Boston, MA. August 31, 1995. Ron Della Chiesa ended the 18-year run of his popular weekday afternoon program, MusicAmerica, on WGBH-FM/89.7 and poignantly closed the show with Sinatra's My Way and Tony Bennett's How Do You Keep the Music Playing? The August 31 broadcast included on-air tributes from wife Joyce, co-host and singer Carol Sloane, and long-time friends Judge Francis Larkin, MIT attorney Paul Parravano, and educator/pacifist Lewis Randa.
WGBH management remains steadfast in its decision to obliterate classical American music from Boston's airwaves. The station continues to ignore a growing public protest, recently echoed by singer Bennett, Pops conductor Keith Lockhart, virtually every member of the Boston Symphony, and a pointed Boston Globe editorial appearing on the show's last day.
During the final minutes of the show, singer Mike Palter predicted that his soon-to-be-released CD (recorded with wife, Lynne Jackson) would one day be played on MusicAmerica, telling the show's 100,000 listeners to have faith that their outcry and the coming financial sanctions will succeed in bringing the program back.
"When word of MusicAmerica's cancellation leaked out, we declared a 'music emergency.' What we have now is a 'cultural catastrophe,'" said John Brady, Chairman of The Committee to Save MusicAmerica. Writing in the Committee's newsletter, Brady pledges "We will be conducting petition drives wherever WGBH listeners are likely to gather."
The Committee to Save MusicAmerica maintains a 24-hour hotline, 617-662-0853. Correspondence and contributions can be mailed to Save MusicAmerica!, 63 Hillside Avenue, Melrose, MA 02176.