Classical Music Is Houston's Best-Kept Secret

[editor]

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.

AOL Radio on the iPhone has a really good Renaissance/Chamber music channel.

When I first got Sirius there were four classical channels and five jazz channels. Now it's down to two of each. Suck.

[marmer]

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.

True, of course. I refuse to pay a subscription for radio, even though everyone I know who has sat radio loves it. Still, an iPod connection for the car gives you basically complete control over what you hear. I miss "Adventures in Good Music," too, but Bill McLaughlin's "Exploring Music" is a worthy, and more modern successor. Well worth a listen. And the thrust of the NPR program was live performance of contemporary music, anyway.

I'm pretty sure that KRTS had a transmitter on 97.1 in its early days, serving the northern metro area. Later they got an on-channel booster. I could very well be confusing it with KPFT, though, which I think still has a second frequency in the Galveston area.

You know, it's kinda funny. On this forum we frequently talk about buildings, businesses, and restaurants that were beloved and special, but forced out of existence by economic factors. The loss of KLEF, KRTS, KBME, and KQUE is just another variation on the same theme.

[editor]

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.

I sent an e-mail to almost every organization you listed, we'll see if any respond.

Campanile Orchestra has no contact information, so I couldn't query it.

Interestingly, both the Galveston Symphony Orchestra and the Houston Civic Symphony e-mail addresses bounced, so I went with their domain contacts. We'll see if that works.

Also, a member of HAIF e-mailed me some of his original classical compositions, so that's a place to start. If we get a good response from the people above, maybe Sundays on radioHAIF can be all-Houston and all-Classical.

[editor]

I got an unpleasant response from the contact person listed on Orchestra X's web site. "I never heard about your Radio before"

He goes on to note that Orchestra X doesn't exist anymore.

[FilioScotia]

(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.)

As someone who does work there, I can tell you that we have no such restrictions. We are as free as you are to comment on things related to what we do.

I understand that a lot of people miss KRTS, and I am the first to agree that the radio market is less without it. Mike Stude did his best to keep it going. Sadly, Mike learned the truth of the old saw that goes: "You wanta know how to make a small fortune in the radio business? Well, you start out with a big fortune...."

Mike had a problem. As a commercial station aimed at the market at large, KRTS had to play to the lowest common denominators, and that's not a comment on the intelligence of his listeners.

It's a comment on the musical tastes of a mass audience, and the financial exigencies of programming a classical station. You pick your niche and program to it. He wanted to appeal to as big an audience as possible and attract advertisers, so he played old favorites and "war horses". Well known compositions by well known composers, and they had to be short. If they played a symphony or a piece known to be long, we only heard a small part of it or the final movement. Opera was limited to familiar arias, choruses and overtures. I don't recall ever hearing much chamber music or anything that could be defined as "new" music.

Unfortunately, in trying to appeal to as many people as possible, KRTS ended up not appealing to very many at all, and the consistently poor ratings scared advertisers away. We all know the result. It couldn't pull in enough ad revenue to stay on the air. Mike got tired of propping it up with his own money, and I don't blame him for selling. Would any of us have done it any differently?

KUHF is facing the same set of exigencies KRTS faced, but where they failed, we are succeeding and growing. We also program to a mass audience, and we also have to attract advertisers, although we call them "underwriters". We don't get a penny of support from the University of Houston or the State of Texas. Less than 10 percent of our budget comes from tax dollars and it's from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. We have to come up with the other 90 plus percent through corporate donations and individual contributions. Our on-air campaigns for support every six months consistently meet or exceed their goals.

Unlike KRTS, a "commercial" station that had the freedom to be "all classical", KUHF is a "public" station that has to operate by a completely different set of rules and regulations. KUHF is committed to providing classical music AND NPR News, and to being the radio voice of the Houston arts community. The Houston Symphony, Houston Grand Opera, Houston Ballet and some others. For many years the commitment to NPR News kept 88.7 FM from being "all classical", and that made almost no one happy. We were always getting complaints from listeners who wanted less music and more NPR, or less NPR and more music.

The one complaint we got most often by phone and email came from people who had just moved to Houston from Chicago, or New York, or some other big city, who wanted to know why KUHF, the NPR station, didn't carry Fresh Air, or Talk of the Nation, or any of the other popular NPR programs. We patiently explained that our commitment to classical music kept us from carrying those programs, and while most callers and emailers accepted this explanation graciously, it was clear that we had a good many listeners who were less than happy with what we were doing.

We endured the complaints until finally along came HD Radio, which gave us the ability to put music and the full daily lineup of NPR programs on different HD channels. Today KUHF provides the same familiar programming of music and NPR on 88.7 FM AND on our HD Channel One, but wait ! There's more.

During morning and afternoon news blocks, listeners with HD radios can continue hearing classical music on our HD Channel Two. During the mid morning, early afternoon, and night time music segments, HD listeners can hear NPR's familiar lineup of programs, including Diane Rehm at 9am, Fresh Air at 11am, Day to Day at noon, Talk of the Nation at 1pm, the BBC News Hour at 3pm, and The World from PRI and the BBC every night at 7pm. We provide 24 hour Spanish language programs on HD Channel Three.

No other station in this market comes remotely close to matching the variety of musical and news programming KUHF offers on its main frequency and on the HD channels. You can find just about anything you want, any time of day or night. It is also true that HD radios -- for home and car -- are getting less expensive and easier to find because of the growing popularity of HD radio and competition between radio manufacturers. It started slow a couple of years ago, but it's catching on.

Best of all, aside from the initial cost of buying an HD radio, it's free. No monthly subscription. How can you beat that?

[marmer]

As someone who does work there, I can tell you that we have no such restrictions. We are as free as you are to comment on things related to what we do.

I understand that a lot of people miss KRTS, and I am the first to agree that the radio market is less without it. Mike Stude did his best to keep it going. Sadly, Mike learned the truth of the old saw that goes: "You wanta make a small fortune in the radio business? Well, you start out with a big fortune...."

Mike had a problem. As a commercial station aimed at the market at large, KRTS had to play to the lowest common denominators, and that's not a comment on the intelligence of his listeners.

It's a comment on the musical tastes of a mass audience, and the exigencies of programming a classical station. You pick your niche and program to it. He wanted to appeal to as big an audience as possible and attract advertisers, so he played old favorites and what we call the "war horses". Well known compositions by well known composers, and they had to be short. If they played a symphony or a piece known to be long, we only heard a small part of it or the final movement. Opera was limited to familiar arias, choruses and overtures. I don't recall ever hearing much chamber music or anything that could be defined as "new" music.

Unfortunately, in trying to appeal to as many people as possible, KRTS ended up not appealing to very many at all, and the consistently poor ratings scared advertisers away. We all know the result. It couldn't pull in enough ad revenue to stay on the air. Mike got tired of propping it up with his own money, and I don't blame him for selling. Would any of us have done it any differently?

Great post! Thanks for the additional insight into KRTS. And serious kudos to you for The Front Row and your live performance studio.

[brucesw]

Good post Filio.

1986 In March, commercial classical music station KLEF-FM changes its format and donates its 20,000+ album record and CD library to the University of Houston, with the proviso that KUHF-FM provide a non-commercial classical music service to the community. In April, the first on-air fundraising campaign with the new classical music format raises an unprecedented $174,000. That summer, the Houston Symphony officially makes KUHF-FM its broadcast partner, beginning on-air broadcasts that fall. In August, John Proffitt (ex-KLEF-FM) joins the KUHF-FM staff as General Manager.

From the KUHF-FM station history on their website. As I recall, the transaction was inspired by the desire of the owners of KLEF to mitigate some of the public outcry over the demise of the full-time classical station. I thought I remembered also that there had been complaints from the regular listeners of KUHF about the changes.

Once upon a time there were two full-time classical stations in Houston, KRBE-FM from 1958 to ca. 1966, and KLEF-FM from ca. 1964 to 1986. Before that, for the first 20 years of the medium, all the stations in Houston played at least some classical amongst the mix including KTRH-FM (KLOL-FM), KPRC-FM (KODA-FM), KXYZ-FM (KHMX) and KUHF. The FM band was the purview of high brows; typical programming would include classical, jazz, Broadway shows and sound tracks and lengthy news programs. None of the stations signed on regularly before noon; there just wasn't enough advertiser or listener interest. Even the advent of high fidelity didn