From the Top, a nonprofit public radio program that has championed young classical musicians for 25 years, will now be moving to North Texas as it becomes part of the KERA public radio station. 

Based in Dallas, Texas, KERA is deeply committed to education as part of its mission, and this acquisition of From the Top will help elevate its current music and education programming, said KERA President and CEO Nico Leone.

Heard on nearly 200 stations across the country, From the Top airs locally on Saturdays at noon on WRR101.1 FM — a station owned by the City of Dallas and that has been managed by KERA since 2023.

From the Top will officially join KERA from May 2026, and will continue to be distributed by NPR.

“We always thought that our best path to growing WRR and reaching young audiences would be to start doing more work in the music education space with partners,” Leone said. “And when this opportunity came about, we just thought it was such a beautiful way of bringing so many different things that we do together to take a great national brand and a program that has an incredible impact to move it to North Texas.”

“The more we learned about [KERA] and the ways in which it aligns from mission to programming and then the opportunities that exist within the arts community in Dallas and the new building that's underway, all of that coalesced into view and felt like it could be a really beautiful step,” added Gretchen Nielsen, executive director of From the Top. 

KERA’s new relationship with From the Top comes after federal funding cuts and the dissolution of the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. 

“[These factors have] really given us a couple of years to figure out what things are going to look like moving forward,” Leone explained. “We're still going to need help from the community, but we feel really good about where we are and all the ways that people have stepped up.”

“We're not spending a dollar on this acquisition. [From the Top are] essentially folding into KERA,” he continued. “We’re not using any donor money, any campaign money for this. We feel really good about our ability to run it both as a stand-alone business, so it can succeed on its own, and integrate it into our work with WRR, with KERA and with other partners in the arts community.”

This new acquisition comes as KERA prepares for two major projects, including its new building this March and plans to launch a local daily news program in the spring. 

KERA’s operations also include KERA News, KERA-TV, the nationally syndicated podcast and radio program Think with Krys Boyd, the music station KXT 91.7, and the Denton Record-Chronicle.