Bill McGlaughlin

William McGlaughlin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 3, 1943, the oldest of six children of Catharine Hogan McGlaughlin, a high school English teacher, and William McGlaughlin Sr., a draftsman. He spent part of his childhood living with his Scottish-American grandfather, an influence that, along with his Philadelphia upbringing, shaped his distinctive accent.

Music filled the house. His father never learned to read music but played keyboards, accordion and the ocarina, and never missed the Saturday Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. He gave young Bill a Hohner harmonica and showed him a scale, and the two played Stephen Foster songs, the Marine Corps Hymn and even the drinking song from La Traviata together. His grandmother played Beethoven, Victor Herbert and Chopin; the Chopin A major Prelude was his favorite.

He had no formal music lesson until his early teens, when his mother arranged piano lessons with a nun who taught in the neighborhood. After his second lesson, he later wrote, he thought to himself, "Well, that's it. I'll be a musician." That first summer he practiced up to eight hours a day on an old upright piano where only half the keys worked.

At sixteen he met his high school band director, Donald S. Reinhardt, a Curtis Institute graduate famous among brass players as a "chops doctor." Reinhardt handed him a baritone horn, and McGlaughlin soon moved on to the trombone.

He studied at Temple University in Philadelphia, earning a Bachelor of Music in 1967 and a Master of Music in conducting in 1969, studying with Robert Page. He also received private instruction from William R. Smith, associate conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and from Max Rudolf. While still a freshman, at 18, he became band and orchestra director at Bishop Shanahan High School in West Chester, Pennsylvania, on Reinhardt's recommendation, and six years of school teaching paid for his undergraduate tuition.

At twenty he was chosen to play in one of the antiphonal brass bands for Eugene Ormandy's Philadelphia Orchestra performances of the Berlioz Requiem. He worked with the orchestra over the next six years and was assistant principal trombone for the 1967 to 1968 season. From 1969 to 1975 he was co-principal trombone of the Pittsburgh Symphony under William Steinberg, who encouraged his interest in conducting.

In 1973 Georg Solti told him he would need an orchestra to practice with, so McGlaughlin formed several ensembles in Pittsburgh, including the Pittsburgh Camerata and the Pittsburgh Symphony Players. In 1975 he received the Exxon-Arts Conducting Endowment and joined the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, serving as assistant conductor and then associate conductor until 1982.

He went on to be music director of the Eugene Symphony (1981 to 1985), the Tucson Symphony Orchestra (1982 to 1987), the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra (1986 to 1988) and the Kansas City Symphony (1986 to 1998). In Kansas City he expanded the repertoire, commissioned new works, recorded albums including music by Anthony Davis, and led two national television broadcasts, among them a holiday special with the King's Singers. He also guest conducted orchestras across the United States.

In Saint Paul in the late 1970s McGlaughlin often spoke to audiences before concerts. Garrison Keillor heard him and invited him to fill in on his Minnesota Public Radio morning show, and MPR producer Tom Voegeli created a new program for him. Saint Paul Sunday debuted locally in 1980 and was syndicated nationally from 1981, featuring top soloists and ensembles performing live in the studio and talking with McGlaughlin. It became one of the most widely heard classical programs in American public radio and won a Peabody Award in 1995.

In November 2002 WFMT general manager Steve Robinson, armed with a National Endowment for the Arts grant, recruited him for a new daily show. Exploring Music began airing in October 2003. Each week explored a single theme in five hour-long episodes, and McGlaughlin wrote its theme music. It was regarded as the heir to Karl Haas's Adventures in Good Music and at its peak reached about 400,000 listeners in the United States.

He also co-hosted Center Stage from Wolf Trap from 1999, hosted the relaunched Concerts from the Library of Congress from 2007, appeared on NPR, PRI, PBS and BBC programs, and from 2020 co-hosted B&K Cafe with Karrin Allyson on WWFM The Classical Network. Asked how he approached hosting, he said he pretended he was talking to his dad.

McGlaughlin championed living composers throughout his conducting career and in 1998 left Kansas City for New York City to compose full time. His first major work, Three Dreams and a Question: Choral Songs on e.e. cummings, was prompted by the death of a friend and premiered with the Kansas City Symphony on April 28, 1998.

Chosen from some 350 composers for the Continental Harmony millennium project of the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Composers Forum, he wrote Walt Whitman's Dream, premiered in July 2000 with a combined chorus of nearly 800 singers. Remembering Icarus drew the largest and most heartfelt listener response of its week on NPR's Performance Today in December 2005. Other works include Aaron's Horizons, a tribute to Aaron Copland; Angelus, a remembrance of September 11; Echoes for horn trio; Bagatelles for saxophone quartet; The Heart's Light: An Essay for Orchestra; Bela's Bounce, an homage to Bartok and Charlie Parker; Surveying Lake Wobegon; and Solstice: A Fantasy on Old English Carols. The Chicago Tribune counted some 20 works in all.

McGlaughlin met jazz vocalist and pianist Karrin Allyson in Kansas City in 1990. He co-produced and assisted on most of her albums and often joined her on tour. After 35 years together they married in 2025. He had two children, Kathleen McGlaughlin and Bill Timothy McGlaughlin, from an earlier marriage, and a grandson, Beryl Lovejoy McGlaughlin. His surviving siblings were Jake McGlaughlin, Kathleen Gillespie, Dick McGlaughlin, Tom McGlaughlin and Ed McGlaughlin. He lived in Manhattan's Upper West Side, was an avid reader, and remained a fan of Kansas City, closing his last essay with "Go Chiefs!"

McGlaughlin saw his broadcasting as outreach, a way to keep classical music from becoming marginalized and to reach new and younger audiences. Allyson said he never lorded his knowledge over anybody and wanted to interview everybody and learn about them. As a composer he described his style as more intuitive than intellectual and did not shun tonality, saying that when composers turn completely away from it they lose a big part of storytelling. In his final essay he urged young people to see music as one of the most rewarding paths they could take.

Critics and colleagues credited McGlaughlin with opening classical music to millions. Former Chicago Tribune critic John von Rhein praised his "folksy but informed manner," which pulled thousands of listeners into the classical experience. WFMT called Exploring Music a defining presence in its programming, and WWFM's station manager Alice Weiss said listeners always enjoyed his ability to connect with them in the shared experience of exploring and loving music. As conductor in Kansas City he left the symphony in a state described at the time as one of unparalleled artistic and financial success.

Exxon-Arts Conducting Endowment, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (1975 to 1978). ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming with the Kansas City Symphony (1984, 1988, 1993, 1997, 1998). ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for Saint Paul Sunday (1990). Honorary doctorate, Westminster College, Missouri (1990). Peabody Award for Saint Paul Sunday (1995). Honorary doctorate, Rockhurst University (1997). Fine Arts Radio International Lifetime Achievement Award (2004). Boyer Tribute Award, Temple University (2007). Dushkin Award, Music Institute of Chicago, for Exploring Music (2008). Association of Music Personnel in Public Radio Lifetime Achievement Award (2011).

At the end of 2025 WFMT did not renew McGlaughlin's annual contract amid several host changes at the Chicago station, and his final Exploring Music series, on the Belle Epoque, was cut in half. He told the Chicago Tribune in December 2025 that he had been given no reason: "I'm getting a lot of no-answers. It's just a strange way to end a 22-year-long commitment." WFMT continued airing archival and previously recorded episodes, and named Peter van de Graaff as the new host.

Bill McGlaughlin died on July 21, 2026, at his home on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He was 82. His wife, Karrin Allyson, said the cause was sudden cardiac arrest. She announced his death on Facebook, writing that she was grateful for kindness, prayers and "the privacy to honor a life deeply loved and forever remembered." Three days before he died he drafted an essay for Classical KC about his musical beginnings, which was published posthumously on July 28, 2026. In lieu of flowers, Allyson encouraged listeners to donate to their local library in his honor. His last recorded Exploring Music episodes aired through the week of August 17, 2026, before Peter van de Graaff began as host the week of August 24.