The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is providing radio and Internet listeners with a ringside seat to the musical arts with its exciting new radio program Oberlin Presents. Hosted by Fadel Fulkerson, the hour-long weekly broadcast on 104.9 FM, WCLV, Cleveland’s classical station, will journey into the heart and soul of serious music with many of the influential personalities who shape our artistic world.

Oberlin Presentsdebuts Sunday, November 18, 2007, at 10 a.m. on WCLV, with a simulcast on www.wclv.com. Fadel’s guest for the program premiere is legendary mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne. Horne, recently in Oberlin for her third residency as Distinguished Professor of Singing, found time to sit down with Fadel for a consideration of the challenges and joys of the bel canto repertory. Listeners will hear samplings of some of the most memorable operas of the genre during “The Bel Canto Revival with Marilyn Horne.”

“We are very pleased to expand our long and tremendously successful relationship with WCLV,” says David H. Stull, Dean of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. “Oberlin Presents will allow the communities of Greater Cleveland and Lorain County to experience the great performances and outstanding musicians that we are pleased to host at Oberlin.”

“Journeys in Conducting with Robert Spano” is the second program in the series, scheduled for Sunday, November 25, 2007, at 10 a.m. Spano,Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO),is recognized internationally as one of the brightest and most imaginative conductors of his generation.With the ASO, he has won five Grammy Awards. He is a 1983 graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he is also Professor of Conducting.

Upcoming Oberlin Presents programs will be announced soon; all programs and dates are subject to change.

Oberlin Presents is sponsored by the Conservatory and by the Riverside Company, a leading private equity firm specializing in premier companies at the smaller end of the middle market across North America, Europe, and Asia.

Fadel Fulkerson

Fadel Friedlander-Fulkerson brings a wealth of musical knowledge and a lifetime of musical experience to her audience. She also brings an unbridled enthusiasm for the world’s great classical repertoire, especially in the area of opera.

A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Fadel grew up in a musical environment. Her mother, Mitzi Friedlander, was in demand for her singing and acting abilities long before she became one of the country’s most notable narrators of books for the blind, and Fadel regularly accompanied her to the nonstop round of rehearsals and performances. Fadel’s musical career began with the gift of an Irish harp, although she soon took up the cello and played in the Louisville Youth Orchestra. It was singing, however, that inspired her true passion for music. A student of Charme Reisley (wife of Moritz Bomhard) and later Mary Fran Duane, Fadel was accepted at the prestigious North Carolina School for the Arts at age 15, where she studied with Juilliard’s Alice Howland. After moving to New York, she studied with the Met’s Rose Bampton at the Manhattan School of Music, and with other operatic greats such as famed Wagnerian vocal coach Walter Taussig.

Upon her eventual return to Louisville, she found an entirely new career, sharing her love and knowledge of classical music on 90.5-FM, WUOL, Louisville’s classical music radio station. For WUOL she hosts “The Art of Great Singing,” a program devoted to operatic greats that was also heard on WCLV from 2005 to 2006.

Fadel, who now lives in Oberlin, is married to violinist Gregory Fulkerson, Professor of Violin at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

About WCLV

Established in 1962, WCLV plays a key role in nurturing Greater Cleveland’s cultural life. The station has gained an international reputation as a leading broadcaster and producer of classical music and distributor of culturally oriented programming. Since 2001, WCLV has broadcast live and recorded concerts from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and has provided media sponsorship for Oberlin’s esteemed Artist Recital Series. Oberlin is also regularly featured on WCLV’s On Stage segments. From 1964 until the mid-1980s, the station produced Music fromOberlin, a weekly national broadcast. During the 1990s, Oberlin’s Office of College Relations produced Only in Oberlin, a regular snapshot of arts and cultural events on campus that was sponsored by Kendal at Oberlin on WCLV.

WCLV’s classical music programming was assured by a multistep process that moved the station’s transmission from 95.5 FM to 104.9 FM on July 3, 2001. On November 1, 2001, WCLV was gifted to the nonprofit WCLV Foundation, which guaranteed the station’s classical music format far into the future. Over the years, WCLV has won many honors: four Gabriels  (three for Best Radio Station Nationwide; one for Best Religious Program); a NAB Marconi for Best Classical Radio Station; New York Radio Festival Silver and Gold medals for Best Classical Station Worldwide, two Governor’s Awards for Support of the Arts, a Gracie for best interview program dealing with women’s issues, and numerous local awards. In August 2003, WCLV became the second station in northeast Ohio and the third classical station in the nation to broadcast an HD (digital) signal.