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An Adventure in Good Music: The Karl Haas Legacy – A documentary film and wind quintet performance honoring classical radio icon Karl Haas and the music he championed
“For Detroit, Haas was more than a broadcaster; he was a cultural treasure. For the USA Radio Museum, his legacy stands as one of the most important chapters in American educational radio — a testament to how one man’s scholarship, humanity, and artistry reshaped the way the world listened.”
~USA Radio Museum
“Hello, everyone.”
For decades, those two words — spoken in Karl Haas’s warm, unhurried voice — were an invitation to millions of radio listeners to set aside their day and enter the world of great music.
Join us for an evening celebrating the life and legacy of Karl Haas (1913–2005), the Detroit-based radio host, musicologist, and pianist whose syndicated program Adventures in Good Music became the most widely heard classical music broadcast in the world. Haas left Germany and settled in Detroit in 1936, founded the Chamber Music Society of Detroit in 1944, and launched Adventures in Good Music on WJR radio in 1959. The program earned him two George Foster Peabody Awards, the NEH Charles Frankel Award, and a place in the National Radio Hall of Fame. He also served as president of Interlochen Arts Academy from 1967 to 1971.
The evening will open with An Adventure in Good Music: From Nazi Germany to the Radio Hall of Fame, a 28-minute documentary produced by his children Jeff Haas and Alyce Haas.
The evening will continue with a performance of Samuel Barber’s Summer Music, Op. 31, a work Karl Haas brought into existence by organizing a community commission through the Chamber Music Society of Detroit in the mid-1950s — the first time in classical music history that a work was commissioned by public subscription, fittingly created to celebrate the Society’s 10th anniversary. Lush, luminous, and beloved since its 1956 premiere, it is the perfect embodiment of everything Haas stood for: great music, made possible by a passionate community.
The evening will conclude with a solo piano performance of “May the Words,” composed by Karl Haas in the mid 50s for Psalm 19:14 with an additional ‘bridge’ composed in 1991 by Jeff Haas.
This is your invitation — just as Karl Haas offered millions of listeners for decades — to set aside your evening and enter the world of great music, together at the House.
Jeff Haas, host and pianist
Quintet:
Amy Porter, flute
Mark Doerr, oboe
Tianyi Shen, clarinet
Jeffrey Lyman, bassoon
Scott Strong, horn
Ticket Pricing:
Tier 1: $42 (*Student/Youth $30) Tier 2: $37 (*Student/Youth $25) Tier 3: $32 (*Student/Youth $20)
This concert is generously supported by Debut & Encore Series Sponsors, Paul & Anne Glendon
Artists:
Karl Haas (1913-2005)
classical radio host
Jeff Haas
piano
