Are you tired of your same old Spotify playlists? Tune into Vassar College’s radio station, WVKR 91.3 FM, to diversify and expand your music consumption. The station includes shows hosted by both Poughkeepsie community members and students on campus. Each fall, students pitch new show concepts and go through an interview process to be selected for the program. This year, the station will feature over 20 student shows, including everyone from experienced DJs to those who are brand new to the station. To listen, tune in here: https://player.listenlive.co/65631
Sweetheart of the Rodeo: Ida-Rose Chabon ’24
Listen on Wednesdays at 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.
This is the fourth and final year of Chabon’s country music show on WVKR. Originally titled “You Don’t Really Hate Country,” and now “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” her show explores and expands what you think the country genre is. Chabon wanted to correct the narrative many people have about what country music sounds like, citing post-Sept. 11 male country music about beer, women and trucks as the crux of most people’s distaste for the genre. She says, “There’s this whole other area of country music that’s actually the roots of country, which is Black country musicians and female country musicians and traditional American Appalachia country music.”
Perhaps surprisingly, Chabon admits that she once claimed to dislike country music but over time realized her childhood had instilled in her a love of the genre. Her dad played a diverse range of music growing up, including a lot of ’60s era country artists, such as Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline. It was only as she got older, and partly because of a summer spent living in Tennessee, that Chabon came to appreciate the country music of her childhood and explore the genre on her own.
Each week, Chabon bases her show around a different theme in country music, like cheating, getting drunk or heartbreak. With a long-running show, Chabon says, “I’m not so much concerned with keeping themes fresh as I am with keeping the artists new.”
Besides getting the opportunity to share her love of country, Chabon says one perk of being a DJ on WVKR is that she can play her friend’s music that might not get air on other stations. She also loves getting engagement from listeners, like when they call in to show their appreciation for the show. Finally, she adds, “I listen to music all the time, but I love having one really conscious hour where I have to be on the music, listening to music, making sure I’m fading it in properly and I think I’m giving it more attention than I usually do than casual listening.”
If you are hoping to get into country music, Chabon relays, “I would say Tyler Childers, Patsy Cline and Charley Crockett are three artists that I would suggest.”
On the Road: Esther Cull-Kahn ’26
Listen on Mondays at 11 p.m. to 12 a.m.
Cull-Kahn’s show “On the Road” explores how we connect specific music to the changes in our lives by interviewing people about songs that were meaningful to them during times of transition. She says, “I feel like personally I have a hard time transitioning, and I am quite a sentimental person. Endings are really hard, and I feel like I channel that through the music I listened to.” Cull-Kahn adds that music has the power to transport her back in time: “I’m just really brought back to the season and the weather and the people in my life at that time.”
Though Cull-Kahn had a show last semester, “On the Road” focuses on a new theme. She is looking forward to getting to know people better through her interviews and exploring how people use music to fill their emotional needs. She says, “I feel like music either defines how you’re feeling or sets you up to feel a certain way,” adding that music can make it easier to relate to something greater than oneself.
She is also excited to see what different kinds of music people associate with transition, saying, “I really feel like it can be a range, especially depending on the nature of a transition: whether it’s positive, nostalgic or sad. I feel like I usually always associate transitions with bittersweet, sad times.”
Noise Complaint: Elias Gorant ’26, Richard Murphy ’26 and Julian Young ’26
Listen on Tuesdays at 7 a.m. to 8 a.m.
What is noise in music? This is the question Gorant, Murphy and Young are trying to answer with their radio show “Noise Complaint.” As three friends with different but overlapping music tastes, Gorant said of the theme, “It felt like a topic we could come together on and learn a lot about.”
When explaining what noise really is, Young said, “It can be an effect or a hyper-exaggerated kind of sound that is not in conventional music or doesn’t have a conventional melody.” When throwing out examples of noise, Gorant and Young listed sampling, distortion, guitar pedals, boombox static or even the sound of a staple gun.
Each show will focus on a different effect, genre or way noise is expressed. From there, the three will continue to explore questions of what noise is and how and why it is employed. Gorant adds, “I’m excited to really push the boundaries of what I even considered music to be. I think I’m excited about how it’s going to challenge me in that way.”
Sonic Foreplay: Marily Mez-Benitez ’26 and Andrew Maza ’26
Listen on Sundays at 2 a.m. to 3 a.m.
The story of Mez-Benitez and Maza’s radio show begins at an L.A. Witch concert in Brooklyn in the Summer of 2022. The concert was their first meeting, and after realizing they would be attending the same college, the two became fast friends. Their shared love of concerts, with Maza’s concert count at 14 and Meza-Benitez’s at 32, inspired their show theme and title, “Sonic Foreplay.”
The title is a play on words that invokes the theme of the show, which is a deep dive into opening acts. Each week, the two will choose an artist who is currently on tour and play a range of bands that have opened for that artist on both their current and previous tours.
With this show, Mez-Benitez says she is looking forward to “Researching openings and tours… And also, reaching out to the Vassar community or the Poughkeepsie community to see what artists they would like to see us play.” Maza adds, “I like doing projects with people, they connect me really well with them. So just to bond over music much more, for an hour, late at night on a Sunday, I think is going to be really fun.”
