Martin Julian Goldsmith (born August 18, 1952) is an American radio personality and an author, best known as a

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

host on

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

and

Sirius XM Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting corporation headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. The company was formed by the 2008 merge ...

, and for a book about his parents' experiences as Jewish musicians in Nazi Germany.

Biography

Born in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

, Goldsmith is the son of Gunther Goldschmidt, a flutist from

Oldenburg Oldenburg may also refer to: Places * Mount Oldenburg, Ellsworth Land, Antarctica *Oldenburg (city), an independent city in Lower Saxony, Germany **Oldenburg (district), a district historically in Oldenburg Free State and now in Lower Saxony * Ol ...

, Germany, and Rosemarie Gumpert Goldschmidt, a violist. After emigrating to the United States, his mother was for 21 years a member of the

St. Louis Symphony Orchestra The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1880 by Joseph Otten as the St. Louis Choral Society, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra is the second-oldest professional symphony or ...

."Goldsmith, Martin 1952-"
Contemporary Authors (January 1, 2005)PBS NewsHour

(November 21, 2000) Goldsmith received a bachelor's degree from

Johns Hopkins Johns Hopkins (May 19, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was an American merchant, investor, and philanthropist. Born on a plantation, he left his home to start a career at the age of 17, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where he remained for mos ...

. From 1971 to 1975 he was a radio host, musical producer, and writer at classical radio station WCLV, in Cleveland, Ohio. He joined

WETA-FM WETA (90.9 FM) is a non-commercial, public FM radio station licensed to serve Washington, D.C., broadcasting a classical music format. Its studios are located in Arlington, Virginia and its broadcast tower is located near Arlington at (). W ...

, Washington, D.C., in 1975, serving as producer, announcer, music director, and, eventually, program director. In 1987 he joined National Public Radio as a music producer for ''

Performance Today ''Performance Today'' is a classical music radio program, first aired in 1987 and hosted since 2000 by Fred Child. It is the most listened-to daily classical music radio program in the United States, with 1.2 million listeners on 237 stations. ...

''. From 1989 to 1999 he hosted that program; he became its senior commentator in 1999. He then moved to

XM Satellite Radio XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (XM) was one of the three satellite radio ( SDARS) and online radio services in the United States and Canada, operated by Sirius XM Holdings. It provided pay-for-service radio, analogous to subscription cable ...

, where he serves as director of classical music programming and is frequently heard on Sirius XM's Symphony Hall channel. Goldsmith has sung in the chorus of the

Baltimore Opera Company The Baltimore Opera Company (BOC) was an opera company in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, based at the Baltimore Lyric Opera House. On March 12, 2009, the 58-year-old opera company announced plans to pursue Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidatio ...

and made a guest appearance with the

Washington Opera Washington National Opera (WNO) is an American opera company in Washington, D.C. Formerly the Opera Society of Washington and the Washington Opera, the company received Congressional designation as the National Opera Company in 2000. Performance ...

. He has also acted in many roles in Washington-area theaters, including Arena Stage. He plays the

French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most o ...

. His music reviews have appeared in ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

''.

Books

*''The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany'', John Wiley & Sons, 2001, - details his parents' experiences in the

Jüdischer Kulturbund , or (with the definite article) , was a cultural federation of German Jews established in 1933. It hired over 1,300 men and 700 women artists, musicians, and actors fired from German institutions. According to Jonathan C. Friedman, it grew to appr ...

, an all-Jewish orchestra maintained by the Nazis between 1933 and 1941. *''The Beatles Come to America'' Wiley, 2004, *

Film

*''Winter journey'' (Winterreise), a 2019 documentary with feature film elements starring

Bruno Ganz Bruno Ganz (; 22 March 1941 – 16 February 2019) was a Swiss actor whose career in German stage, television and film productions spanned nearly 60 years. He was known for his collaborations with the directors Werner Herzog, Éric Rohmer, Franc ...

by Danish director Anders Østergaard. The film is based on Goldsmiths' book ''The Inextinguishable Symphony''. Goldsmith is narrating the story.

Awards

Goldsmith's awards include

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

's Cultural Leadership Citation (1998) and, for Performance Today, a

George Foster Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor what are described as the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in ...

(1998).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Goldsmith, Martin American writers about music American classical music critics Classical music radio presenters American radio personalities Radio personalities from Washington, D.C. American writers about the Holocaust Jewish American non-fiction writers Jewish American memoirists American male non-fiction writers 21st-century American Jews 1952 births Living people