Election results are already in at WDAV

Had enough of attack ads and robocalls? Turn on the radio, tune in to WDAV-FM and drop out of the political hullabaloo. The results of a more harmonious election will be on the air.  

The station will showcase the winners of its Cast Your Classical Ballot campaign beginning Monday night, Nov. 5. Joe Brant will devote his Symphony @ 7 program this week to the composers who topped the polling when WDAV let listeners go online and choose their favorite composers in six categories.

The contest was "a fun way to let listeners tell us their composer preferences," program director Frank Dominguez says. "We know that a lot of worthy composers didn’t make the ballot or win the voting. We hope it’s nevertheless entertaining to hear the composers listeners picked as their favorites." 

Nearly 1,000 listeners chimed in. The biggest winner of a category, according to WDAV's vote breakdown, was Rachmaninoff: He took 50 percent of the votes in the post-Romantic group, with the rest divided among Sibelius, Elgar and the write-in candidates included in "other." Russian heart-on-the-sleeve emotion dominated the Romantic era, too. Tchaikovsky was the big winner, attracting 45 percent of the vote -- handily beating second-place Brahms, at 20 percent. 

The Classical-period race with tighter, with Beethoven winning with 38 percent to Mozart's 30 percent. The contest was a bit closer still in the Impressionist group: Debussy won with 35 percent of the votes to Ravel's 29 percent. 

In Monday night's show, Baroque winner Bach (35 percent, with Vivaldi next at 27 percent) will be represented by his Violin Concerto in E. Brant will next play Classical winner Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. 

Tuesday will belong to Tchaikovsky: the Gavotte from his Suite No. 1; the Symphony No. 4; and the Andante Cantabile for string quartet, as arranged for orchestra by Leopold Stokowski.

WDAV says Brant is still deciding what he'll play Wednesday by Rachmaninoff and Thursday by the last two winners: Debussy and the modern/contemporary winner, Aaron Copland. In the last group, the composers who are actually our contemporaries -- as in alive -- were Hollywood's John Williams, who got 11 percent of the vote, and John Adams, with 6 percent. At least Williams has Oscars to console him.