Ned Wharton
Ned Wharton is a senior producer and music director for Weekend Edition.
At Weekend Edition, Wharton helps to supervise music continuity for the show, keeps tabs on what's new and noteworthy in the music world and produces many of the artist features heard on the program. The highlight of Wharton's role at NPR is the chance to meet—in person or over a satellite link—some of his musical idols, including Brian Eno, Joni Mitchell, Richard Thompson, Laurie Anderson, and Peter Gabriel and the opportunity to spark the careers of lesser-known musicians, like surf-noir band Big Lazy or the terrific Maine singer/songwriter Carol Noonan.
Wharton's work for Weekend Edition includes production of sound-rich news features. As a field producer, he traveled with former Weekend Edition Sunday host Liane Hansen to Egypt for a series of pieces on climate change. They also reported from Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and covered the economy and culture of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
For Weekend Edition Saturday, Wharton took to the sky with host Scott Simon and combat veterans in vintage jets for a feature on the Wounded Warrior program. Wharton produced several of Simon's signature music chats with Baltimore Symphony Music Director Marin Alsop.
Wharton joined NPR in 1989 to work as an arts editor/producer for the daily classical music program Performance Today.
Before coming to NPR, Wharton worked at NPR Member Station WNYC in New York, where he hosted the music program Mixdown and chamber music concert broadcasts from the Frick Collection, produced music features, and filled in on various and sundry classical shifts. Earlier in his career, Wharton spent a year in Paris hosting and producing "New Directions in Europe," a 13-part series highlighting new music activity in France, Germany, and Italy.
Outside of radio, Wharton has worked as a record producer. His credits include the album gListen by the New York-band Songs from a Random House (Bar/None Records) and I Heard It on NPR: Singers, Songs & Sessions, a collection of live performances recorded in NPR's Studio 4A. He served as a panelist at the South by Southwest music festival and at the NON-COMMvention, a radio and music industry gathering.
Wharton remains loyal to his North Dakota roots, serving on the Board of Trustees at the International Music Camp at the Peace Garden on the Canadian border.
Wharton's radio career began at his college station, KFJM in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He graduated with a degree in speech and an emphasis in radio and minors in music and French.
-
Weekend Edition Sunday music director Ned Wharton takes a look beyond Mariah and Bono at some Grammy nominated music you might not have heard. Jimmy Sturr's Shake, Rattle and Polka, anyone?
-
For the holiday edition, a selection of the year's best music. Choices range from Afro-Celt to Britain's Imogen Heap to the benefit compilation Our New Orleans.
-
Weekend Edition Sunday music director Ned Wharton reviews some new CDs that harken back to the sound of the '60s: The Greenhornes' East Grand Blues, Iron & Wine's Woman King and Man Alive! by Stephen Stills.
-
The summer of 2005 may not go down in history as another Summer of Love, but Woodstock's legacy includes a summertime routine of music festivals across the country. Weekend Edition Sunday music director Ned Wharton lists some of the best bets.
-
As music director of Weekend Edition Sunday, NPR's Ned Wharton supervises music continuity for the show and keeps tabs on what's new and noteworthy in the music world. He looks at a pair of CDs designed to be appreciated with visual components.
-
As music director of Weekend Edition Sunday, NPR's Ned Wharton supervises music continuity for the show, keeps tabs on what's new and noteworthy in the music world and produces many of the artist features heard on the program. He offers holiday picks for 2004.
-
Weekend Edition Sunday music director Ned Wharton reviews two new discs featuring the music of rock innovator Frank Zappa — Ensemble Modern's Greggery Peccary & Other Persuasions and Quadiophiliac, a DVD-audio disc featuring multi-channel audio mixes Zappa created himself in the 1970s that are only now being heard by the public.
-
Weekend Edition Sunday music director Ned Wharton reviews the work of two artists with famous musician dads who're blazing their own unique paths: Emilie Berstein, daughter of film score composer Elmer Bernstein, and pianist Peter John Stoltzman, son of Grammy-winning clarinetist Richard Stoltzman.
-
NPR's Ned Wharton, music director for Weekend Edition Sunday, reviews three alternative Latin releases by Radio Mundial, Cordero, and Kinky.
-
Weekend Edition Sunday music director Ned Wharton reviews Electrelane's The Power Out (Too Pure Records) and Mylab's self-titled release (Terminus Records).