City Café

GPB RADIO

JOHN LEMLEY’S CITY CAFÉ PREMIERES ON GPB CLASSICAL APRIL 5

Host John Lemley

gpb.org/classical

Beginning Tuesday, April 5, listeners of GPB Classical will hear a new program joining the lineup. John Lemley’s City Café, hosted by well-known Atlanta media personality John Lemley, will air at 1 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays.

Lemley says the show’s playlist and presentation style were originally inspired by Classic FM, a commercial station in London.

“I feel like it’s a good, solid formula to sort of grab the ears and attention of listeners from multiple walks of life whether they are not familiar with classical at all, are casually acquainted with it, or know their Joseph Haydn scores inside and out,” said Lemley, who first began hosting and producing a variety of news and arts programs in Atlanta in 1997 for Atlanta NPR affiliate WABE.

In 2015, Lemley moved his cultural program, City Café to WMLB-Atlanta, which eventually went off the air. Now that the program is available across all of Georgia through GPB Classical, he says he hopes the show’s welcoming tone will help make classical music more accessible and relevant statewide.

“With every piece of music I play and every word I speak, my focus is on the listener’s lifestyle and what occupies their time during the early afternoon hours.”

- John Lemley

Plans for the program include a Top 500 playlist of classical music, mixing in some film scores, and video gaming music, which Lemley explained has become a successful platform for composers.

“With every piece of music I play and every word that I speak, my focus is on the listener’s lifestyle and what occupies their time during the early afternoon hours,” says Lemley. “Therefore, City Café’s playlist is bright and upbeat with occasional selections picked to add a little relaxation to their weekday. In essence, it’s classical music for modern life.”

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