The Gryphon Trio, from left, Annalee Patipatanakoon, Jamie Parker and Roman Borys, performs at the CBC's Toronto Broadcast Centre on Tuesday. (Jessica Wong/CBC)With a goal of highlighting the diversity of Canada's music scene to its listeners, CBC Radio hosted a launch event in Toronto on Tuesday, two weeks before revamped Radio 2 daytime programs hit the airwaves.

New hosts Molly Johnson, Julie Nesrallah and Rich Terfry, as well as CBC regular Tom Allen, via video, took the stage at the Broadcast Centre during the midday showcase, which gave media representatives, members of the Canadian music community and CBC staffers an idea of what to expect come Sept. 2.

Punctuating the event were lively performances by Alex Cuba, the Gryphon Trio, Divine Brown and Basia Bulat — representing the range of genres that will be featured on the dial starting next month.

Chris Boyce, programming director for CBC English Radio, likened the new mix to "an incredibly well-loaded iPod."

"If you look at what most people have on their iPods, it's not restricted to one genre of music or just a collection of 50 or 100 songs," he told CBC News. "I don't think you should expect anything less from your radio station."

When this third wave of Radio 2 changes was announced earlier this year, a flood of complaints poured in, with many critics objecting to the network reducing the amount of classical music on the station. The news also came amid the CBC's decision to disband the venerable CBC Radio Orchestra and both sparked protests across the country.

Classical music will continue to be the largest musical genre represented on Radio 2, Boyce reiterated on Tuesday.

However, "as a public broadcaster, our reason for being is to reflect Canada to Canadians and to reach Canadians," he said, adding that one of his measures of success will be if Radio 2 has "a diversified audience listening to a diversified range of music."

Nesrallah, an Ottawa-based mezzo-soprano, will be hosting Tempo, a classical music show from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays. She called her new gig "a win-win situation."

'Fun and accessible and smart'

She admitted that tackling the five-hour block "is a huge responsibility," but added that she wants "to make it fun and accessible and smart because [classical music] is all those things."

Like Nesrallah, Terfry says he plans to balance his performing career (as hip hop artist Buck 65) with his new radio duties.

Divine Brown also took the stage for Tuesday's event to mark the launch of new Radio 2 programs this fall. (Jessica Wong/CBC)He sympathizes with worried classical music buffs. However, he also sees the format change as a way to spotlight other underrepresented but excellent musicians who don't get regular airplay on Canadian radio.

"If I was face-to-face to a naysayer, I would say, 'Seriously, I can understand you're upset, but would you ... have this radio station 100 per cent dominated by [classical] ... and say to someone like Ron Sexsmith, 'You do not deserve to be played on the radio at all?' I don't believe that anyone would really feel that way," he said.

Terfry, who recalled "playing radio" with his friends as a child and will host the songwriter-focused afternoon show Drive, feels that much of the anxiety is coming from fans who don't want to see Radio 2 become like "commercial-heavy, super-slick, overly produced radio with off-colour jokes and obnoxious this, that and sound effects."

He believes that many will be relieved after tuning in to the new shows.

"I think it's only going to take a few days on the air for a lot of those people to say, 'I was imagining something really bad and this is actually really great and not what I was afraid of at all,' " Terfry said.

"I don't think it's going to take long for people to really get behind what we're doing."

In addition to the new daytime radio shows, including CBC host Jurgen Gothe's new program Farrago and Radio 2 Morning, hosted weekdays by Allen and weekends by Johnson, the network is expanding its web offerings with four new dedicated online music channels dedicated to classical, jazz, Canadian songwriters and Canadian composers.