Classical Gasbag

I randomly turned on the radio this morning to discover Winnipeg has a classical music radio station.  Bonus points in that it replaces what used to be FREQ/Ignite 107.1 christian rock music. 

It was amusing to me that the first song that came on was Ruslan and Ludmilla.  I remember first hearing this song on the soundtrack to the spectrum holobyte produced DOS game Tetris Classic.  I also coincidentally first heard pachelbels canon on the same Tandy computer.  Oddly enough its still my favourite rendition.

This got me thinking on the nature of pure classical music vs movie and video game orchestral music vs even modern 8bit chiptune compositions and Amiga mods and such.  I enjoy them all, personally.  Now I don't expect to ever hear chiptunes or the soundtracks of sonic the hedgehog, mega man 3 or the Legend of Zelda on FM radio (alas!) But its curious to me that we don't even hear modern orchestral compositions that often .  from movies and modern video games there are some great sounds out there that hold their own against Beethoven and Bach.  Perhaps not Mozart but we're all Salieri when it comes to Mozart.

When the symphony orchestra plays movie and video game music they seem to sell out or do decent business at least.  I'm surprised there aren't more people taking advantage of the popularity.  Video games and movies are both billion dollar businesses.  For me orchestral and chiptune music is all lumped together.  I bet if Mozart had access to an amiga mod tracker he'd have gone nuts.

Anyways back to 107.1… the program director is former CBC host Eric Friesen.  I hope the station succeeds.  CBC radio two certainly hasn't been particularly listenable the last few years.  I enjoy some world music on occasion but ugh.  CBC has been horrible.  Glad there's something to fill the gap.  The only downside to 107.1 is they advertise jazz too.  I can't stand most jazz.  But if its only the best and least pretentious jazz I can put up with it.. And the fact that Winnipeg doesn't have a jazz station helps bring in listeners.  I was going to say I wasn't sure if they played operas but I hear one right now so apparently they do on occasion. 

I Wonder when they did the format switch.  Haven't heard any advertising yet.  Curious to see how they do that.

Ps: There is a pretty damn good orchestral rendition of the legend of Zelda soundtrack on YouTube I recommend. Now to listen to tsn 1290 for some Winnipeg jets hockey talk on the illegal curve show.  I'll be back though, 107.1!