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Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

Scan up the AM radio dial and you are likely to hear the brash voices of sports announcers and soothing drawls of on-air Baptist ministers - but in Kansas City, if you scan to 1660, you’ll hear something so fresh and unexpected you’ll wonder if you’ve hit the heaven channel.  Classical 1660 KXTR. 

Commercial classical radio stations are a dying breed in America.  Just last year, New Yorkers lost theirs in an uncomfortable merger with the public radio station.  Middle America is fortunate to still have a station dedicated to classical music 24 hours, seven days a week, and much of the credit goes to the dedication of Program Director, Patrick Neas.

Neas began working the overnight shift at KXTR while a college student at Rockhurst University.  Like other broadcasters in the 1980’s, he cut his teeth spinning disks, making carts (8-track cartridges) and splicing reel to reel tape.  Programming was 24-7 and live announcers kept insomniacs company, entertained listeners over morning coffee and helped bring calm to the evening drive.  

Over the years, technology has changed the radio industry and these days KXTR can be found on-air and on the Internet in high definition at www.kxtr.com.  High Definition radio is broadening the exposure of Classical music in the Kansas City Metro and beyond, and has brought KXTR back onto the FM dial.  For listeners who tune into 98.0 KUDL the HD2 complimentary channel is 98.1 KXTR.  Streaming "live" online has opened KXTR to a global audience and will ultimately help with the continuance of classical music.

Neas programs a broad array of music in the classical realm as well as providing insight and entertaining commentary. On any given day a listener can hear everything from Gregorian chant to modern masters. And he interviews both local and national performers appearing on Kansas City stages, as well as the presenters who bring them.  His friendly voice and boundless knowledge of the genre make his broadcasts educational as well as enjoyable.  

In addition, Neas contributes a detailed Sunday preview column to the Kansas City Star with a look forward to the week's concerts. With his years-long historical perspective of the many famous and almost-famous names that have come through Kansas City, it is an important resource for classical music fans.

He still broadcasts live from 6 to 10 a.m. weekdays and also presents live programming on Saturday mornings.  Mickey Coalwell, another familiar KC name, DJ’s in the afternoon… but the rest of the daily programming is now pre-recorded. Neas spends hours weekly painstakingly creating programs – no top 100 Classical hits here.

Starting out in a tiny office adjacent to Starbucks on the plaza and broadcasting from its newer studio in Independence, KXTR has always been fueled by a passionate, grassroots love for classical music.  Neas has been with the station for 26 years and even though the station has changed owners a number of times, the programming has remained solid.  Owned by Kansas City’s own Ingram Family from 1984 to 1997, KXTR is currently part of the Entercom family, a company out of San Francisco.

Entercom moved KXTR to AM in 2000.  While this was certainly a disappointing and unpopular move for the station’s listeners,  many of them did migrate to AM, and KXTR entered the lives of a new market.  “Mail carriers listen and call in.” Neas says.  “One carrier in the area is a harpsichordist.”   Neas is also popular with the patrons of a liquor store in KCK. “The owner called in to tell me she has KXTR playing in the background.”  There is a populist appeal to classical music on the AM dial.

Radio is an intimate media that still enriches lives even in this technology saturated era.   Sites like Pandora and Blipfm that curate your listening experience using a music genome strategy miss out on the warmth of a human connection.  Neas provides audiences with the local story, he relates to people with warmth and thoughtfulness.  His expertise and institutional knowledge of the classical music community makes everyone feel like a close friend and insider and all of that enhances the casual radio listener’s experience.   

To listen to Live to Classical 1660 KXTR, click here.

By Megan Browne Helm

Classical, Vocal and Theatre Contributor

Megan Browne Helm grew up singing, dancing and acting.  Inspired by Emma Kirkby as a high school student in St. Louis she went on to study voice and sing with the Collegium Musicum at the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio where she also had a radio show of contemporary classical music on WOBC.  At the University of Kansas she had the pleasure of working with former Kings’ Singer, Simon Carrington in his Collegium Musicum and Oread consort. Years later, she was a choral fellow at the Yale School of Music’s  Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.  She is currently singing with the Kansas City Symphony Chorus under the direction of Charles Bruffy. 

 As a freelance music and culture writer her work can be found on KCMetropolis.org, presentmagazine.com, the Lawrence Journal World, Shawnee Magazine, Leawood Lifestyle Magazine and KC Parent.  She was one of 26 journalists in the country chosen as a NEA Institute Fellow for Classical Music and Opera at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. 

Her current interest is how classical music remains relevant through active collaborations with artists in different fields, including science.  She also sees a connection between classical music, travel and food as a way to engage all of the senses in a 360 degree cultural experience.  She blogs at raworganum.wordpress.com.

Comments(1):

1. Thank you for this story about Patrick Neas. He is a true hero of the Kansas City arts community.

   Wednesday, October 13, 2010 Tim

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