Classical Music Is Houston's Best-Kept Secret

[Porchman]

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED - August 19, 2008

Education and musicians in residence fuel a robust contemporary classical scene in Houston, Texas. Groups such as Da Camera and Musiqa put on free shows in unexpected places like art museums, explain what people are about to hear and tell them what to listen for. They're supported by the success of the Houston Symphony and local public radio, which has helped build an open-minded audience around music that's both cerebral and fun.

NPR's Wade Goodwyn Reports

[ssullivan]

I should e-mail that link to everyone I know who lives outside Houston that swears that Houston is a complete cultural wasteland. Unfortunately I think a lot of people fail to realize all of the cultural amenities that Houston does offer. I know since I've moved away from Houston I've missed our fine arts scene a lot. It's definitely one of the city's best kept secrets

[editor]

I still think KRTS was the second best classical station I've ever heard. It wasn't all snobbish, playing atonal wailing crap just to keep its Public Radio badge of honor. It was a commercial station and played classical music that appealed to the masses... at least as far as there are classical music masses in Houston.

I remember the program it had called something like "Music Through The Night." It was classical music you could set your sleep timer to. Meanwhile over on KUHF it was all symbols crashing and horns blaring at 2:00am. Guess which station got my ears? KUHF never learned how to program music for the time of day, something that many other classical stations try hard to do.

[livincinco]

I should e-mail that link to everyone I know who lives outside Houston that swears that Houston is a complete cultural wasteland. Unfortunately I think a lot of people fail to realize all of the cultural amenities that Houston does offer. I know since I've moved away from Houston I've missed our fine arts scene a lot. It's definitely one of the city's best kept secrets

[crunchtastic]

Meanwhile over on KUHF it was all symbols crashing and horns blaring at 2:00am. Guess which station got my ears? KUHF never learned how to program music for the time of day, something that many other classical stations try hard to do.

Ah, yes. My BF (radio production background) got sucked into KUHF when he was teaching there. I'll spare the details of the stories I hear all the time, suffice it to say, the UH stations are dead to him. Back in the day (70s and early 80s) KUHF was a good jazz station; in order to bolster their donation cred they switched format to all 'classical' and in the switch KTSU picked up their entire jazz collection for a song. On the low end of the dial I listen to KTSU more than any other local station for music. KTRU has two very good shows (funk and blues) but otherwise, if you can navigate around the smooth jazz and gospel, KTSU is the good stuff.

[musicman]

I should e-mail that link to everyone I know who lives outside Houston that swears that Houston is a complete cultural wasteland. Unfortunately I think a lot of people fail to realize all of the cultural amenities that Houston does offer.

there are many people here that think chuy's is a cultural amenity. we just have to be honest and say that certain music is something that not everyone can appreciate.

[marmer]

Ah, yes. My BF (radio production background) got sucked into KUHF when he was teaching there. I'll spare the details of the stories I hear all the time, suffice it to say, the UH stations are dead to him. Back in the day (70s and early 80s) KUHF was a good jazz station; in order to bolster their donation cred they switched format to all 'classical' and in the switch KTSU picked up their entire jazz collection for a song. On the low end of the dial I listen to KTSU more than any other local station for music. KTRU has two very good shows (funk and blues) but otherwise, if you can navigate around the smooth jazz and gospel, KTSU is the good stuff.

You are right, but there is more to the story than that. The death of KLEF thanks, primarily, to the oil bust of the early 80s was a major factor in KUHF's format change. Somehow or other KLEF's classical library wound up donated to KUHF. I suspect that there was some behind-the-scenes activity going on, though your BF may know much more. I do know there was weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth in the classical music community over the death of KLEF and the loss of classical radio. The community wasn't quite as big as it is now but it was still quite strong. I also remember the late Bob Claypool writing a vitriolic (and probably not available online ) editorial condemning the format change as elitist and racist, and being surprised that such an important figure still thought that anyone seriously considered jazz to be inferior in some way. I think the way it was spun by the two stations was that KUHF and KTSU were going to work together to try to continue serving the classical and jazz communities since they weren't dependent on advertising or market share.

This particular thread has landed pretty solidly in my sandbox, by the way. I have worked with all the major figures mentioned in the NPR story for many years. With school starting it is simply too late tonight and I am too tired to write the kind of post that this topic requires, but I have a lot of information and background to contribute and I will try to put something together in the next day or two.

[sarahiki]

I still think KRTS was the second best classical station I've ever heard. It wasn't all snobbish, playing atonal wailing crap just to keep its Public Radio badge of honor. It was a commercial station and played classical music that appealed to the masses... at least as far as there are classical music masses in Houston.

I remember the program it had called something like "Music Through The Night." It was classical music you could set your sleep timer to. Meanwhile over on KUHF it was all symbols crashing and horns blaring at 2:00am. Guess which station got my ears? KUHF never learned how to program music for the time of day, something that many other classical stations try hard to do.

I have the same problem with KUHF. They seem to have no sense of timing. At 9:00 a.m., I tune in, hoping for a little Mozart or something pleasant to ease me into the day. And it's, like, German marches or something. They love that stuff. Nobody is ready for that at 9:00 in the morning. There's so much beautiful music out there, I don't know why they play so much of that bombastic music.

Ah, yes. My BF (radio production background) got sucked into KUHF when he was teaching there. I'll spare the details of the stories I hear all the time, suffice it to say, the UH stations are dead to him. Back in the day (70s and early 80s) KUHF was a good jazz station; in order to bolster their donation cred they switched format to all 'classical' and in the switch KTSU picked up their entire jazz collection for a song. On the low end of the dial I listen to KTSU more than any other local station for music. KTRU has two very good shows (funk and blues) but otherwise, if you can navigate around the smooth jazz and gospel, KTSU is the good stuff.

There is no way I can navigate around smooth jazz. If I hear one minute of it my head explodes. Too bad; we could use a good jazz station.

What a shame that KUHF did that... a mix of Classical and Jazz would be so much better than what they play now.

When I lived in Binghamton, New York, which is a deteriorated factory town with a university there but you'd never know it, all you see are poor people on food stamps freezing their butts off at the pay phone outside the Price Chopper, they had TWO public radio stations. One was primarily jazz, one was primarily classical. And at least one had talk shows going at almost all times.... hours and hours of news, Talk of the Nation, etc. It was great. And that was in pathetic Binghamton, NY. I still can't figure out why Houston has a lamer public radio station than Binghamton.

[musicman]

When I lived in Binghamton, New York, which is a deteriorated factory town with a university there but you'd never know it, all you see are poor people on food stamps freezing their butts off at the pay phone outside the Price Chopper, they had TWO public radio stations. One was primarily jazz, one was primarily classical. And at least one had talk shows going at almost all times.... hours and hours of news, Talk of the Nation, etc. It was great. And that was in pathetic Binghamton, NY. I still can't figure out why Houston has a lamer public radio station than Binghamton.

the issue is both genres offer so much that each are very jockey specific.

[Subdude]

Houston could use a full-time music station however. KUHF has a lot of NPR programming, which is fine, but still it would be nice to have a good music option. I don't think mixing with jazz would be a particularly good idea.

[editor]

There's been lots of talk about KTSU, KLEF, and KUHF. Does anyone have any insights into the late KRTS?

[Porchman]

I still think KRTS was the second best classical station I've ever heard. It wasn't all snobbish, playing atonal wailing crap just to keep its Public Radio badge of honor. It was a commercial station and played classical music that appealed to the masses... at least as far as there are classical music masses in Houston.

I miss KRTS.

Meanwhile over on KUHF it was all symbols crashing and horns blaring at 2:00am. Guess which station got my ears? KUHF never learned how to program music for the time of day, something that many other classical stations try hard to do.

When I lived in Cleveland, WCLV had a penchant for violins at dawn. That can be rather grating, too.

Houston could use a full-time music station however. KUHF has a lot of NPR programming, which is fine, but still it would be nice to have a good music option.

Well, you have that option IF you have an HD radio. KUHF has all music on one channel and all talk on the other. However, I'm not seeing the HD radios catch on really fast. I don't have one, but I do have XM which has three classical channels (including the opera/chorale channel). This goes pretty full-time at our house on weekends.

[Porchman]

There's been lots of talk about KTSU, KLEF, and KUHF. Does anyone have any insights into the late KRTS?

Stude family got an big offer from Radio One.

HBJ Article in this link

"Mike Stude, owner of

KRTS LP

, has agreed to sell the Houston classical radio station KRTS 92.1 FM to Washington, D.C.-based

Radio One Inc.

for approximately $72.5 million in cash.

Stude cited changes in the broadcasting business and a decision to retire as the reasons behind the sale."

The article goes on to note that Stude used some of the sale proceeds to establish a foundation supporting arts and music education for children in Houston. That kind of support is what is also mentioned in the NPR piece.

[MidtownCoog]

Dont forget KACC - The Gulf Coast Rocker!

[editor]

Well, you have that option IF you have an HD radio. KUHF has all music on one channel and all talk on the other. However, I'm not seeing the HD radios catch on really fast. I don't have one, but I do have XM which has three classical channels (including the opera/chorale channel). This goes pretty full-time at our house on weekends.

Ditto. The local public radio station here went from blues to talk, and pushed the music into HD-2. You know what? I'm not going to spend $200 to buy a new radio to listen to that station anymore. But I would spend $50 to get 200 channels of Sirius/XM instead. Fortunately, I didn't have to make that decision since I already had Sirius.

If every station in Houston had a primary signal, an HD-2 and an HD-3 transmission, you'd still get more channels for the buck by going satellite.

I'm listening to Sirius Blues right now, and not WBEZ. The money I used to spend on supporting Chicago Public Radio now goes to Sirius. All these "public" radio stations are shooting themselves in the foot by chasing the already over-saturated talk radio market instead of working for the communities they were established to serve.

[editor]

(For what it's worth, I know of at least three KUHF staffers who are also HAIFers. But if their environment is anything like a corporate environment, they're probably prohibited from commenting on this thread because they are not official spokespersons.)

[marmer]

About KLEF:

KLEF 94.5 was a well-established commercial classical radio station until, oh, about 1987 or so. It made a major effort to present the Houston Symphony, it had several well-regarded on-air personalities such as Ira J. Black, and it played a rather wide variety from the spectrum of classical music. A listener to KLEF might well hear several works they had never heard before over the course of a broadcast day. Music was its priority over news and talk, and its advertisers were primarily upscale businesses catering to wealthy people. They were known for having a weak signal and poor reception until the mid-80s, when they moved to the Missouri City antenna farm. Then for a brief time their slogan was Loud and Clear. (I used to have one of their t-shirts with that on it.) They had shows such as Midnight til Dawn and Drive Time. Can you tell I miss KLEF? KLEF died when its out-of-town owners decided to use the newly strengthened station and frequency for something which garnered more than KLEF's piddly market share.

About KUHF as a jazz station:

Before the format change, KUHF played a lot of jazz. Much of it was rather traditional -- big band and small group jazz. They made a huge effort to identify and support local musicians and they had a regular feature called "Straight, No Chaser" (after the Thelonious Monk tune) which announced all of the venues and performers presenting jazz or jazz-influenced music. They of course were not as encyclopedic in their coverage of the jazz spectrum as KLEF was with classical. They always had NPR shows and other community-involved and university-involved programming, so they had less time in the broadcast day for music, and in those days their budgets and facilities were much smaller than they are now. With respect to crunchtastic's boyfriend, I know less detail about KUHF in those days than he does. It is certainly true that the change to classical caused a tremendous change in the culture and scope of KUHF, and while I miss the old KUHF I am pretty proud of what KUHF has become. I know pretty much everyone over there, and The Front Row and their new little live performance studio are great examples of effective arts broadcasting, at least in my opinion.

About KRTS:

Mike Stude created KRTS to fill the void left by KLEF. I knew most of the crew at KRTS pretty well, especially their first program director, Blanton Alspaugh. (The KRTS staffers called themselves the K-Rats) They were quite openly a commercial station with advertising, and they made a good-faith effort to try to be what KUHF could not be. Whenever KUHF had NPR programs, KRTS would play music. Their programming was very, very conservative in an attempt to please as wide an audience as possible. What that meant was mostly orchestral music, occasionally solo piano, rarely opera or chamber music, rarely any vocal or contemporary music. Originally it used the call letters KLEF, but quickly changed its call letters to create its own identity. It started out as a jukebox with only a few DJ's and with a very weak signal on 92.1 -- one could go through the night hearing work after work with no identification or information. The signal was limited because of other transmitters on nearby frequencies. Eventually Mike made a deal with Rice's KTRU 91.7 to move their transmitter off campus (to Humble, I believe; a major equipment and strength upgrade was part of the deal) so that 92.1 could be heard over most of the Houston area. An earlier poster has already pointed out why KRTS went out of business. Basically, Mike wanted to retire, and it wasn't really making a lot of money. And while there's no doubt that Houston needs A classical music station, there wasn't really the listenership to support 2 classical music stations, especially if one was trying to make money.

The NPR piece didn't mention the founder of Da Camera, Sergiu Luca. While Sarah Rothenberg has certainly done great things with Da Camera, the original, peripatic concept was Sergiu's. After Sergiu left Da Camera he created a concert series called Context, which presents chamber works on historic instruments, including several 19th century pianos. A very intelligent effort to make historical connections between works, influences, and timbres is part of what Context is all about, and even when they present well-known works they do so in unfamiliar ways. This is a gross oversimplification, but a big part of Context's appeal is the dramatically lighter and more transparent sound of the 19th century piano as compared with the powerful modern piano, which changes the balance dramatically in works of Beethoven, Mozart, etc.

Two other significant local groups are Mercury Baroque and Houston Early Music. Mercury Baroque is an early-music ensemble made up primarily of local musicians while Houston Early Music presents prominent visiting artists.

At the risk of seeming self-serving, it's also worth mentioning that Houston's universities present lots of worthwhile concerts at modest or no cost. Certainly both Rice and UH have excellent orchestras, opera programs, and strong contemporary music programs as well as dozens of faculty, chamber music, and advanced student recitals. Although St. Thomas and HBU aren't as big, they use their resources well to present interesting events.

[Vertigo58]

Sure miss the harmonious singers jingle for KQUE. Went kind of like this...

"Your listening to Ef fer ve scent ...K Q U E radio in Houston"

Very soothing then they would go into a long string of famous classics ie; Johnny Mathis, Herb Alpert, Patsy Cline, Franky Sinatra....just one after another. Format jumped from 40's to 50's to 60's to 70's pure mass appeal!

Sure do miss that.

Houston sure has missed the beat again.

[ricco67]

Sure miss the harmonious singers jingle for KQUE. Went kind of like this...

"Your listening to Ef fer ve scent ...K Q U E radio in Houston"

Very soothing then they would go into a long string of famous classics ie; Johnny Mathis, Herb Alpert, Patsy Cline, Franky Sinatra....just one after another. Format jumped from 40's to 50's to 60's to 70's pure mass appeal!

Sure do miss that.

Houston sure has missed the beat again.

That's why I thank god for XM every day.

[memebag]

This is off thread topic, but KQUE was the best radio station I've ever heard. They would jump from Chuck Berry to Gogi Grant to The Carpenters. And their bumpers hit the pleasure centers of my brain like powerful opiates. If anyone knows where they can be found, please post here.

[editor]

About KLEF:

KLEF 94.5 was a well-established commercial classical radio station until, oh, about 1987 or so. It made a major effort to present the Houston Symphony, it had several well-regarded on-air personalities such as Ira J. Black, and it played a rather wide variety from the spectrum of classical music. A listener to KLEF might well hear several works they had never heard before over the course of a broadcast day. Music was its priority over news and talk, and its advertisers were primarily upscale businesses catering to wealthy people. They were known for having a weak signal and poor reception until the mid-80s, when they moved to the Missouri City antenna farm. Then for a brief time their slogan was Loud and Clear. (I used to have one of their t-shirts with that on it.) They had shows such as Midnight til Dawn and Drive Time. Can you tell I miss KLEF? KLEF died when its out-of-town owners decided to use the newly strengthened station and frequency for something which garnered more than KLEF's piddly market share.

About KUHF as a jazz station:

Before the format change, KUHF played a lot of jazz. Much of it was rather traditional -- big band and small group jazz. They made a huge effort to identify and support local musicians and they had a regular feature called "Straight, No Chaser" (after the Thelonious Monk tune) which announced all of the venues and performers presenting jazz or jazz-influenced music. They of course were not as encyclopedic in their coverage of the jazz spectrum as KLEF was with classical. They always had NPR shows and other community-involved and university-involved programming, so they had less time in the broadcast day for music, and in those days their budgets and facilities were much smaller than they are now. With respect to crunchtastic's boyfriend, I know less detail about KUHF in those days than he does. It is certainly true that the change to classical caused a tremendous change in the culture and scope of KUHF, and while I miss the old KUHF I am pretty proud of what KUHF has become. I know pretty much everyone over there, and The Front Row and their new little live performance studio are great examples of effective arts broadcasting, at least in my opinion.

About KRTS:

Mike Stude created KRTS to fill the void left by KLEF. I knew most of the crew at KRTS pretty well, especially their first program director, Blanton Alspaugh. (The KRTS staffers called themselves the K-Rats) They were quite openly a commercial station with advertising, and they made a good-faith effort to try to be what KUHF could not be. Whenever KUHF had NPR programs, KRTS would play music. Their programming was very, very conservative in an attempt to please as wide an audience as possible. What that meant was mostly orchestral music, occasionally solo piano, rarely opera or chamber music, rarely any vocal or contemporary music. Originally it used the call letters KLEF, but quickly changed its call letters to create its own identity. It started out as a jukebox with only a few DJ's and with a very weak signal on 92.1 -- one could go through the night hearing work after work with no identification or information. The signal was limited because of other transmitters on nearby frequencies. Eventually Mike made a deal with Rice's KTRU 91.7 to move their transmitter off campus (to Humble, I believe; a major equipment and strength upgrade was part of the deal) so that 92.1 could be heard over most of the Houston area. An earlier poster has already pointed out why KRTS went out of business. Basically, Mike wanted to retire, and it wasn't really making a lot of money. And while there's no doubt that Houston needs A classical music station, there wasn't really the listenership to support 2 classical music stations, especially if one was trying to make money.

The NPR piece didn't mention the founder of Da Camera, Sergiu Luca. While Sarah Rothenberg has certainly done great things with Da Camera, the original, peripatic concept was Sergiu's. After Sergiu left Da Camera he created a concert series called Context, which presents chamber works on historic instruments, including several 19th century pianos. A very intelligent effort to make historical connections between works, influences, and timbres is part of what Context is all about, and even when they present well-known works they do so in unfamiliar ways. This is a gross oversimplification, but a big part of Context's appeal is the dramatically lighter and more transparent sound of the 19th century piano as compared with the powerful modern piano, which changes the balance dramatically in works of Beethoven, Mozart, etc.

Two other significant local groups are Mercury Baroque and Houston Early Music. Mercury Baroque is an early-music ensemble made up primarily of local musicians while Houston Early Music presents prominent visiting artists.

At the risk of seeming self-serving, it's also worth mentioning that Houston's universities present lots of worthwhile concerts at modest or no cost. Certainly both Rice and UH have excellent orchestras, opera programs, and strong contemporary music programs as well as dozens of faculty, chamber music, and advanced student recitals. Although St. Thomas and HBU aren't as big, they use their resources well to present interesting events.

Great post, marmer. Really fills in a lot of blanks for us who came to Houston late, or never worked the radio side of things.

I wonder if Houston has neighborhood chamber orchestras and such. I'd certainly be willing to give them a ton of free air time on radioHAIF. Sure, it's not KUHF, but it's better than silence.

[marmer]

Great post, marmer. Really fills in a lot of blanks for us who came to Houston late, or never worked the radio side of things.

I wonder if Houston has neighborhood chamber orchestras and such. I'd certainly be willing to give them a ton of free air time on radioHAIF. Sure, it's not KUHF, but it's better than silence.

Thanks. There are a lot of small professional orchestras and community orchestras. Probably the best example of a professional neighborhood chamber orchestra is the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra . Another one is Orchestra X .

Community orchestras include:

Houston Civic Symphony

Doctors Orchestra of Houston

Clear Lake Symphony Orchestra

Galveston Symphony Orchestra

Symphony North of Houston

The Woodlands Symphony Orchestra

Rice University's Campanile Orchestra

and the Pasadena Philharmonic. (No kidding. My wife has been the principal double bass player of the Pasadena Phil for about fifteen years.)

There are also four significant youth orchestras:

Houston Youth Symphony

Greater Houston Youth Orchestra

Bay Area Youth Symphony

Virtuosi of Houston

ArtsHound is a very, very good way to keep abreast of performing arts events, even obscure ones.

[marmer]

Sure miss the harmonious singers jingle for KQUE. Went kind of like this...

"Your listening to Ef fer ve scent ...K Q U E radio in Houston"

Very soothing then they would go into a long string of famous classics ie; Johnny Mathis, Herb Alpert, Patsy Cline, Franky Sinatra....just one after another. Format jumped from 40's to 50's to 60's to 70's pure mass appeal!

Sure do miss that.

Houston sure has missed the beat again.

KBME 790 AM was like that back in the late '90s. I loved that station and called it Time Warp Radio because it reminded me of the local stations my parents listened to in the '60s. Not Muzak and not rock, just good solid old-fashioned popular music, much of it originally from Broadway shows or movies.

Yes, KQUE was a lovely station while it lasted. Easy Listening with emphasis on the listening, not to be confused with the Muzak-ified background-style music played on KYND.

[editor]

Yes, KQUE was a lovely station while it lasted. Easy Listening with emphasis on the listening, not to be confused with the Muzak-ified background-style music played on KYND.

The good news is that if you don't like what's on KYND, you can change it! I understand it's a leased-time station, so whomever has the cash gets to put on whatever they want.

Hmmm.... "1520 radioHAIF is on the air!"

[ssullivan]

It was a huge loss when KRTS was taken off the air. I agree that KUHF doesn't have the same level of programming. KRTS also seemed to have a larger area of reception into rural areas northeast of Houston. My parents used to be able to receive KRTS just fine at their home 100 miles from Houston, but have never been able to get KUHF. My mother was quite upset by the loss of KRTS, which she frequently played in the house while working there during the day.

[Subdude]

About KLEF:

KLEF 94.5 was a well-established commercial classical radio station until, oh, about 1987 or so. It made a major effort to present the Houston Symphony, it had several well-regarded on-air personalities such as Ira J. Black, and it played a rather wide variety from the spectrum of classical music. A listener to KLEF might well hear several works they had never heard before over the course of a broadcast day. Music was its priority over news and talk, and its advertisers were primarily upscale businesses catering to wealthy people. They were known for having a weak signal and poor reception until the mid-80s, when they moved to the Missouri City antenna farm. Then for a brief time their slogan was Loud and Clear. (I used to have one of their t-shirts with that on it.) They had shows such as Midnight til Dawn and Drive Time. Can you tell I miss KLEF? KLEF died when its out-of-town owners decided to use the newly strengthened station and frequency for something which garnered more than KLEF's piddly market share.

About KUHF as a jazz station:

Before the format change, KUHF played a lot of jazz. Much of it was rather traditional -- big band and small group jazz. They made a huge effort to identify and support local musicians and they had a regular feature called "Straight, No Chaser" (after the Thelonious Monk tune) which announced all of the venues and performers presenting jazz or jazz-influenced music. They of course were not as encyclopedic in their coverage of the jazz spectrum as KLEF was with classical. They always had NPR shows and other community-involved and university-involved programming, so they had less time in the broadcast day for music, and in those days their budgets and facilities were much smaller than they are now. With respect to crunchtastic's boyfriend, I know less detail about KUHF in those days than he does. It is certainly true that the change to classical caused a tremendous change in the culture and scope of KUHF, and while I miss the old KUHF I am pretty proud of what KUHF has become. I know pretty much everyone over there, and The Front Row and their new little live performance studio are great examples of effective arts broadcasting, at least in my opinion.

About KRTS:

Mike Stude created KRTS to fill the void left by KLEF. I knew most of the crew at KRTS pretty well, especially their first program director, Blanton Alspaugh. (The KRTS staffers called themselves the K-Rats) They were quite openly a commercial station with advertising, and they made a good-faith effort to try to be what KUHF could not be. Whenever KUHF had NPR programs, KRTS would play music. Their programming was very, very conservative in an attempt to please as wide an audience as possible. What that meant was mostly orchestral music, occasionally solo piano, rarely opera or chamber music, rarely any vocal or contemporary music. Originally it used the call letters KLEF, but quickly changed its call letters to create its own identity. It started out as a jukebox with only a few DJ's and with a very weak signal on 92.1 -- one could go through the night hearing work after work with no identification or information. The signal was limited because of other transmitters on nearby frequencies. Eventually Mike made a deal with Rice's KTRU 91.7 to move their transmitter off campus (to Humble, I believe; a major equipment and strength upgrade was part of the deal) so that 92.1 could be heard over most of the Houston area. An earlier poster has already pointed out why KRTS went out of business. Basically, Mike wanted to retire, and it wasn't really making a lot of money. And while there's no doubt that Houston needs A classical music station, there wasn't really the listenership to support 2 classical music stations, especially if one was trying to make money.

The NPR piece didn't mention the founder of Da Camera, Sergiu Luca. While Sarah Rothenberg has certainly done great things with Da Camera, the original, peripatic concept was Sergiu's. After Sergiu left Da Camera he created a concert series called Context, which presents chamber works on historic instruments, including several 19th century pianos. A very intelligent effort to make historical connections between works, influences, and timbres is part of what Context is all about, and even when they present well-known works they do so in unfamiliar ways. This is a gross oversimplification, but a big part of Context's appeal is the dramatically lighter and more transparent sound of the 19th century piano as compared with the powerful modern piano, which changes the balance dramatically in works of Beethoven, Mozart, etc.

Two other significant local groups are Mercury Baroque and Houston Early Music. Mercury Baroque is an early-music ensemble made up primarily of local musicians while Houston Early Music presents prominent visiting artists.

At the risk of seeming self-serving, it's also worth mentioning that Houston's universities present lots of worthwhile concerts at modest or no cost. Certainly both Rice and UH have excellent orchestras, opera programs, and strong contemporary music programs as well as dozens of faculty, chamber music, and advanced student recitals. Although St. Thomas and HBU aren't as big, they use their resources well to present interesting events.

Good post, thanks.

It is unfortunate that classical music has to be shunted off to satellite or HD radio, since not everybody has access to them. It is ironic that NPR goes off about "the robust contemporary classical scene" when Houston doesn't even have one full-time classical music station. It's a little embarrassing if you ask me - I've been in smaller cities with a better radio availability.

That, and things just haven't been the same since Dr Karl Haas died.

[Vertigo58]

This is off thread topic, but KQUE was the best radio station I've ever heard. They would jump from Chuck Berry to Gogi Grant to The Carpenters. And their bumpers hit the pleasure centers of my brain like powerful opiates. If anyone knows where they can be found, please post here.

If memory serves well (and it normally does) I recall my mom always listening to this station even when I was a child in the mid to late 60's. I remember hearing Paul Harvey always doing the news as he had that serious voice but still retained a heck of a humorous touch to the stories. Of course he always ended with his famous "and now for the rest of the story" moniker.

This station was very hip in it's day. Played Petula Clark, Nancy Sinatra, Tijuana Brass, Beatles, Supremes, Elvis, The Monkee's and best of all would toss in famous movie & even Broadway themes ie; The Good, the Bad & the Ugly, Singing in the Rain, Dr Zhivago, Summer of 42, etc.

There was a discussion of the DJ's who were there just before it folded and yes, they also used to do Name that Tune or What year did this song 1st appear on the charts contests. Like the 5 or 6th caller would win tickets to dinner theater or to TUTs...man just cool stuff.

Where else in Houston do they do this kind of cool stuff any more???? I beg of thee?

Here is a sample of the cool things you could hear. Romance was every where indeed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l0uU7AgQks

[marmer]

It was a huge loss when KRTS was taken off the air. I agree that KUHF doesn't have the same level of programming. KRTS also seemed to have a larger area of reception into rural areas northeast of Houston. My parents used to be able to receive KRTS just fine at their home 100 miles from Houston, but have never been able to get KUHF. My mother was quite upset by the loss of KRTS, which she frequently played in the house while working there during the day.

I'm pretty sure KRTS had either a second broadcast frequency or a second transmitter in the northern Houston metro area. (or maybe both at different times.) Yes, their coverage in the north Houston area was much better.

[editor]

I'm pretty sure KRTS had either a second broadcast frequency or a second transmitter in the northern Houston metro area. (or maybe both at different times.) Yes, their coverage in the north Houston area was much better.

I think it was an on-channel booster.

[Subdude]

Even though Houston radio is classical-music deprived, if you are at your computer there are a number of choices. I use this site:

Live Classic Webcasts

Of course, this still doesn't help you out when you're in your car.