Raymond Nutaitis | Ben
Taylor | Jeanne J Barron
Program Hosts:
Michael Dixon | JoAnn Yeoman
| Julie Lloyd | Randy Kinkel
Raymond Nutaitis, Director
Originally from Pennsylvania, Ray moved to Arizona in 1975 to assume a faculty artist position as Professor of Tuba at the ASU School of Music. Ray’s vast and varied professional background includes a Master’s Degree in Music Literature and Performance from the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N Y. He has held teaching professorships at Wilkes University, SUNY at Buffalo, the University of Illinois and Arizona State University. His performance credentials include Principal Tuba in the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Phoenix Symphony, numerous community orchestras, and diverse free lance performance in recording studios and for traveling national productions, as his career path has taken him around the country for 18 years. He then left teaching to pursue a career in real estate, including owning his own brokerage and teaching real estate courses. After 26 years in the business world, during which time he has continued active performance in community orchestras, chamber music and countless local ‘gigs,’ Ray has come full circle, returning to his first professional love, Classical Music, as Director of the KBAQ Production Studio.
Ben Taylor, Recording/Audio Engineer
Ben grew up in New York City, studying classical piano from an early
age. He learned his first electronics from his father, who taught radio
mechanics at a veterans trade school (at night) and a vocational high
school (during the day.) Always fascinated by orchestras, he switched
from piano to string bass in order to join the one at his high school.
After college, he spent a few years working as a professional musician
throughout the New York City area while playing with the Great Neck
and Borough Park community symphonies to keep his music reading skills
in shape. After being called to play for several recording sessions,
he decided to become a recording engineer. His first real job in that
field was as assistant tech maintenance engineer at the renowned Record
Plant. He soon found a mentor and became an assistant and "ghost engineer,"
working with Jimi Hendrix, Todd Rundgren, Oregon, The Band and others.
His next stop was Elektra/Nonesuch Records, where he remained for six
years. While there, he redesigned their New York studios; worked with
such artists as Judy Collins, Harry Chapin, Carly Simon and Aztec Two
Step; edited many ethnomusicological recordings for the prestigious
Explorer Series; and engineered classical projects for the late and
legendary Nonesuch producer, Theresa Sterne. Two similar years at Vanguard
Records followed. Since then he has worked with all kinds of audio,
including independent projects for Island Records, commercials, jingles,
post-production for film and TV, and many projects for his own OmniClassic
recording firm. A resident of the Valley since 1980, he became a charter
member of the Production Studio team in 1993.
Jeanne J Barron, Recording/Audio Engineer
Jeanne Barron is a native Arizonan, born and raised in Mesa. Jeanne’s love for music developed at a very young age. She began playing the acoustic guitar at age 8, then incorporated percussion into her repertoire during her junior high and high school years. Her penchant for the engineering side of music developed through exposure to technical theatre as a member of her high school stage crew and participation in community theatre productions; it was a passion that would stay with her throughout her college years. While attending Arizona State University to receive both a B.A. in Music and a B.A. in Theatre, Jeanne was also a member of the Sun Devil Marching Band as well as a stagehand for the Department of Theatre technical crew. After graduating in 1996, Jeanne continued her association with ASU through various audio and theatre related jobs, including a position as sound tech for the KBAQ Production Studio. She worked as the audio engineer for the ASU Technology Based Learning and Research department, where she was responsible for the recording of location video shoots and audio post production editing. She also worked as a theatre technician for productions at Gammage Auditorium. Jeanne was the program director of Talk One Network, undertaking the production of nationally syndicated talk radio shows. Interspersed between her work commitments, Jeanne also has experience as a professional percussionist, freelance audio engineer for video productions, and stagehand for Rhino Staging, proving her versatility and love for her craft. The distinguished recipient of two AriZoni awards for theatrical sound design, Jeanne initially returned to Eight in the Operations department and has since joined the KBAQ Production Studio full time as a Senior Broadcast Engineer.
Program Hosts
Michael Dixon
Michael Dixon enjoys an international broadcast career. From Phoenix
to Fiji, from radio and television to print, audiences have enjoyed
his easy and informative style in interviews with business leaders,
scholars, scientists, and political figures. He is the recipient of
the prestigious International Communication and Leadership Award given
once a year by Toastmasters. Although Michael's career track has been
concentrated in the broadcast media, his life has never strayed very
far from music. He has anchored live PBS television broadcasts of "Opera-in-the-Park,"
from San Francisco with Placido Domingo, as well as hosted several television
specials with the San Francisco Symphony. He served as music, theatre
and dance critic for The Phoenix Gazette, and has written on the arts
in both Phoenix Magazine and Phoenix Home & Garden Magazine. In addition
to hosting KBAQ's Arizona Opera broadcasts, he serves as associate conductor
of the Scottsdale Symphony and appears regularly as moderator of the
Phoenix Symphony's Musically Speaking pre-concert interviews. In his
spare time he flies airplanes, and holds commercial, instrument and
flight instructor ratings in both land and sea aircraft. He has resided
in the Valley since 1973.
Julie Lloyd
Julie Lloyd grew up in Elmore, Ohio, and began studying piano when she
was five years old. She studied music, and psychology and learned to
play a number of instruments, including clarinet, and drums, although
the piano was always her major focus. She began her career in the arts
playing as an accompanist in college. Following her student years, she
worked as a music therapist, bringing music to developmentally disabled
youngsters and adults, a job she describes as one of the most gratifying
she has had. She began her career as a radio announcer on a public radio
station that operated from her alma mater, Ohio University in Athens,
Ohio. She remained an announcer and producer at that station for seven
years. When she and her husband first moved to Arizona, she began to
announce for the classical radio station KUAT-FM in Tucson. She and
her family then moved to Phoenix, and in 1997 she joined the KBAQ-FM
staff. Julie Lloyd is currently a host of Southwest Season Ticket, a
weekly radio broadcast that brings "live" classical music concerts to
KBAQ listeners from local, national, and international artists that
have been recorded at venues around the valley and throughout the state
by the KBAQ Production Studio.
JoAnn Yeoman
JoAnne Yeoman's first experience on the radio was when she was almost
four years old. She recited "Twas the Night Before Christmas" on a live
holiday broadcast. The program director decided just before the show
that he wanted to add another guest and asked her to make some cuts
and shorten the poem. Not being able to read, she had memorized the
poem by matching the pictures to the paragraphs but was able to make
the requested cuts without too much trauma by using the same picture
trick. Even with that minor success, there followed a big gap in her
radio career while she spent most of her time in school, in the dance
studio, or on the musical stage.
JoAnn has had the pleasure of appearing with or staging musicals for
Buddy Ebsen, Noel Harrison, David Garrison, Ray Walston, Joanne Worley,
Shirley Jones, John Raitt, and Nancy Dussault. Her favorite roles include
Agnes (I Do, I Do!), Fred (Once Upon a Mattress), Anita
(West Side Story), Aldonza (La Mancha), and Adalaide (Guys
& Dolls). She is currently a Senior Lecturer in the College of
Arts at ASU teaching classes in Broadway dance and movement, audition
techniques, acting, and Broadway repertory. She is a choreographer for
ASU's Lyric Opera Theater and the creator and librettist of the children's
musical, The Second Chance. JoAnn lectures in musical theater, professional
survival, and theater history all over the state. Her published non-fiction
appears in NYC's Playbill, Dramatics Magazine and Dramata Publications.
She is thrilled to be back on the radio as KBAQ's host of ASU In Concert
and The Festivals of Summer, and is waiting for another "go" at the
Clement Moore classic when she hopes she'll get to do the whole thing.
Randy Kinkel
Randy Kinkel was one of the first announcers hired by KBAQ when it went
on the air over a decade ago and is now afternoon announcer (M-F Noon
-4), host/programmer of the popular "Mozart Buffet" at Noon,
and host of the piano performance series "Concert Grand" for
the KBAQ Production Studio, heard on Saturday nights.
With over 20 years of radio broadcasting experience, Randy has been
air talent, programmer, and/or supervisor at all-classical WBJC, The
Radio Reading Network of Maryland, and "The Breeze" WTMD in
Baltimore, Maryland, WETS in Johnson City, Tennessee, and WKYU and WWHR
in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He is also a longtime board member of AMPPR,
the Association of Music Personnel in Public Radio.
Before earning a degree in Broadcasting and Creative Writing from Western
Kentucky University, Randy got a thorough musical education at home,
studying piano, horn, and saxophone, and listening to everything from
Mozart to Mississippi Delta Blues. He credits his parents´ eclectic
record collection for helping give him a love and appreciation for many
different musical genres-- including the 4 hours of classical music
he hosts every weekday.
Guy Whatley
A native of Wales, Guy Whatley has broadcast for WDR and BBC radio and has performed on BBC television. Whatley returns to radio as host of "The Fabulous Fritts."
He had his first musical experiences as a chorister at Cardiff Cathedral, Wales. After private study on organ and harpsichord in Holland with Ton Koopman, he was awarded the diploma Associate of the Royal College of Music. He is Associate Director of Music at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley and has performed with the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra. Whatley has written extensively about the organ and organ repertoire and is preparing a book on performance practice.
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