In April 2020, Charles Frederick Secrease joined WMNR Fine Arts Radio as the host of Wednesday Morning Classics. Charles is a lifelong radio listener who discovered WMNR via car radio when he moved to Connecticut. Fortunately for us, he heard our broadcaster recruitment spot and contacted the station.

After an 18 month absence Charles Frederick Secrease returns to WMNR when he begins on Monday October 3, 2026 from noon to 3 pm.

When Charles steps into the WMNR broadcast studio, he describes the experience as “Zen‑like.” His cell phone is off, the outside world fades, and for a few hours he is “one with the music and listeners I love.” It’s a return to his first artistic home —classical music—and a welcome balance to a creative life that spans performance, teaching, theater, and community arts.

Music has been part of Charles' world since childhood. Growing up in Western Massachusetts, he remembers classical music filling the house—whether from his parents, both classical pianists (as is he), or from being on WFCR, a non-commercial public radio station in Amherst. That early immersion shaped a lifelong passion that now extends across genres: jazz, musical theater, classic rock, and more. A love of music is also embraced by Charles' 12-year-old son, who plays electric guitar, bass and occasionally, drums, in an award-winning school rock band ("DLT").

“There is almost no part of my day now that doesn’t have music either playing in the background or being made by me, my son, or my musical colleagues,” Charles says.

On air, Charles enjoys guiding listeners through a broad musical journey. His playlists often move chronologically from Baroque and Classical to Romantic, Impressionist, and Contemporary works. “From Bach to Beethoven to John Williams, I’m all in,” he laughs. His ideal program blends clarity, balance, and emotional storytelling — qualities he learned from his father’s musicianship and carried into his own artistic life.

Storytelling is central to everything Charles does. With multiple degrees in music and theater and a long list of Shakespeare performances, he sees broadcasting as another form of guiding an audience through a journey. “There is some place we’d like to take you different from the one we’re at at the beginning of the program,” he says. “Just take our hand, close your eyes, listen, and trust us.”

Beyond WMNR, Charles is deeply involved with The Granite Church in Redding, CT, where he performs, directs, and helps shape an intimate arts space that brings music and theater directly to the community. “Community performance spaces allow people to feel a sense of ownership in the arts,” he explains. This fall, he will direct and star in Athol Fugard’s My Children! My Africa!—a powerful play exploring education, justice, and apartheid-era South Africa.