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Met Debuts On the Air

December 31, 2022, 12:00 pm

Soprano Kiri Te Kanawa made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Desdemona in Verdi's Otello in a Saturday matinee broadcast on February 9, 1974 (Photo: Metropolitan Opera Archives)

Highlights of artists making their Metropolitan Opera debuts during live broadcasts, including sopranos Bidu Sayão, Kiri Te Kanawa, and Astrid Varnay and conductor Sir Georg Solti.

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Meet the Host

Debra Lew Harder joined the on-air staff of WRTI in 2016. She hosted and produced a range of programming across WRTI on-air and digital platforms, such as Midday Classics and Saturday Morning Classical Coffeehouse, in addition to serving as an artist interviewer for the Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcasts. She is a concert pianist who has performed with orchestras and in recitals, including at Wigmore Hall in London, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago, and Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. She has also recorded two solo piano albums.

Lew Harder holds Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Medicine degrees from Kent State University and Northeast Ohio Medical University. She practiced as an emergency room physician before earning a second doctorate in music from the Ohio State University, where she studied piano with the American virtuoso Earl Wild.

Lew Harder served on the applied music faculty of Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges, and she is the co-director of Medicine + Music, a co-curricular program at Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University that works closely with medical students through coachings, rehearsals, workshops, and performance opportunities to enhance their happiness and development as physicians.

Through the Night with Peter van de Graaff

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Met Debuts On the Air