Live local performances and concert recordings have become a major focus for Davidson College-based classical music radio station WDAV-FM, 89.9, over the past two years. Now, the station has reached an agreement that will put the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra back on the local airwaves for the next three years.

Warren-Green

The symphony and WDAV announced Monday that WDAV will produce and broadcast seven Charlotte Symphony classical concerts annually through 2013. The three-year agreement begins immediately. The first concert will be a live broadcast Friday, Sept. 24, at 7 p.m. of the orchestra’s season opener, which also is the debut of new music director Christopher Warren-Green.

That concert will be the symphony’s first on WDAV since Sept. 13, 2008, when the station broadcast that year’s first concert as part of its 30th anniversary celebration. The new 7-concerts-per-year deal will make the symphony a regular feature on WDAV for the first time since the 1980s and 1990s, when most symphony concerts were broadcast on the station, according to symphony and station officials.

The agreement between WDAV, the orchestra management, and musicians’ representatives still must be approved by the full membership of Local 342 of the American Federation of Musicians, which represents the symphony’s players. They’re expected to vote on the deal the first week of September, a symphony spokeswoman said.

The deal is the latest sign of a renewed collaboration between WDAV and the orchestra, and comes as Mr. Warren-Green prepares to take up the baton. He is a veteran of radio, including in his role as music director at the London Chamber Orchestra.

In a statement Monday, he said: “I am absolutely thrilled by this agreement, which I view as a critical step to the future of this orchestra. The Charlotte Symphony belongs to the people of this community, and our presence on WDAV will bring the orchestra to everyone – into their homes, their cars, their offices.”

The symphony’s Orchestra Committee chair Frank Portone added: “This agreement represents a long-held desire by the musicians of the Charlotte Symphony to have a regular broadcast presence.”

While the first concert of the season will air live on Sept. 24, it’s likely that most future dates will be recorded and broadcast as part of WDAV’s “Carolina Live” series, which runs Saturdays from 3 to 5 p.m. That program is produced and broadcast jointly with South Carolina ETV Radio.

Ben Roe

“Since the show’s inception, we’ve regularly included live concert recordings from the Greensboro Symphony, The Asheville Symphony, the South Carolina Philharmonic, the Greenville (SC) Symphony, the Spoleto Festival Orchestra, and the Brevard Music Center Orchestra,” WDAV General Manager Benjamin K. Roe said in a press release. “Now, for the first time, we’ll be able to bring the crown-jewel orchestra of this region – The Charlotte Symphony Orchestra – to a wider and larger audience than at any time in the station’s history.”

The opening concert on Sept. 24 will be hosted by WDAV’s Jennifer Foster and Joe Brant and broadcast live on 89.9 from Blumenthal Performing Arts Center in Charlotte. The program includes the CSO debut of cellist Alisa Weilerstein, who will play the “Cello Concerto in E Minor” by Sir Edward Elgar.

More information is available at www.wdav.org or www.charlottesymphony.org