Association of Music Personnel in Public Radio 
Summer 2001 

AMPPR Treasurer and Board of Directors member Deanne Poulos has announced that she is leaving her job at KBAQ in Mesa, Arizona, and resigning her position on the AMPPR board. In her announcement, Deanne said, “With sadness, I am leaving public radio after seven years. With enthusiasm, I am looking forward to my new position as Director of Marketing for Ballet Arizona. . . . It has been an honor to serve on the AMPPR board, and I have been impressed with the dedication of the board members.”
        Deanne is a dancer who worked with the precursor of Ballet Arizona before she began working in public radio. Deanne expressed her strong feelings for public radio but feels she is returning to the her first love, the world of dance.
        Her leaving is a great loss to public radio and to AMPPR. She has served AMPPR as treasurer since February, 1999, and has kept the books in order, dealing with banks and auditors through a period of rapid growth in our organization and handling publicity for us when we needed her the most. We wish her the best in her new-old career and will miss her happy personality and quick wit. Stay up on your toes, Deanne.

        AMPPR’s announcer workshops will be held at public station WBJC in Baltimore during the PRPD conference week.
         The workshops are limited to 12 participants per day and are intensive one-day training sessions with voice coach Marilyn Pittman. The workshops focus on the effective use of voice on radio. They are suitable for both music and news announcers. Participants are asked to bring an aircheck cassette and copies of the scripts or other printed materials used to make the breaks on the tape. 
         The workshop day is split into the following three sections: 

 1. General lecture and exercises in basic breath and voice techniques.

 2. Listening and critique session. Marilyn listens to each participant's aircheck in turn, critiquing generally and also picking out one element of the participant’s work to focus on in Section 3. 

 3.  One-on-one coaching. Each participant in turn puts on headphones, stands at a microphone, and works on the element selected in Section 2 while being coached by Marilyn. The other participants offer advice and encouragement. The coaching sessions are recorded for participants to take home. 

        If you live and work in the Baltimore and Washington D.C. area, or if you plan to attend the PRPD and will arrive early, you will find this workshop experience to be an effective way to spend a day and come away with the tools to become a better announcer. The AMPPR announcer workshops have been held in Boston, Tucson, and Seattle so far, and participants have raved about the experience: A typical rave came from the Tucson workshop: “One on one is amazing! Thank you to AMPPR. I wasn’t sure if I would learn anything after 15 years in the biz, and I was WRONG. Plus, Marilyn is a hoot!”
 Register early to secure your place in one of the two workshops in Baltimore. A registration form is on Page 7. The form is also on the AMPPR web site, http://amppr.org. Full details about the conference will be sent to you with your confirmation materials when you register.

        MPC 40 in Savannah will mark 40 years of Music Personnel Conferences, although the conferences have been called by other names at various times through the years. Professor Linda L. Clauder of WHA Radio compiled information about past conferences, which appears on the AMPPR web site. She wrote the following about the first conference.

        Not only was it cheap to drive a car in 1962, new cars went for $2000 to $3000. First-class postage was $.04, and a nickel got you a cup of coffee, a candy bar, or a newspaper. The hit tunes of the time included Shelly Fabares singing “Johnny Angel” and Ray Charles’ “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” and the big movie was Lawrence of Arabia. President Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba to bluff Fidel Castro out of pointing his missiles at us, and Telstar 1, the world’s first geosynchronous communications satellite, was launched in 1962.
        Of course, having a job in radio that paid $275 a month made you feel both rich and famous, but public radio jobs were usually done by volunteers 40 years ago. Some things don’t change all that much.
        Although few of our conference attendees were in the business in 1962, and many were yet to be born, we hope we can celebrate 40 years of conferences by hosting some of the people who attended the first conference in Ann Arbor or at least some people who were working in public (educational) radio at the time. If you are one of them, let us know so that we can invite you to MPC 40 in Savannah and have a big anniversary party. 

        Susan Hammond, the producer of “Classical Kids” who hosted an informative and inspirational session at MPC 39 in Tucson, has been awarded Billboard Magazine’s 2001 International Creative Achievement Award. The award was presented by Billboard to a Canadian recording artist who has brought international recognition to Canadian music and culture.
        Larry LeBlanc, the Canadian editor of Billboard, said he was “particularly pleased to see Susan Hammond receive the award, since I’ve watched the growth of  ‘Classical Kids’ and The Children’s Group since their inception. Her albums have been very much a part of my life and my kids’ life....I was struck by their fondness and enthusiasm for Susan and her work. It crystallized my own opinion that she is a pioneer, and she’s done it with a certain élan.”
        “Classical Kids” has won five Juno Awards, two Certified Platinum and five Certified Gold Records in the past ten years. “Susan’s work has elevated both classical music and children’s music. She has promoted substance as well as entertainment,” said LeBlanc.
 Billboard presented the award at a tribute dinner on May 29. Hammond is now completing her tenth CD, “A Classical Kids Christmas,” to be released in August.