Dear Maestro
Includes transcripts
The untold story of classical music fandom.
What does it mean to “be a fan” of something? We usually associate the phrase with raucous sports enthusiasts or wild popular music devotees – the likes of Swifties and Stans, Beatlemaniacs or the Beyhive. With its silent audiences and erudite atmosphere, classical music probably doesn’t spring immediately to mind.
But classical music fandom totally exists, and we’ve got the receipts to prove it!
Join hosts Dr. Kate Guthrie and Dr. Flora Willson on a journey through the untold story of classical music fandom. In Series 1, we uncover a historic collection of fan mail sent to none other than the Leonard Bernstein – composer of West Side Story, celebrity conductor, and pin-up for a generation of classical music lovers. We also interrogate some of the original fan mail writers, asking what motivated them to put pen to paper over a half a century ago.
Always entertaining, at times deeply moving, and sometimes rather raunchy, Dear Maestro gives a glimpse into the feverish desires and heart-felt longing that drive people’s passion for classical music.
Find out more at https://www.dearmaestro.org or get in touch at hello@dearmaestro.org
© 2026 Dear Maestro · more info
Artwork and data is from the podcast’s open RSS feed; we link directly to audio · Read our DMCA procedure
Listen and follow
Apple PodcastsInformation for podcasters
- Podcast GUID:
37047b94-0c61-5652-aa87-4b23e1982cf8 - This podcast doesn’t have a trailer. Apple Podcasts has a specific episode type for a trailer, which also gets used by many other podcast apps: but there isn’t one correctly marked in the RSS feed from Buzzsprout.
- This podcast appears to be missing from Luminary and iHeartRadio. We list all the podcast directories to be in.
- Validate this podcast’s RSS feed with Livewire, Truefans or CastFeedValidator