Jim Fleming

Jim Fleming was born in Madison, Wisconsin and grew up in Champaign, Illinois. He was smitten by radio during his college career, while an English major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Nineteen Sixties. He first joined Wisconsin Public Radio as a student volunteer.

Fleming was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, doing alternative service as a psychiatric aide in New Haven, CT.

He went on to forge a career in public broadcasting, returning to Madison to become associate producer, working for Karl Schmidt on the Peabody and Prix Italia Award-winning national radio drama project EARPLAY (1974-1975). Fleming was one of the original co-hosts/interviewers on Morning Report (1975) and went on to work as cultural producer/interviewer on the arts magazine Art and Soul (1977-1984). In 1974, he produced "The Snow Goose" (with Kerry Frumkin) and two years later their production of "Guernica" won the Ohio State Bicentennial Award.

For several years, Fleming has hosted classical music programs, combining his interests in the classics with his interest in discussing the arts. His arts interviews were a regular feature of the classical music programs Prelude and Sunday Morning with Jim Fleming. For more than two decades, he has been a reader for Chapter a Day, a program which brings the best literature to radio.

Fleming also has held a number of management positions: Wisconsin Public Radio's Music Director; Music and Arts Service Program Director; and Associate Director/Program Manager, overseeing Wisconsin Public Radio's programming through much of the 1980's.

In 1990, he got back to his first love -- producing radio programs -- when he joined the national production team of TO THE BEST OF OUR KNOWLEDGE.

flemingj@wpr.org