Concert Conversation Guest Speaker Bio

Robert McBride

Robert McBride can be heard on All Classical FM from 1 to 5 p.m. weekdays. He also hosts and produces Club Mod, a program about modernism in music. Club Mod, airing Saturday evenings, not only explores the ways composers of the past have pushed the envelope musically, but also presents works by the composers of today.

Robert grew up in Idaho, but he started his radio career at KWAX in Eugene and was the music director at OPB Radio in Portland for nine years. He has also worked at classical radio stations in Seattle, Buffalo and elsewhere, and free-lanced for National Public Radio in Washington, DC. He says his career highlights include recording concerts at the Oregon Bach Festival, occasionally hosting Performance Today and co-producing two live, nation-wide broadcasts of Handel's Messiah, performed by the Portland Baroque Orchestra and Chorus. He's also a percussionist and a composer. Robert was commissioned by Portland's Columbia Symphony Orchestra to write a work for their 25th anniversary season, which was premiered in February of 2007. His first choral work was premiered by the Portland Symphonic Girlchoir in December of 2007.

Robert and his wife Monette share their home with a cat named Sashamoto, and a dog named Bodinski.