Note: a version of this piece originally appeared in the Traverse City Record-Eagle as part of the "Tuning In" series.
I normally roll my eyes at those “year in review” stories, but 2025 has been such a remarkable year for Classical IPR that I find I have to write one. I suppose I’ll take my crow medium rare.
This year, we said goodbye to long-running programs, welcomed new staff members, launched new broadcast programs and introduced new concert series.
In January, we welcomed Christy L’Esperance as our new morning classical host and director of children and family programming. Christy came to IPR from Kansas City, which slashed their local classical music radio programming by 80% in 2023. Kansas City’s loss was northern Michigan’s gain.
We also began a new fellowship program, designed to give an entry-level person a chance to work in classical radio for a year (possibly two - if the funding is renewed in 2026). Our inaugural Classical IPR fellow is Isabel Li, who joined us in September.
In April, we launched a new children and family program called “Intermezzo,” a successor to the long-running “Kids Commute.” We retired “Kids Commute” at the end of 2023 following the departure of its long-time host Kate Botello. Our new program “Intermezzo” maintains our commitment to classical music programming for children and families in broadcast and podcast.
A sleeper hit this year was the new program “The Well-Tempered Commute,” which also made its debut in April. Airing weekdays at 5 p.m., “The Well-Tempered Commute” is a daily hour dedicated to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
We expanded our Sound Garden Project this summer from two ensembles in two towns to three ensembles in three towns (Glen Arbor, Frankfort and Cheboygan). This project takes chamber music to unexpected places in the region.
In collaboration with the Little Fleet, we had a multi-week classical happy hour series this summer, bringing everything from string quartets to sea shanties to downtown Traverse City.
It’s been a remarkable year, made all the more so by the fact that in July, we lost all of our federal funding. Overnight, hundreds of thousands of dollars from Classical IPR’s annual budget evaporated.
We were left wondering how many of these things we would still be able to do. Would we cut children and family programming? Concert series? Live classical music performances? Popular local programs?
So far, we haven’t had to do any of that, thanks entirely to this remarkable community that turned out (and is still turning out) financially for IPR. We had our two biggest fund drives on record in July and October, and our Giving Tuesday and year-end giving numbers are, frankly, overwhelming. (You can make a year-end gift by December 31 at this link!)
All this is to say: thank you.
Thank you for trusting us, thank you for enjoying our programming, and thank you for investing in us. Following the loss of our federal funding, we are now 100% community supported. The support that this community has provided is beyond anything we could have dreamed.
Heartfelt thanks from all of us at Classical IPR. We’re not sure what 2026 will bring, but we can breathe easier knowing our community will be there for us.
