Appealing to both the novice listener and music purists, Maestro features the all-time greatest classical music from the classic composers played by the world’s top orchestras and brought to you by energetic, lively voices who have a tremendous passion and knowledge for all things classical… Maestro becomes both an essential source for new fans of these masterpieces, and a lively, welcome departure from the usual staid presentation for long time lovers of Classical.
Maestro 224--- The World's Concert Hall!

Maestro Email:
maestro@worldspace.com

Maestro Schedule:
0000 - 0600 GMT Rich Kleinfeldt
0600 - 1000 GMT Pravin Kularajah
1000 - 1400 GMT Anthony McSpadden
1400 - 2200 GMT Steve Hillard



Rich Kleinfeldt (0000-0600 GMT)
An international broadcaster, professional musician, teacher and lecturer, and co-host of two United States syndicated radio programs: Wolf Trap's chamber music series Center Stage from Wolf Trap, and Indianapolis-on-the-Air, featuring the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra with Music Director Emeritus Raymond Leppard. Formerly with the Voice of America, Rich can be heard daily in Europe and Asia on Maestro 224 on the WorldSpace Satellite Network. He also is a part-time music host at WETA in Washington, DC. Onstage at the Barns of Wolf Trap in Vienna, Virginia he has hosted the Discovery Series since 1996.
Rich is a founding member of the Washington Saxophone Quartet. He performed for 12 years with the United States Army Band as saxophone soloist and Master of Ceremonies. He is a graduate of Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, and Catholic University in Washington, DC.

Pravin Kularajah (0600-1000 GMT)
Pravin Kularajah is a composer, professional musician, recording engineer, and a presenter for Maestro 224 at Worldspace Satellite Radio. Pravin began his musical career studying violin at the Westminster Choir Conservatory at the age of three while learning piano from his mother, who taught music privately. Among his classical repertoire are Zigeunerweisen, op.20 by Pablo de Sarasate, the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto , Paganini's 24 Caprices, and, on the piano, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Pravin later picked up the trumpet and played keyboards and guitars in local bands in Trenton, New Jersey. After playing violin with the regional and state orchestras in New Jersey and the National Honors Orchestra in Phoenix, Arizona during high school, Pravin pursued various engineering programs at Massachusetts Institute of Technology before graduating with a bachelors degree in music composition.





While at MIT, Pravin performed with the Balinese gamelan Galak-Tika led by composer/musician Evan Ziporyn, studied composition with Mark Harvey, Charles Shadle, Peter Child and John Harbison, and worked in the Lewis Music Library cataloguing music and mastering archived reel-to-reel tape recordings. Since then Pravin has recorded and performed with musicians in New York, Philadelphia and Trenton, and now resides in the Washington, D.C. metro area, working as music director for Maestro and program director for Ngoma XM, an all-African music station. He has recorded a solo album with guitars, bass, drums, trumpet, keyboard and computers, and plays guitar with several local bands.


Anthony McSpadden (1000-1400 GMT)

The Maestro behind Maestro, Program Director Anthony McSpadden is originally from Dallas, Texas, where he began studying the piano and violin at the age of 5. He spent ten years in various time slots at one of the premiere classical music stations in the US, WRR (which also happens to be one of the oldest radio stations in the States), also acting as the station’s Music Director, responsible for the programming. In addition to programming, Anthony was host of “The Morning Show”, and during his tenure at WRR, the station never wavered from the Top 20 in the market. Anthony began at WorldSpace in January, 2001, as Program Director for Maestro. He is responsible for the day-to-day operation, programming, and sound of WorldSpace’s exclusive 24 hour-a-day all classical music channel. When he's not at work, Anthony enjoys spending time with his two children, Mark and Alina. Anthony also can be heard from 1000GMT to 1400 GMT, on Maestro.


Steve Hillard (1400-2000GMT)

in his own words.....

"It’s my father’s fault! He wanted to be a Ham Radio Operator and I just wanted to be a Ham! I hated the Morse code but I loved music. All kinds of music! I was raised by a classical and popular music loving mother and father. It was the 1950’s and around 1956 my father became a licensed Amateur Radio Operator (Ham), and around the same time the first Top-40 radio station went on the air in my home town of San Francisco.

Well if he had a radio station downstairs I had to find a way to have one upstairs. At the tender age of 13 I jumped on the Municipal Railway System (the bus) and headed downtown to this new radio station. I had to see how the music got from there to my radio! The ladies at the front desk of KOBY let me watch radio in action. I was amazed! They had one person running the records and the commercials and another person behind a glass window talking! I must have spent hours there. What I was watching came through the pores of my skin so I went home and built my own radio station. (Well my father helped me and I’m not making this up) I even had a small transmitter so the neighbors could hear me talk and play all kinds of music. Now things were getting exciting.

When I felt I was ready for a “real” job, I went back downtown but this time it was to apply at a “real” radio station. KMPX was that station. They were one of the first FM Stereo stations in San Francisco. I got the job and they gave me my own weekend radio show. The rest is history.

My next job in radio was at a classical music radio station. They didn’t let me talk on the air. I hadn’t yet learned all the composers and all the languages in the world. So I just played the records and ran announcements and commercials. I listened very closely and that job was the finest one I had in terms of learning the art of Classical music and announcing.

Then it was off to college to learn more of what I had already learned. The professors felt I knew so much about broadcasting I ended up teaching at my own college! I couldn’t turn off this passion for radio. A funny story: At one point I was carrying a full load of classes and announcing for a classical radio station (KDFC-FM) at night. One night I was so tired I fell asleep at the control console during the Grieg Piano Concerto! There was dead air for 30 minutes! Luckily it was late at night and the boss was asleep. This would have been certain sudden death had he been listening. I dodged the bullet.

What’s interesting about my background is my love for Top-40 (now they’re Oldies) and Classical. What’s even more interesting is I’ve done both and a couple of times in my illustrious career I’ve done them at the same time in the same city. When people ask me what I’ve done, I respond by saying, “Everything from Rock to Bach”. What radio stations? Too many call letters to mention and only one was a television station. I love radio.

So, I’ve gone from spinning records and receiving programs over telephone lines to playing music from a hard drive and downloading the programs from the Internet. I’ve gone from tubes to transistors and from transmitted radio signals to satellite radio signals.

In all that time only the delivery systems have changed. Elvis will always be Elvis and Mozart will always be Mozart. I love them both and, of course, my listeners."

Steve Hillard