The Morning Show 6-11a Monday – Friday
Dr. Dave’s Drive Time Elixir 4-7p Monday – Friday
WRCJ’s Program Director, Dr. Dave Wagner, is a lifelong Detroiter and well-known as an organist, pianist and music educator. He brings his vast musical knowledge and wry sense of humor to our morning airwaves with traffic and weather updates and his famous 7:15a “Sousalarm.” He returns weekday afternoons to ease your drive home with a mix of lighter classics and orchestrated popular tunes.
Alessandro Stradella was a musical genius and innovator, the creator of hundreds of instrumental and vocal works composed in 17th Century Venice, Rome and Genoa. According to legend, he was also a womanizer and rapist, an embezzler from the Church, and a thoroughly despicable character.
I am an author of mystery novels. Based upon Stradella’s legend, I have written “Stradella’s Revenge,” a compelling serial murder investigation that has ensnared Detroit detectives Harry Grouch and Judy Pacas. I am offering free access to a complimentary electronic edition for WRCJ listeners.
To get your free copy, go to the “Contact RT” page of my website in the “About RT” menu: https://www.roberttell.com/ and ask for it. I think all music lovers will enjoy this story.
Dave Wagner: If you wish, I will send you a complimentary copy of the paperback edition. Just let me know where to send it.
hello,
you played this at 6:42 this morning:
Faure, Gabriel:“Pelléas et Mélisande”: Sicilienne (arranged for flute and guitar)
EMI:763256
when I clicked on “Buy” button it sent me to a lot of different options of the CD.
I could not find the one you actually played.
can you help me find it ?
Sure, here is the cd we played from: http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=2888
We hope you like it!
Please ask Dave to give the name of the composer AFTER every piece. He forgets to do that an astonishing number of times. I just had to look up Spartacus because he didn’t tell me (Khachaturian), but usually I’m driving and can’t do that.
Thanks
Uh oh. Ok, we’ll give Dave a good yelling at.
I used to catch Dr. Dave’s “Sousalarm” on my way to work. I missed it when I moved to North Carolina!
Sorry to hear you’ve left! You could try to catch the Sousalarm on the WRCJ app or “Listen Live” at wrcjfm.org.
I’M HOME AGAIN!!! and so happy to hear Dr Dave’s dulcet tones again!
Oh welcome back! Enjoy the soothing sound waves of WRCJ!
My name is Yvonne Turner and I am the executive Director of the Brazeal Dennard Chorale. I would love to sit down and do an interview with Dave
Wagner about the chorale and our upcoming Legacy concert featuring Measure for Measure, a 90 plus Mens Ensemble from Ann Arbor, The concert is Sunday April 22, 2018 4:00 pm at Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church.
Hello Yvonne, it might be difficult to fit you in before the concert because we are doing our Spring Fundraiser Drive right now but we sent your message along to Dr. Dave.
Dave, at least 25 years ago you played a request my husband phoned in to WQRS in honor of St. Patrick’s Day – it was a beautiful rendition of “Danny Boy” sung possibly by Denis Day? Wonderful male singer … can’t recall his name. What made it so special was that I was driving our daughter, Fiona, to her elementary school and had your program on (my attempt to feed her brain subliminally), and all of a sudden we heard your friendly voice announce, “And here is a special song for my little pal Fiona …” Oh, she was SO excited to hear her name over the radio! Well, life has changed dramatically for my husband and me – Fiona is now almost 30 – and I have the pleasure of returning to a morning commute routine that I didn’t realize how much I had missed: catching your inimitable Sousalarm! Thank you for the many years of interesting and original classical music programming – your cheery voice and quirky sense of humor never fail to put a smile on my face. Thanks for teaching me something every day – you are the mobile music maestro!!!!
Hello Jean, we will send your message along to Dr. Dave. It’s nice that he did that. We are glad you found Dr. Dave once again.
I love your station, since you started… I listen daily!
I’m not happy about the piece you just played:’Highway to Kill Kenny!’
Ken Friesen, Kingsville, ON…. it sets off my paranoia! The road are bad enough!
3 school buses in ditches on Wed.!
Oh, sorry about that. Maybe we could change the title in our database. Something like “Highway To… Be Very Easy And Clear For Kenny”.
Good morning Dave just want to say that I really enjoy your show everyday I love it love it all sincerely Toney Walker
Hello Toney, thanks and WRCJ loves you!
Hello wrcj Toney Walker just to send a comment to say I think I wouldn’t know what to do without wrcj 90.9 classical station beautiful Musiq love it all great thanks you all keep up the good work
Thanks Toney, hopefully you’ll never have to go without!
Good morning Dave today is Friday March 16th I would very much like to hear you perform in Ann Arbor today but unfortunately I won’t be able to make it I hope it’ll be on wrcj 90.9 have a good recital today Dave have a good one sincerely Toney Walker
Hello Toney, sorry you couldn’t make it. We don’t have a recording of the performance but Dr. Dave will no doubt be performing again sometime. Maybe you can catch that one.
always enjoy your show, whether morning or afternoon. one question: mat is the piece the classical broadcast closes at 7 p.m.
oh, and my wife wants to know: whence the music – any music you play? LPs? CDs? a big machine loaded with 200,000 hrs of classical music? an anonymous symphonic orchestra squeezed into a 60 square foot recording booth?
Dr.Dave’s theme song is a Bach Cello Suite being performed by Charles Curtis on the tableau from the album “An Imaginary Dance”. You can take a look at that cd at the link below. Actually we do have a big machine with thousands of hours of music on it that we play from. But also many, many cds and on rare occasions live ensembles in the studio but not as large as a symphony.
http://www.amazon.com/Bach-Imaginary-Dance-Charles-Curtis/dp/B004TB6G3Q
Hi Dave –
Thanks for the Pavane to a Dead Princess – I love that piece. When i am marooned on a desert island it’s the first thing I’ll play on my battery player!!! Second is Scott Joplin!
Thanks for WRCJ!
Hi Ellen, You’re welcome. We really hope you never get marooned on an island though.
Dave,
thanks for being the best part of our daily routine – morning and evening. We wake up to you and listen to all your morning show on our days off and have dinner with you every evening. WRCJ is on all the time in our home. As Far as we’re concerned we can leave it on 90.9 and bust the knob off… 😉
Last Christmas the play list was so wonderful that we barely listened to our large selection of Christmas CDs, every work that was played just kept us leaving the station on.
Thanks for your dry, wry and “insider” humor. So gives us a chuckle all the time. Perhaps you may want to put your funny comments in a book. “The Insider’s Guide to Classical Humor.” 🙂
Thanks again for the long hours you devote to what you do, it makes a difference in our lives.
Mark and Carine Lutz (Ann Arbor)
p.s. my husband’s part time retirement job is for Enterprise Car Rental – he puts WRCJ on the cars he takes care of.
Wow, thanks for being such devoted fans! We shared your email with Dr. Dave. We do feel a little bad for those unused Christmas cds. Also, thanks to your husband for bringing WRCJ to new potential listeners at his job. We appreciate it!
Hello Dave,
My extended family is thinning things out and I have a number of older LPs that I would like to donate to the station if there is an interest. The LPs are mostly classical music, including some of local interest: 1970s albums of the Grosse Pointe South H.S. Symphony Orchestra with Russ Reed, and the Grosse Pointe Methodist Church with Jack Ellis. The LP I know more about is Vol. 3 (of I don’t know how many) of a dissertation on ragtime and early jazz by Jelly Roll Morton, who discusses and plays jazz under different styles of the early era. This has been mine since early grade school (in the ’50s). It was recorded for the Library of Congress in 1938. On the Circle label. I think this is a gem. If you have an interest in these, I am glad to drive them to the station. Thanks.
Hello Jim, that’s very nice of you but we wouldn’t be able to make use of them. We have a device to transfer LPs to digital but it never works very well. Thanks for thinking of us though.
The Old Redford Theater, one of Detroit’s gems, takes vinyl and reports brisk sales. You have to bring them when there is an event going on. Might want to stay, too. It’s quite an experience.
http://redfordtheatre.com/events/
Hi Mary, thanks for the tip. There aren’t too many music stores around these days.
You are my “go to DJ” for classical music. I listen to both of your programs, and play my own cd collection in the pm. Thanks for being part of my life. You made the move to Detroit easier.
Do you perhaps know the composer of a piece that was always called “Through the Lion’s Gate” when it was played on the now defunct Classical Station in St. Louis. When I google it, I get an entirely different piece. The one to which I’m referring was written in honor of the lions gate at the entrance to Stanley Park in Vancouver, BC. Thank you!!
Hi Karen, we asked around the station but no one knew that piece. We also tried looking it up on the internet but without luck. We’re glad though to hear you are enjoying Dr. Dave’s shows and that they helped make your relocation a bit easier.
Dear Dr. Dave,
In re: National Salami Day and your reference to Ricard Wagner’s opera “Salami.”
Stop trying to make me giggle. I’m too old to giggle.
You’re never too old to giggle.
Hello Dave,
I love your radio program!
What piece was played @ 4:45 p.m. today with a Brazilian guitarist?
Is there a website I can use to find out anytime what’s playing?
Thanks
Hi Carole, it sounds like you are referring to the Aria from Bachianas Brasileiras No.5 by Villa-Lobos. It featured Marc Regnier and Marco Sartor on guitars. The link to our weekday classical playlists is here: http://www.wrcjfm.org/playlists-calendar/ Thanks for listening!
Dave, this morning at about 7:55 am, Aug.24, 2017, 90.9 FM there was a gorgeous violin piece, still playing when I had to get out of the car. Please tell me what it was?
Dr. Dave, I contacted you perhaps 15-20 years ago to tell you about a beautiful piece of music that I first heard on WQRS when I was a high school kid. You told me that you were not familiar with that piece. I found it on a Judy Collins album, (hang on, she doesn’t sing in it). When I first contacted you, I didn’t know anything about Youtube, Maybe it didn’t exist at that time. I’m not savvy with technology so I don’t know how to send it to you, but please, please, go to Youtube and type in “Nightengale II Judy Collins” and for 5+ minutes, put your head set on and just relax and enjoy. I was never able to find out the composer. No info about the piece is given on the album where I found it. Originally I heard it on 8-track!
Listening to your voice brings back fond memories. Thanks for all you have done to reinstate classical music to Detroit and beyond!