Never has an FUV fundraising benefit been more abundant with love, laughter, euphoric grooves and free-flowing champagne than WFUV's 2022 High Line Bash this past Friday night, May 13, returning after a two-year hiatus.
New York radio mainstay Rita Houston, who served as program director and on-air host at Fordham University’s WFUV, died Tuesday (December 15) after a six-year battle with cancer. Houston had stepped down from her role at WFUV earlier this month to spend time with her family. She was 59.
Houston was program director at the New York City public radio station for more than 25 years. She first came to WFUV in 1994 from Westchester, New York’s WXPS, where she had hosted the program
Starlight Express. After a stint as a midday DJ, she started the Friday-night show
The Whole Wide World, giving her a platform to highlight new artists from around the world. A renowned tastemaker with an outsized presence in New York City’s live music scene, she would help shape the station’s programming from mostly folk and Americana to include modern sounds with a more global perspective.
[It is with great sadness that we at WFUV share news that we have lost
Rita Houston, our much-loved program director and iconic DJ to generations of listeners listeners who regarded her as their radio friend. Rita left this world this morning, December 15, 2020, in the loving company of her wife and our colleague, Laura Fedele, and her family. Our hearts are with Laura, with Rita’s sister Deb, her brothers Rich and Rob, and their families, and the family of her late brother, Bill. Read the statement from Chuck Singleton, FUV s general manager, here.]
The Oxford dictionary’s definition of music “the art of combining vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion describes Rita Houston too. Over the 26 years that she redefined WFUV’s programming, she also influenced the national scope of public radio. She wasn’t just a tastemaker, but an apostle of artistry: Rita was driven by a singular love of songwriters. Sh