NPR Cello Project

For more than 10 years, All Things Considered (ATC) used several recordings I produced as musical “bumpers” during the show. The short story is that Richard Aaron, then cello professor at the Cleveland Institute of Music found out that I worked at the local NPR station (WCPN). Richard came up to me one day and mentioned that he had a dream where the ATC themesong was being  performed on all cellos.  As an audio engineering major, I had the wherewithal to make this happen, and so we asked Donald Erb the head of the composition department to have his students  compose variations on the ATC theme. Seven students completed the task and we recorded the results and sent them to my contact at NPR headquarters. About a week later the network started using these recordings on the air, and continued to do so for quite some time. I even heard it last week (March 2018!)

Here is an mp3 recording I made of the same themesong variations which were submitted to NPR. This recording is a live performance during a master class at CIM.

Cellists include: Eric Sung, Adele Hall, Anne Francis, Alliot Moore, Adam Esbensen, and Eric Lenz.
Variations Composed By:
Wataru Hokoyama – Congracellations
Brooke Joyce – Weird NPR / NPR Mix
Matthew Wenner – NPR Music
Abe Libbos – Four for Cellos
Ryan Beard – All Things Considered