless cook and baker specializing in 100% from-scratch southern Italian cooking, a classical pianist and world traveler.

10:00 AM – 2:00 PM: Mark Calder

Mark Calder, The World Classical Networks morning announcer, comes to us from the picturesque North Shore of Massachusetts. His broadcasting career spans nearly 25 years in New England radio and on the web. A deans list graduate from Boston’s New England Institute of Art, aka Northeast Broadcasting School, Mark started out an intern, writing and producing short character scripts for the morning show at WFNX, an alternative rock station. His first radio gig was at WNSH in the 90’s, a small top 40 station, broadcasting from Endicott College in Beverly Ma. Shortly thereafter, Mark entered the classical format with WBOQ in Beverly MA, also known as WBach, go figure and continued on with that station as they moved to Maine, tracking the evening shift. Then it was onto business news, WBNW, as production director. From there, Mark was re-introduced once again to the classical format that offered so much more than the short play lists and repetition the other stations were offering; this time at the most prestigious classical station in New England, WCRB, a tenure that lasted for over 10 years. Most recently he’s been at work on the web, imaging a New Mexico country station KIX103. Mark can also be heard on numerous voice-overs for internet marketing companies. An accomplished musician, he plays a variety of instruments, guitar and blues harp his favorites. Exercise and outdoor activities are also as important as regularly hearing his favorite composers like Beethoven, Brahms and Dvorak and of course Mozart.

2:00 PM – 6:00 PM: Don Spencer

Don Spencer also is a native New Englander, having grown up in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. He got “hooked” on radio at 15, after being asked to participate in an internship as part of a journalism class in high school. Don went to college in Boston and while attending school, he did a night shift at a station back home. After graduating, Don got involved in newswriting and production, as well as programming. He says he feels lucky to be doing something he loves and doing it in New England. He particularly enjoys talking to listeners about the music they have in common. Besides his interest in Classical Music, Don also likes Jazz and Swing. Don’s favorite place on the Cape is the Bass River area of Yarmouth and Dennis, but he also enjoys the Cape Cod National Seashore. Don likes to hike and golf and is a huge Red Sox fan and when not at work can usually be found on the golf course or at Fenway park. His favorite composer is Bach and loves the “perfection” of the Brandenburg Concertos, but he also loves to turn up the volume for the William Tell and 1812 Overtures.

10:00 PM – Midnight: Trevor Neal

Trevor Neal is the current Artistic Director as well as the Education & Outreach Coordinator for the Newport Music Festival! Still in the midst of an emerging operatic career, Grammy-nominated baritone Trevor Neal has performed in many of the U.S.’ premiere regional opera companies, including The Dallas Opera, Sarasota Opera, Virginia Opera, and Opera San Jose. His experience on the stage and the close relationships he has developed with these companies’ administrators has energized him to hone the administrative side of his resume. Trevor has helped transform organizations such as The Secret Opera, South Dakota Chorale, and NorCal Music Festival through advisory roles assisting in increasing annual operating budgets and in developing strategic artistic plans. During his time with South Dakota Chorale, he was instrumental in the implementation of the annual recording project, a program he actively participates in as a singer with the ensemble. He continues to serve on the advisory committee for NorCal Music Festival, helping to stabilize the vision of artistic excellence and fiscal responsibility. Neal also has a wealth of knowledge on diversity, and the importance of its place in the performing arts and music. The long-term success of any organization in the arts sector is dependent upon enabling a culture of participation, equity, inclusion, and diversity.*

6:00 PM – 10:00 PM: Tyler Klein

Tyler Kline (b. 1991; he/him/his) is a composer, audio engineer, and radio broadcaster whose work is deeply influenced by the ideals of Wabi-Sabi, a Japanese aesthetic and worldview that values transience, imperfection, and impermanence. This manifests in Tyler’s music in a variety of ways: the use of extended sounds/techniques in order to obscure musical textures; rhythmic dissonance that disconnects melodic and harmonic lines from the overall pulse; and fleeting gestures that evoke the natural world. Recent compositions have included Orchard (2018), a collection of 50 short solo piano character studies based on various botanical fruit; West of the Sun (2019), an orchestra work inspired by the writing of Haruki Murakami; various chamber works for solo clarinet (liveoak, 2020), violin and piano (Eight Aspects, 2020), melodica and piano (basil eyes, 2020), and toy piano (Sycamore, 2020); and a string quartet composed for Tokyo-based musicGROVE (2021). Recognized by ASCAP, Hillsborough Arts Council (Tampa, FL), and Creative Loafing (Tampa, FL) for his work, Tyler’s music has been performed throughout the United States, and internationally in Europe, Asia, and Brazil. Most recently, he was awarded the Ohio Individual Excellence Award (2024) for his work in music composition. His music has been presented at a variety of venues, festivals, and conferences, including World Piano Conference (Novi Sad, Serbia), Dot the Line New Music Festival (South Korea), London International Piano Symposium (London, England), San Francisco Piano Festival (San Francisco, CA), Southeastern Regional Tuba/Euphonium Conference (Tallahassee, FL), Lucca International Festival (Lucca, Italy), Atlantic Music Festival (Waterville, ME), Maryland Wind Festival, NYC Electroacoustic Music Festival, International Computer Music Conference, National Association of Composers/USA National Conference, and the Penn State University New-Music Festival and Symposium (State College, PA). Equal parts music maker and contemporary music advocate, Tyler has worked extensively to build thoughtfully curated platforms that share the work of living composers with wider audiences. In 2017, Tyler co-founded Terroir New Music with composer Susanna Hancock, a live event series that pairs the music of living composers with the work of local chefs and brewers in casual venues. Since 2019, Tyler has hosted and produced Modern Notebook, a weekly contemporary classical music radio show that has blossomed into a nationally distributed program heard on ten radio stations across the United States. Throughout the program’s 250+ episode run, the music of over 800 individual composers has been presented. In April 2024, Tyler founded Loose Leaf Transmissions, an audio-forward multimedia platform, along with its flagship podcast music/Maker with Tyler Kline. This further extends Tyler’s work on the radio, enabling long-form interviews with composers and other creatives to discuss their artistic journey, process, inspirations, and more. A native of Kentucky, Tyler holds a Bachelor of Arts from Morehead State University, where he studied euphonium with Dr. Stacy Baker and held a multi-year undergraduate research fellowship mentored by Dr. Deborah Eastwood. He received a Master of Music from the University of South Florida, where his primary composition teachers were Dr. Baljinder Sekhon and Paul Reller. He currently resides in Cincinnati, Ohio.*