On the Air with Classical Portfolio and Susan Welch

For Susan Welch, the cohost of the Classical Portfolio show that airs every Sunday from 5 to 6 p.m. on KWVH, her love affair with the arts began early in life. Her family visited museums and her mother taught her piano at a young age. She recalls her father, who loved classical music, stretched out on the floor listening to Igor Stravinsky’s ballet, Petrushka, for hours at a time. As a student, she played violin as well as piano, studied modern dance, tap, ballet, as well as literature and other fine arts. She is, she told me in a recent interview, “an extremely rightbrained person.”

Long-time listeners of Classical Portfolio, now in its ninth season, might recall that the first co-host of the program was Raphael Castanet. Together, they featured classical as well as pop music. After nearly five years, Castanet left the program. He was replaced by Lyn McKenna, who Susan says is also their “tech person,” producing the show for the duo.

Sometimes the show features a single composer, sometimes it is organized around a theme, and sometimes it’s a deep dive into personal favorites. They mix it up, offering long and short pieces and introducing se-lections with enough background to offer a rich backstory and context. Lyn likes vocal pieces and arias and Susan tends toward symphonies. When asked what were some of her all time favorites, Susan smiled and said there could easily be a hundred things on that list. She did say that the Adagio from Sparticus by Aram Khachaturian is way up there and then handed me a list of some of her YouTube favorites. On the diverse list was Leon Redbone, Puccini’s Chrysanthemums elegy, Ry Cooter’s Buena Vista Social Club Chan Chan song and the dance sequence from the film White Nights with Mikhal Varishnakov and Gregory Hines. On that list were other recommended websites that didn’t necessarily have anything to do with music. Such is the world of a connoisseur.

If you think that pursuing fine things somehow makes you an elitist, Susan begs to differ. “Art is an integral part of everything.”

Today Susan teaches piano, makes jewelry, leads a music appreciation talk at the Wimberley Valley Library and has written a children’s book called “Your Magical Party.” Temporarily postponed by the library construction, her music appreciation talks will resume in the Spring. She is also an avid traveler and movie buff with shelves full of CDs and art books, just waiting to be shared.