Ned Wharton

  • Doby Photography / NPR

Ned Wharton is a senior producer and music director for Weekend Edition.

At Weekend Edition, Wharton helps to supervise music continuity for the show, keeps tabs on what's new and noteworthy in the music world and produces many of the artist features heard on the program. The highlight of Wharton's role at NPR is the chance to meet—in person or over a satellite link—some of his musical idols, including Brian Eno, Joni Mitchell, Richard Thompson, Laurie Anderson, and Peter Gabriel and the opportunity to spark the careers of lesser-known musicians, like surf-noir band Big Lazy or the terrific Maine singer/songwriter Carol Noonan.

Wharton's work for Weekend Edition includes production of sound-rich news features. As a field producer, he traveled with former Weekend Edition Sunday host Liane Hansen to Egypt for a series of pieces on climate change. They also reported from Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and covered the economy and culture of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

For Weekend Edition Saturday, Wharton took to the sky with host Scott Simon and combat veterans in vintage jets for a feature on the Wounded Warrior program. Wharton produced several of Simon's signature music chats with Baltimore Symphony Music Director Marin Alsop.

Wharton joined NPR in 1989 to work as an arts editor/producer for the daily classical music program Performance Today.

Before coming to NPR, Wharton worked at NPR Member Station WNYC in New York, where he hosted the music program Mixdown and chamber music concert broadcasts from the Frick Collection, produced music features, and filled in on various and sundry classical shifts. Earlier in his career, Wharton spent a year in Paris hosting and producing "New Directions in Europe," a 13-part series highlighting new music activity in France, Germany, and Italy.

Outside of radio, Wharton has worked as a record producer. His credits include the album gListen by the New York-band Songs from a Random House (Bar/None Records) and I Heard It on NPR: Singers, Songs & Sessions, a collection of live performances recorded in NPR's Studio 4A. He served as a panelist at the South by Southwest music festival and at the NON-COMMvention, a radio and music industry gathering.

Wharton remains loyal to his North Dakota roots, serving on the Board of Trustees at the International Music Camp at the Peace Garden on the Canadian border.

Wharton's radio career began at his college station, KFJM in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He graduated with a degree in speech and an emphasis in radio and minors in music and French.

Marin Alsop On Her Swing Orchestra And Stepping Down From The Baltimore Symphony

By & • Apr 18, 2020

In this time of social distancing, hunkering down and chatting remotely, we might learn some new things about each other. For example, you might know Marin Alsop as the longtime music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, one of the leading figures in classical music around the world and a frequent guest on Weekend Edition. But you might not know that back in the 1980s, she also led a swing band.

After The Flames, Notre Dame's Centuries-Old Organ May Never Be The Same Again

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Olivier Latry, one of the chief organists at Notre Dame Cathedral, was the last artist to record on the famous instrument before the catastrophic fire on April 15 that damaged the church and caused its spire to collapse. This pipe organ is the largest in France and dates back centuries. Though it was spared from the flames, it will still require extensive renovation.

The Valkyrie Who Maxed Out Her Credit Cards: Christine Goerke Sings Brünnhilde

By , & • Mar 30, 2019

Christine Goerke is focused on endurance. The dramatic soprano is tackling one of the most challenging roles in opera: singing Brünnhilde, the Valkyrie maiden warrior, in Richard Wagner's epic, Der Ring des Nibelungen, at New York's Metropolitan Opera. Otherwise known as the Ring cycle, the 16-hour saga spans four operas and tells the story of gods, monsters, humans and an insatiable urge to own an all-powerful golden ring.

A 'Cosmic Connection' Between 2 Violinists

By • Oct 28, 2018

Since the late 1960s, NPR's Ned Wharton's brother Geoffry Wharton has worked as a professional violinist in Europe. Wharton often played jazzy pieces by a rather obscure composer named Audrey Call as encores. Maybe to Europeans it was the exotic sound of jazz being played at classical concerts that won their hearts, but Call's "Witch of Harlem" became a hit within Wharton's performances.