Confessions of a Newbie Classical Announcer

Chloe Veltman is a blogger on ArtsJournal.com and at VoiceBox – The Radio Show, but she’s also a new classical radio announcer on KALW in San Francisco.  She agreed to be a guinea pig on this blog and reveal her innermost fears and joys at this new experience.

Q: How did you get your first on-air gig?

A:  I originally did occasional pre-recorded 3-minute theatre reviews for the NPR affiliate KALW 91.7 FM San Francisco in my capacity as chief theatre critic for SF Weekly, The Village Voice’s sister publication in the Bay Area. Once I got it into my head that I wanted to learn about classical music show hosting, I asked my editor at the station for his thoughts. He told me I should speak to Sarah Cahill, a prominent local concert pianist, producer and the host of KALW’s live Sunday night classical music show “Then and Now”. I met up with Sarah for coffee in Berkeley one afternoon in mid December last year and about ten minutes into our chat, she suddenly said: “Look, I can’t be in the studio next Sunday and my regular sub is also out for the evening. Would you like to guest-host the show for me?” I replied yes.

Q: What specifically did you do to prepare?  Did you practice with the board?  Did you record yourself?  Did you get any coaching?

A: For my very first show, I got a few pointers from Sarah about such things as remembering to back-announce tracks and mention the name of the station at the top of the hour etc. Then, because I’m an essayist and believe that things hang together and flow more pleasingly when there’s a structure and possibly even an argument in place, I set about picking a theme for my debut broadcast. (That was super easy: it was the Sunday before Christmas). Then I found an interview guest with some kind of Christmasy concert coming up to chat with on the show, picked my playlist and wrote a script. Because all my music is on my laptop rather than in CD format, I had to transfer my playlist from my laptop to blank CDs. I didn’t have to learn to work the board on that occasion — the regular studio engineer on duty that night helped me out with the knobs and buttons.

Q: What did that very first time feel like?

A: About as good as sex. And I’ve had some pretty good sex in my time.

Q: What would you have done differently?

A: I would have slowed down a bit. I was slightly nervous particularly at the start of the broadcast and spoke a bit too fast. But after about 15 minutes I hit my stride and relaxed into a nice easy pace.

Q: Now that you’ve been bit by the bug and want to continue doing an on-air show, what challenges are you facing?

A The first major challenge is technical, i.e. learning the knob-twiddling. I still work with a studio engineer on my new vocal music show VoiceBox, which is fab as there’s so much stuff to pack into this one-hour show in terms of coordinating the interview I do each week, hitting all the points I want to make along the way (each show is organized around a theme or trend) and getting all my tracks in on time. Though I record the shows in advance, I do them as if they’re live. I think this creates a greater sense of spontaneity, fun and excitement. Plus, from a practical perspective, it keeps editing down to a minimum. The challenge is to time things out carefully enough and speak clearly and fluidly enough to make the process work this way.  I am looking forward to learning how to use the board and editing software at some point soon. It would obviously be smashing to be self-sufficient. But for now I’m extremely grateful to KALW (and engineers/editors JoAnn Mar and Eric Jansen in particular) for their help with the board thus far.

The second major challenge is fund raising. I recently completed the five-part pilot series of VoiceBox. It went very well and the station manager would like to make the show a regular part of its weekly programming starting in the Fall. This is great news. However, KALW doesn’t pay its music show hosts as far as I know, which is a big stumbling block for a freelance journalist such as myself. Because my show requires more preparation than most other music shows, I can’t really afford to continue without scaring up some kind of angel investment / grant / foundation / sponsorship cash. My plan for the summer, as ambitious as it may sound in these money-tight times, is to do what I can to find the funding so that I can make VoiceBox a sustainable reality going forwards.

Q: What do you think makes great programming?

A: Great programming is more than just making small-talk for a couple of minutes, flinging on a bunch of random records and doing a bit of back announcing between each track. Great programming is putting together a show that makes listeners ask questions that they may not have thought of asking before, expanding their musical horizons and connecting the music they’re listening to with the world around them in some tangible way. Great programming is also programming that has a sense of humor and bounce to it, while at the same time often capable of plummeting profound intellectual and emotional depths.

Q: You’re doing a vocal show, which on many classical stations is considered anathema.  How can you present vocal music in a way that would change program directors’ minds about the value of vocal music on the air?

A: One of the main reasons that station directors steer clear of vocal programming is because they want musical wallpaper rather than stuff that people really have to listen to. Luckily for me, the folks at KALW are more enlightened. They actually want people to pay attention to what’s being transmitted over he airwaves. I have gotten great feedback about my pilot series because it asks audiences to listen to the human voice in all its wild and wacky iterations with fresh ears. Every week there’s a different theme, e.g, “The Susan Boyle Phenomenon and What Makes A Great Voice?”, “Sea Chanteymen and Women” and “Children’s Vocal Ensembles”. Every week I address the topic at hand with a wide-ranging and exceedingly free-wheeling playlist and the help of an expert guest. Together, the guest and I talk about the theme, sometimes focusing in on specific aspects of singing, such as kinds of voice and how singers train etc. I think singers and non-singers alike learn a lot from my show in terms of musical history, repertoire and vocal technique. I cram a lot into an hour (the ratio so far is roughly 40 minutes of music to 20 minutes of talk). But I hear that the broadcasts come across in a relaxed and engaging manner. Also, the fact that the show draws on the best local talent while being international in scope helps to root it in the community while providing ample opportunity for eclecticism.

Q: What are you learning about the business as a newbie?

A: I always knew that there was no money in radio. But I didn’t think no money meant literally no money. So that’s something new I suppose. And there’s a lot of strange bureaucracy related to such things as copyright law and the station’s non-profit status that I’m finding out about, which is interesting and slightly frustrating.

On the plus side: I’m learning that the radio is very much alive as a medium for music and people love to hear great shows. I am also discovering that there few things quite as sublime, in my opinion, as sitting in a studio in some far-out, fog-ridden neighborhood of San Francisco late at night playing and talking about the most exciting and beautiful music in the world — and maybe even touching people’s souls with new ideas.