Mindy Ratner is a host and producer on the Classical Music Service of Minnesota Public Radio, where she is heard on weekends. She began her career in public broadcasting following her graduation from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, working first for the local public television station and then for Wisconsin Public Radio. She moved on to stations in Cincinnati and Philadelphia before joining Minnesota Public Radio in 1983. In 1998 and '99, Ratner took a leave of absence to work as a music host and producer for China Radio International in Beijing.
This archive collection features news stories with Mindy as both interviewer and interviewee. To hear Mindy’s current contributions on air, explore her profile on YourClassical, where the above abstract was sourced.
(This collection was curated by Shandi Burrows, Archival Assistant)
June 20, 2003 - MPR’s Mindy Ratner interviews pianist Kevin Cole, one of the foremost interpreters of George Gershwin’s music, while he is visiting the Twin Cities to perform with the Minnesota Orchestra. In the interview Cole discusses how he became a Gershwin fan at a very early age.
October 21, 2003 - MPR Classical host, Mindy Ratner talks with Israeli-American violinist Itzhak Perlman while he is in St. Paul to play at the Shubert Club, his first Minnesota concert in over a decade. Perlman discusses how even after four decades as a top international performer, the music still moves him.
November 20, 2003 - Oleg Timofeyev plays and discusses a Russian seven-string guitar with MPR’s Mindy Ratner. Timofeyev learned the instrument so he could play medieval music, never dreaming the he would ever perform 20th century Russian music. Later he discovered the work of Georgian-born composer Matvei Pavlov-Azancheev, who created a body of work for the Russian seven-string guitar while imprisoned in a Soviet labor camp during Stalin’s regime.
May 4, 2016 - A dozen years before the beginning of the Second World War, the Nazis began what would become the unparalleled slaughter of Europe’s “undesirables,” most of whom were Jews. Millions would die, but there were survivors as well, each with a unique story. Classical MPR’s Mindy Ratner has gathered a collection of conversations with some of those touched directly by the Holocaust and those conversations form the basis of Kaddish: Reflections on the Holocaust in Music and Words.
November 30, 2016 - Classical staff Brian Newhouse, Vaughn Ormseth, Mindy Ratner join Jack El-Hai to talk about the early days of MPR’s Classical station. In this MPR 50th anniversary interview, the staff talks about how the station started, how important the station is to the community, and the future of MPR Classical.