I was also able to present local music through a two-hour showcase program called In Concert. I learned a lot from playing all those recordings over the years. There was a lot of music mixed in then with the anchor programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
In 1992, an on-air announcer left, and I was hired full time as a music host at WMUK. I was 19 and started as a student operator at WMUK (102.1 FM), and that is the end of the story, because I never left. Before I came to Western, I wrote to WMUK's general manager (then Floyd Pientka) and said, "I love public radio, and I would be honored to have a student intern or a student operator position at WMUK." Little did I know, that was something he hadn't seen before, and (he) was really impressed that I had reached out before I got to Kalamazoo. After I graduated, I went to Northwestern Michigan College (in Traverse City) to figure out what to do next and decided to come to Western Michigan University's School of Music.
My parents divorced, my mom was in Michigan, and I had to the chance to go to Interlochen Center for the Arts. I didn't know anything about music, but somebody had helpfully put stars next to each song on every album, so I would see four stars and know it was probably pretty good and play it." How did you get to Michigan and WMUK? "I loved it and volunteered at the community radio station, just filling up a music hour. It had dramatic comedy, music and was a national reflection of Canadians," she says. "In that cabin, without television, my sister and I listened to CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) Radio, which covered a lot more than news. That rustic life also introduced Lieurance to public radio. Rustic living was something I was acquainted with pretty early." He fixed up an auxiliary building for me and my sister, which was also a cabin and had wood heat. "I was about 9 when he bought a farm, and we basically lived in a cabin on it. "He taught high school music but also formed other groups to keep adults playing and kids playing and ran the Kiwanis band," she explains. Her father, who taught her to play the flute, was "kind of the music man in town," she says. The 51-year-old, who will be awarded a Community Medal of Arts this month for her more than 30-year career promoting local music and arts in Kalamazoo, grew up in Dawson's Creek, British Columbia. To hear WMUK announcer Cara Lieurance's lyrical, soothing voice describing classical music on air, one would never guess her musical and public-radio life began in a rustic log cabin in the woods of northern Canada.