Fred Child, the host of American Public Media's Performance Today, will visit Cape Girardeau as part of the station's Spring Membership Drive. Child will speak at KRCU's Spring Fundraising Breakfast on April 2, 2014 at 8 a.m. in Kem Statuary Hall of the Wehking Alumni Center. The breakfast is a free event for KRCU listeners and offers attendees a chance to meet the national radio host.
"Our fundraising breakfasts have become a tradition and our listeners look forward to the annual event. This year we are very excited to feature Fred Child as our keynote speaker," said KRCU General Manager Dan Woods.
In addition to his regular hosting duties, Fred also appears at classical music festivals and events around the country, from PT's annual residency at the Aspen Music Festival and School, to special events at the Savannah Music festival, Marlboro Music, the Spoleto Festival USA, Summerfest La Jolla and many more.
Beyond the world of classical music, Fred hosted NPR's innovative "Creators@Carnegie," a program of wide-ranging performers in concert, including Brian Wilson, David Byrne, Dawn Upshaw, YoussouN'Dour, CaetanoVeloso, Emmylou Harris and others. Before going to NPR, Fred was Music Director and Director of Cultural Programming at WNYC in New York, host of a live daily performance and interview program on WNYC, and for 10 years, a host at Oregon Public Broadcasting.
In recent years, Fred has hosted a series of unique live national concert broadcasts, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic from Walt Disney Hall, the Last Night of the Proms from the Royal Albert Hall in London, New Year's concerts by the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony at their summer home of Tanglewood, the ground-breaking "Spring for Music" concerts from Carnegie Hall, and the "Americana" series for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, from Cardiff.
While growing up in Portland, Ore., Fred studied classical piano. He also dabbles in guitar, percussion and bagpipes. His percussion band opened for the Grateful Dead at the Oakland Coliseum. He has narrated works at the Aspen Festival, with the Virginia Symphony, with the U.S. Marine Band and at the Round Top Festival-Institute. His rare musical performances in public include percussion with guitarist Sharon Isbin, and piano four-hands duets with Andre-Michel Schub.
Fred loves baseball (throws right, bats left) and soccer (he's a fan of Portland Timbers and TottenhamHotspur), and is an avid hiker, climber, skier, cyclist, and a licensed private pilot and scuba diver.
Performance Today is America's most popular classical music radio program, with more than 1.3 million weekly listeners on more than 260 stations around the country. It is heard weeknights at 8 p.m. on KRCU.
