Karl Haas
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Template:Infobox person Karl Haas (December 6, 1913Template:Spaced ndashFebruary 6, 2005) was a German-American classical music radio host, known for his sonorous speaking voice, humanistic approach to music appreciation, and popularization of classical music.<ref name="LATimes">Template:Cite news</ref> He was the host of the classical music radio program Adventures in Good Music, which was syndicated to commercial and public radio stations around the world.<ref name="NYTimes">Template:Cite news</ref> He also published the book Inside Music.<ref name="InsideMusic">Template:Cite book</ref> He was a respected musicologist, as well as an accomplished pianist and conductor.<ref name="LATimes"/> In 1996, he received an honorary degree in Doctor of Letters from Oglethorpe University.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Early life and familyEdit
Haas was born in Speyer, Palatinate, Germany in 1913. He studied at the Mannheim Conservatory and earned a doctorate in music literature from Heidelberg University. He studied piano with Artur Schnabel.<ref name="LATimes"/><ref name="NYTimes"/> Faced with the rise of Nazism, the Jewish Haas fled Germany for the United States in 1936.<ref name="NYTimes"/> He first settled in Detroit, Michigan, then lived in other places, returning to Detroit near the end of his life.<ref name="LATimes"/><ref name="WashingtonPost">Template:Cite news</ref> He and his wife, Trudie, had two sons and one daughter.<ref name="family">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Trudie died in 1977.<ref name="LATimes"/>
Adventures in Good MusicEdit
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Haas began his radio program, Adventures in Good Music, on WJR in Detroit, Michigan in 1959.<ref name="NYTimes"/><ref name="Sterling">Template:Cite book</ref> Syndicated broadcasts of the show across the United States began in 1970 on WCLV, a radio station in Cleveland, Ohio. The show was eventually syndicated to commercial and public radio stations around the world and became the world's most widely heard classical music radio program.<ref name="WashingtonPost"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The theme music for Adventures in Good Music was the second movement from Beethoven's "Pathétique" Sonata (Sonata No. 8 in C minor), performed by Haas live for each program. He started every show with his trademark greeting "Hello everyone", and later entitled a track of his CD with those words. For several years the program had the most listeners of any classical music radio show in the world.<ref name="WashingtonPost"/>
Haas received the Charles Frankel Award of the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1991.<ref name="NEH-Timeline">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> President George H. W. Bush presented the award to him at the White House. Haas also twice won the George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting.<ref name="WashingtonPost"/> In 1997 he became the first classical music broadcaster to be named to the National Radio Hall of Fame.<ref name="Sterling"/><ref name="WCLV">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Haas did not produce any new episodes of the show in the last two years of his life.<ref name="LATimes"/> WCLV continued to syndicate recordings of his previous shows until June 2007. That month, WCLV announced "with great regret" that it would broadcast and syndicate its last Adventures in Good Music program on June 29, 2007.<ref name="WCLV"/> The announcement explained that the number of stations that carried the show had dropped from more than 400 to fewer than 20, which made it unfeasible to continue the program's national distribution.
Most episodes of Adventures in Good Music are not available publicly because of copyright, which is closely held by his family, although three cassettes/CDs have been issued featuring Haas and his commentary: The Romantic Piano, The Story of the Bells, and Song and Dance. In the 1960s Columbia Records released a Karl Haas commercial LP, "How to Listen to a Symphony," on their Columbia Special Products label.
DeathEdit
Near the end of his life, Haas returned to Detroit. He died at the age of 91 on 6 February 2005<ref name="Sterling"/> at a hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan.<ref name="AP">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He was survived by his sons, Jeffrey and Andrew, by his daughter, Alyce, and by two grandchildren.<ref name="LATimes"/>
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
BibliographyEdit
- Haas, K. (1999). Inside Music. South Melbourne, Macmillan. Template:ISBN