This week, one of the hottest shows on TV today, "Dancing with the Stars," has embraced classical music for the second year in a row. Elliott Forrest thinks it's a good thing.

A new organization is bringing chamber music to informal venues around the city, including restaurants, cafés and wine bars. Elliott Forrest reports from a former auto-repair shop.

This last Wednesday I attended The Book Of Mormon, the new Broadway musical from the team who created South Park. Then on Thursday I saw the current revival of the classic musical How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying staring Daniel Radcliffe, of Harry Potter fame. Just for fun I’d like to compare the two and make the case that How To Succeed is the more offensive of the two.

In advance of this weekend's game, we’ve identified some current and previous Super Bowl ads that prominently feature symphonic music. Have a look and tell us why classical music is often used to sell everything from cars to soda.

Ok, I admit it. One of my guilty pleasures is getting lost on YouTube. While I hear most of America zeros in on cats doing funny things or the latest teenager doing something stupid, I find myself drawn to old TV shows. How could you not watch Salvador Dali on What's My Line? These clips give us a window into a different time and culture and there’s plenty about classical music to watch.

This holiday season WQXR and WNYC are broadcasting a radio drama version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol with David Hyde Pierce as Scrooge and many of your favorite public radio hosts as narrators and characters. Composer John Forster played piano and A Prairie Home Companion's Fred Newman performed stunning live sound effects.

As the New Year approaches, people always talk about their resolutions, primarily what they plan to do. But what about what you plan not to do? I saw a piece on the news about a woman who was encouraging mothers not to volunteer so much! Horrors! Seems like a very non-PC thing to say, but what with PTA, non-profits, religious and other volunteer organizations, people are finding less time for their themselves, family and friends.

We at WQXR are putting together a very special CD. The theme is New York. So if you live in New York, used to live in New York, wish to live in New York or have heard of New York – we want to know what classical music you’d want on such a recording -- and why?

WQXR has a new logo. Much thought went into the color, font and musical notation for it. Perhaps you know what the two dots and two lines mean? Perhaps you don’t. Perhaps you see it as an emoticon.

I am not a stickler type person. I recognize that the English language is a flexible, ever changing colorful source of communication. BUT, I do have a bit of a pet peeve.

I have only a few rules in my life and one of them is when asked to host at Carnegie Hall, I always say yes. Such was the case many years ago when I was asked to appear for a few minutes, mid concert, with The New York Youth Symphony. After hearing everything from 1st graders to high schoolers play, I was not sure what to expect. But within minutes of hearing these remarkable young people, I was blown away.

Recently the much loved opera tenor Placido Domingo stepped on stage into his 131st role at the age of 69 after undergoing colon cancer surgery. While he had given millions of opera lovers decades of joy and zillions of notes, how was he thanked? By being booed! People paid good money and sat for hours to see a super star in the world of opera return after a possibly life threatening illness--and he was booed!!

Mother’s Day is coming up and we’d like to invite you to contribute some fun musical programming ideas. What comes to your mind when you mix classical music and mothers?

Mondays through April bring back a long running vocal recital series to WQXR. On Wings of Song was the brain child of mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne. The series started on stages in 1995 and shortly after that, on the radio. But this series is coming to a halt. Or rather, a change. After this season, it will be folded into The Song Continues, a series at Carnegie Hall.

Did you start to learn an instrument or start to take voice lessons ‘later in life’? Are you afraid you won’t really master it, because you’ve started later, or does that matter? I’d like to hear your stories.