Greg Kostraba

Eighteen years at WBAA! Where has the time gone? I worked here as a Program Host/Producer from 1995 to 2001, hosting classical music, Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and the weekly 20th-century classical music series “The Kostraba Conundrum.” After a short stint as Program Director at a public radio station in Kansas, I moved with my family to Toledo to serve as Classical Music Director at WGTE-FM, staying for seven years. One of my highlights there was winning the 2007 Ohio Public Broadcasting Award for "Radio Producer of the Year" for my monthly in-studio performance program “Live From FM 91” and special programs celebrating the lives and music of composers William Grant Still and Samuel Adler. As much as I loved northwest Ohio, it was a joy to return home to Greater Lafayette in 2009 as Program Director (now Content Director) of this remarkable station: freshening our sound, developing the WBAA Arts Spotlight, hosting Afternoon Classics, and in general deepening our relationships with the arts community.

Aside from my family, my passion in life is playing the piano. I have master’s and doctoral degrees in piano performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and was a semifinalist at the Fourth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in 2004. You may have heard me on Performance Today playing works by Mel Bonis, Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia, and Rick Sowash with the Sylvan Trio, In a Mist by Bix Beiderbecke and the Duo for Flute and Piano by Aaron Copland from the New Harmony Music Festival & School or William Grant Still’s Kaintuck’ with the Toledo Symphony. Perhaps you have seen me as soloist with the Lafayette and Purdue Symphony Orchestras, or performing chamber music on the Tippecanoe Chamber Music Society series. I have also been included on several recordings: the new release on Kickshaw Records by the Sylvan Trio, my ensemble with flutist and Sunday Baroque host Suzanne Bona and cellist Josh Aerie, focusing on music by women composers, the Toledo Clarinets premiere CD on the Cambria label, three recordings of music by Rick Sowash on the composer’s own label, and a release by my horn trio Quelque Chose. My favorite gig, though, may have been playing on a weekly basis in the Rusty’s Jazz Café Big Band in Toledo with my late father, the bandleader Dan Terry, in the audience.