Beginning in 1962, Philadelphia station WCAU-TV (channel 10) broadcast an hour-long concert each spring featuring the Philadelphia Orchestra with two guest artiststypically a female vocalist and a male instrumentalist. Artists appearing in the annual broadcasts included Roberta Peters and nineteen-year-old Itzhak Perlman (1965), Mary Costa and Isaac Stern (1966), Rosalind Elias and Byron Janis (1967), Judith Raskin and Philippe Entremont (1968), and Teresa Stratas and the Romeros, a guitar quartet (1969).

Videotape was used regularly by television stations beginning in the late 1950s, so instead of broadcasting these concerts live, WCAU taped them several weeks or months in advance of their air dates, which usually were in May.