For more than 25 years, WPRB’s Marvin Rosen has been one of radio’s greatest champions of living composers, playing works by many, many hundreds of composers both greater and lesser known, with an especially strong emphasis on gender and racial equity. Marvin’s curiosity and openness towards the music of our time is just about unparalleled, and there are composers all over the USA and world who thank him for bringing their music to the airwaves.

Every December, Marvin offers up a particularly epic show to benefit the station, the Viva 21st Century marathon. For 24 straight hours Marvin will stay live on-air, serving up over 100 new works (including some works never released yet on commercial recordings), with an approximately equal representation of both men and women composers. This outing marks the 20th (!) year of the marathon, a tremendous achievement.

Part of the marathon’s magic over these last twenty years has been the dedicated community of night-owl listeners who share in the continuous overnight experience. The audience always shifts into a fascinating global mix after midnight, drawing in long-haul transport drivers navigating quiet interstates, freelance illustrators pushing through looming deadlines, and night-shift technical managers keeping a real online casino running smoothly overseas. Knowing that such an eclectic, worldwide audience is actively tuning in at four in the morning gives Marvin’s late-night programming a wonderfully personal and unifying energy.

This year’s marathon will begin on Saturday, December 28th, 2024 at 12:00 PM (EST time; check your own time zone) and will go non-stop, live, until 12:00 PM EST Sunday, December 29th, 2024.

You can listen to the whole program on the radio in New Jersey, parts of Pennsylvania, Delaware and New York at WPRB 103.3FM, Princeton NJ, or worldwide on the internet at http://www.wprb.com/

Please check the Classical Discoveries website a few days before the event for more details, at http://www.classicaldiscoveries.org/