- [Announcer] This program is part of WQED's Pittsburgh History Series.

(footsteps thudding) - [Narrator] There's seldom anyone else around when Jim Cunningham arrives to start the day before 6:00 AM at WQED-FM.

- [Jim] I love every day.

Every day is different, exciting, lifelong learning.

You never stop learning.

You can never get to the bottom of the music.

I mean, I love all kinds of music.

But with classical music, you can never learn everything about it.

Opera and small groups that perform and singers who perform in choirs and the joy that musicians have, you're gonna see it on the air today and hear it on the air with all the people that are coming in to celebrate what we do from now until the end of our live broadcast today.

- [Narrator] Jim wasn't here at the radio station's very beginning, but almost.

He actually came to work in TV.

- As a student intern in 1974, I came to work with Fred Rogers and...

I applied for an internship and Fred's director, David Chen, hired me and then I worked on the crew.

But the radio station had been on the air for a year.

And when I wasn't doing the studio work with Channel 13 Fred Rogers' "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," I was in the radio station hanging out.

(classical music playing) Good morning.

Classical QED 89.3.

WQED-FM Pittsburgh, WQEJ Johnstown, WXTC in Greenville.

I'm Jim Cunningham.

It is a joy to be with you on this 25th day of January.

50 years ago today, WQED-FM began broadcasting as it was at 12 noon and we're going to be celebrating through that hour all day long with Anna Singer this afternoon and with Brian Sejvar in the middle of the day.

There are many guests coming your way.

Classical QED 89.3.

We're celebrating 50 years of WQED-FM on the air.

Since the very beginning, we've been with River City Brass and they are with us.

Here they are live in the studio, River City Brass.

(musical instruments playing) - [Narrator] When a beloved classical music radio station is half a century old, all of its friends, its regular listeners, all of the musical and arts groups that it helps promote all join in the celebration.

We are going to call this program, (musical instruments playing) There is some video tape of the very first day when chairman of the WQED radio committee, George Craig, pushed a button and the music began.

- At one o'clock when the signal is given, I will push this button which will activate the station and it really is connected to something, I can see that.

(classical music playing) - [Narrator] The first voice on the station was Leland Hazard, who was then honorary chairman of Metropolitan Pittsburgh Public Broadcasting.

- At this time, WQED-FM begins its broadcast day.

WQED-FM is owned and operated by Metropolitan Pittsburgh Public Broadcasting Incorporated and operates on a frequency of 89.3 megahertz with an effective radiated power of 43,000 watts.

Studio and transmitter are located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The words I have just spoken are the first broadcast sounds from this new FM radio station.

It will be a companion in excellence, a companion in excellence to WQED and WQEX TV.

It is an FM radio station devoted to the arts, to the music of the centuries, to the poetry of all time, to the sounds of drama, to the sounds and thoughts which move our souls.

- Leland Hazard was a wonderful mentor for us.

I'll always remember his opening WQED-FM because he knew that a station which stuck to its premise of giving good music all day long would make it.

- Today is the 50th anniversary of WQED-FM's creation.

It began on January 25, 1973.

The first broadcast was at 12:00 noon, and it was Leland Hazard, the board chair, who pressed the button.

The officials of the station, board members, the administration, Lloyd Kaiser, Tom Skinner, they were all there in Studio A upstairs.

We're gonna move up there a little bit later.

But today was the day that the transmitter began operation at 89.3.

- [Narrator] In 2003, Jim did a report about the station's 30th anniversary including some of the hosts who used to be here.

(classical music playing) - I love it.

I can't imagine doing anything else.

- That one-on-one communication that radio people can make with listeners is just unmatched.

- We're helping the community.

We're helping arts organizations.

- If you're trying to get through traffic, there's classical music that can soothe your commute.

- And that was music by Francesco Geminiani, the Concerto Grosso in E Minor, performance by the Baroque Orchestra of Montreal.

- [Narrator] You never see their faces, but you know the voices of WQED-FM Pittsburgh and WQEJ Johnstown.

- I'm Judy Canova.

So glad you're along for morning classics.

- And this week on the Bayer Arts magazine, we'll visit the... A portion of today's program... - [Narrator] These are the announcers of WQED-FM.

Every week they broadcast live from our studios in Oakland to an audience of 150,000 people.

- On lunch with Amadeus and friends from WQED-FM and WQEJ.

- [Narrator] The strength of WQED-FM lies in its loyal listeners.

Because of them, WQED-FM has never had to change its format in its 30-year history.

- On all Classical 89.3, Jim Cunningham- - QED was one of the first to do it around the clock, to broadcast classical music around the clock.

But of course, there had been a lot of commercial stations doing classical music.

There are 66 classical stations in this country and there are another 50 or more that are both news and classical music.

So there are total of 146 stations.

The assumption is that it's very rare.

But in fact, every major market has a classical music station.

I mean, can you imagine Baltimore, Cleveland having a classical music station, and Pittsburgh not?

But the concentration on classical music and local service was very special.

QED in the tradition of Fred Rogers was about the partnerships with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Pittsburgh Opera, the Mendelssohn Choir, all of the arts groups in town, and supporting them, trying to help them get the word out about what they do.

Musicians from CMU playing Beethoven's Ghost Trio live.

(musical instruments playing) - [Narrator] That morning, Jim interviewed several friends of the station including the Reverend Vance Torbert.

- I tell people I start off my day with coffee, corn flakes, and Cunningham.

Can't get any better than that.

(musical instruments playing) - [Narrator] In this 50th year, there are just three principal players at the station: Jim Cunningham in the morning from 6:00 AM till 10:00, Anna Singer, usually in the afternoons from 2:00 till 6:00, and Brian Sejvar who, among other things, takes care of the rest of the day.

- I do a lot of stuff, but everybody does a lot of stuff here.

So that's just how it is and that's fine.

- [Jim] With us now live in the studio are the members of the concert chorale, the Pittsburgh Concert Chorale, led by Dr. Susan Medley.

(instrumental music plays) ♪ It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood ♪ ♪ A beautiful day for a neighbor ♪ ♪ Would you be mine ♪ ♪ Could you be mine ♪ ♪ It's a neighborly day in this beautywood ♪ ♪ A neighborly day for a beauty ♪ ♪ Would you be mine ♪ ♪ Could you be mine ♪ ♪ I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you ♪ ♪ I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you ♪ ♪ So let's make the most of this beautiful day ♪ ♪ Since we're together we might as well say ♪ ♪ Would you be mine ♪ ♪ Could you be mine ♪ ♪ Won't you be my neighbor ♪ ♪ Won't you please ♪ ♪ Won't you please ♪ - When you visit 4802 5th Avenue, on the first floor, the television studios are down this way, the Fred Rogers Studio, and right inside the front entrance, WQED-FM.

There's the music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony.

There's Brian Sejvar in his office.

He's preparing an upcoming Performance In Pittsburgh program.

Emily Brunner is in our studio.

She's preparing an interview right now.

And in this doorway is the music library where Anna Singer puts it all together every day.

- So let me show you what I do.

Here is my program and my computer and it helps me choose the music that is going to be played throughout the day.

And then I either just check my computer and look around in the drawers or I print out the log.

And I'm gonna go over here and see what I can find in my Chandos drawer.

And Chandos starts way down here and goes all the way through here, and 7028.

And we have success.

Here is Chandos 7028.

So that will be part of the programming for the 7:00 AM hour.

But all of these CDs... Of course, Deutsche Grammophon is a huge CD maker and we have many, many drawers for them.

They continue around here.

Of course, our wonderful Jim Sweenie remembered here.

The last CD makers is Naxos.

It's going to become a problem having CDs for music.

Especially I believe now they have stopped making CDs for rock music and pop and everything.

The last bastion is classical music.

So then all of these here on this wall and on this wall are opera recordings.

And then some of these you see here are just things that have not been put into my database yet.

And that's... You know, database entry, it's a very time consuming and challenging thing to get into the computer.

My place is a little bit of a mess because I don't have a lot of storage space and I run out fairly quickly, but that's all right.

Every morning at 8:30, we feature the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

And right over here is all of our recordings starting with... Back in...

This is 1990.

Up to right here where these have just been going in for the '22 '23 seasons.

So this program was from February of 2022 and just continually putting that wonderful music into the database.

And then once the complete list is found and I have all of my CDs, they all go downstairs.

- Now to get downstairs, we're gonna take the secret passageway down here.

Tight, narrow, not too many people know about this, to be quite honest.

So here we have the kitchen area where we have to get our coffee to survive and do our work.

And then over here is the on-air studio.

That's where Jim and Anna do their on-air shifts from.

Over here, we call it the high-end edit room.

Oh, there's Emily.

Hello, Emily.

She's our intern.

She's doing some production work.

So, that happens over here.

And then over here is what we call our performance studio.

So we'll have groups come in here to perform live or rerecord it and put it on the air later.

But that all happens in this room.

- Windfluence.

Here they are.

Live in the studio playing music by Eric Ewazen.

(musical instruments playing) - [Narrator] That entire January day, artists and groups celebrated here and upstairs in the WQED concourse.

- Oh my gosh, it was amazing.

It was so exciting.

I mean, there were so many people here, people who came back, people who've been influenced by the station.

The fact that the station is still here after 50 years.

(operatic soprano singing) - It was a fun time.

It was a little crazy.

♪ Oh, better far to live and die ♪ ♪ Under the brave black flag I fly ♪ ♪ Than play a sanctimonious part ♪ ♪ With a pirate head and a pirate heart ♪ - I think it was nice to see the enthusiasm that people had.

You know, all the performers that came in, all the people that came in just to say how much the station has meant to them or to their organization.

♪ And live and die a Pirate King ♪ - It was like a love fest all day from beginning to end, one right after the other.

And such a beautiful, happy spirit on a cold winter day.

(choir singing) - When it started 50 years ago, nobody knew if it would be successful.

It's like when Channel 13 started, they didn't know if people would give, and then they did.

And it's the same with radio.

People said, "Well, the classical music scene, I don't know."

Ceci Sommers always said it was a shot-and-a-beer town, she was told, and it wasn't gonna make it.

- I mean, some people took us aside and said, "Look, this is a shot-and-a-beer town.

You're crazy to think that it's gonna work.

It just won't work."

- [Narrator] The late Ceci Sommers and her husband, Jack Summers, the station's first general manager, came to Pittsburgh from Chicago and were instrumental in getting the FM station on the air.

- It seems to me we're launched on a very fine adventure, both for us who are producing some programs and indeed for the entire community.

We can't be sure how we'll be be received.

But the adventure is the challenge.

I think we're all very lucky to be here to be part of it.

- [Narrator] Four years later, tragically Jack passed away and eventually Ceci would become general manager of FM for 15 years.

- Very proud of it.

We did many, many things.

It expanded in many ways and I really think found our voice.

- Ceci was such an unusual person.

I don't know how I could quickly encapsulate her personality, but she just was a fountain of ideas.

But all in all, the progress of the station under her watch was amazing.

- [Narrator] One of the most amazing bits of progress was Jim Cunningham reporting from around the world when the Pittsburgh Symphony went on tour.

- The Pittsburgh Symphony played two concerts here at the Suntory Hall in Tokyo.

"On Q" in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, I'm Jim Cunningham with the Pittsburgh Symphony's European tour.

- I mean, look, I could talk all day about the tours.

I've been unbelievably lucky to go with the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Any Pittsburgher, whether you like classical music or not, would love to see the reaction the Pittsburgh Symphony gets when they go on tour.

- The atmosphere was electric.

This audience could have stood for 20 more minutes to hear the symphony orchestra play whatever was next.

They had endless claps.

It was a good 10-minute standing ovation, in my opinion.

- The Pittsburgh Symphony's as good as any orchestra in the world, and that's hard for some people to get a grip on.

It's very expensive to have that quality.

But they're as good as Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, and the Chicago Symphony.

And when they go on tour, they amaze people 'cause the people in Europe at the major music festivals there don't always know much about Pittsburgh other than it was a steel city at some point.

So to hear the roaring reaction of the crowd, they were the final event at the Salzburg Music Festival in Austria which is a kind of Holy of Holies where Prince Charles goes to spend some hours during his summer.

That is a real thrill to hear those concerts.

- We just came back from an amazing second concert in Grafenegg.

Maestro Honeck's conducting was amazing.

- [Narrator] We've all gotten to hear the concerts and all the music and the talk that the station puts out, thanks to the work of engineers like Mike Laver who get the radio signal out to the public and have done so since that first Thursday afternoon in 1973.

- I was here that day.

I have a recollection of it.

That was a long time ago, but it was quite a glorious day that day.

- [Narrator] In the old footage from that first day, WQED's then President and CEO, Lloyd Kaiser, invited the audience to see the new station.

- After our ceremony today, you're invited to either walk or take the elevator to the ground floor, and there you'll see a very tiny audio island that is WQED-FM.

- [Narrator] Although Mike's officially retired, he still often gets called in to help around the building.

He said he'd gladly show us where the FM station was originally on the ground floor.

- The FM studios used to be right in this area.

There would be a door right here that would go into the announce booth where the announcers would go.

And next to it, if we walked down a little bit further, this was all glass, and that was the FM master control.

That's where all the tape machines were at, the audio console, the automation at the time, the station automation, and it was all contained in this area.

That was the FM studio for recordings and production.

- [Narrator] The station still creates an impressive list of productions often coordinated and recorded by Brian Sejvar.

- We do a lot of production here.

So, I put together the Pittsburgh Symphony Radio series which gets distributed across the country.

I put together a Friday night program called Performance in Pittsburgh.

That's all local performances and concerts that we record that goes on the air.

Pittsburgh Opera, we record every one of their performances and put those on the air.

And so I stitch that all together.

We have a program called Pittsburgh Opera Preview which previews the upcoming Pittsburgh Opera production.

So, I edit that.

And then we do a bunch of live broadcasts all around town.

So I help engineer those and make sure those get on the air.

- Here we are at the Mellon Park.

Amazing and beautiful place.

The former home of Richard Beatty Mellon, his 42-room mansion right here on this ground where you're standing.

But today, there is a concert with Shadyside Brass, one of many concerts each summer in Bach, Beethoven and Brunch.

And we have a wonderful time getting together with QED listeners who stopped by our tent and they register to win beautiful things like Rick Sebak DVDs and compact discs and our tote bag.

Other good stuff.

Morning.

Nice to see you.

Thank you for coming.

Please register to win.

Take some CDs.

Take any of our propaganda.

- [Narrator] In the station's propaganda, you may learn about the unusual service it provides: Music in the Pittsburgh subway system known as the T and likewise at the Pittsburgh International Airport.

- I think it's so cool to go to the airport.

Pittsburgh International Airport, we broadcast there too and we get to talk to the folks that are doing what they're doing which is amazing work at the airport.

But what I love about the idea of classical music there is the fact that you go to any other airport and you are assaulted with noise and sound and television all the time.

And here, when it is already stressful... As we know, traveling is just really challenging.

But now you go to Pittsburgh, you have this calm, beautiful music that's playing all the time.

You have areas where you can just sit and relax.

It's a very different atmosphere than any other airport that I've ever been to.

- [Narrator] You can listen to the subway and airport music on the station's website at wqedfm.org.

Look for the stream called Q the Music.

- [Brian] QED 89.3 and featuring the area's finest musicians in the Pittsburgh subway system and Pittsburgh International Airport, including the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh and the CMU Philharmonic.

- [Narrator] There are countless other projects, celebrations, and traditions that have been set up over the past 50 years.

There was even the very special and convenient Carolyn M. Byham Studio that was FM's home away from home in the Cultural District downtown for almost a decade.

People have learned to admire and rely and love WQED-FM for many reasons over five full decades.

- It is so much better than most of the, quote, good music stations throughout the country.

I mean, it's a superb station.

- I think it's only natural that there's a classical music station and the fact that it's stayed all classical for 50 years in the public radio world is a pretty amazing thing.

- The variety of it is really amazing.

If you listen all the time and have it on in the background, you'll hear wild and wooly things that you would never hear on any other station.

- It's such a small entity, but there's so much largeness that is a part of the community.

It's such a big part of the community, I think.

- I'm still learning.

Every single day I learn something I didn't know about the music that we play.

- So many people are so surprised at how special, how different Pittsburgh is and what it has to offer.

And I think what we have to offer at WQED-FM is a big part of that here in the city.

- I go to Nantucket in the summer and what's offered up there pales in comparison with WQED-FM.

I'm a spokesman for WQED-FM.

(laughs) - When I was doing one of our fundraising drives early on, my grandfather, who was a Lutheran minister, called me.

I was in the studio downstairs, he said, "Jim, you sound like you're apologizing for asking for money."

And he said, "You must never apologize for asking for money.

Imagine if I apologized on Sunday morning for asking for a contribution.

If you believe in what you do, you must feel good about asking for money."

He's got a good point.

And we believe in what we do, so we don't hesitate to ask for support, and people have been generous and responded.

(classical music playing)