Greg Kostraba, piano

Winner of the 2007 Ohio Public Broadcasting Award for Radio Producer of the Year, WGTE’s Classical Music Director and Senior Radio Host Greg Kostraba is responsible for programming classical music. He is also the host of Afternoon Classics, Live From FM 91, and FM 91 In Concert. Prior to joining WGTE, Greg was the Program Director at KRPS in Pittsburg, Kansas. He also worked at WGUC in Cincinnati and WBAA at Purdue University.

Greg Kostraba has successfully combined a career as a radio professional and concert pianist. At the Fourth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs in June 2004, Greg's performances were called “mesmerizing” (Fort Worth Star-Telegram) and “boldly hewn” (Dallas Morning News), and garnered him semifinalist status. His January 2006 performance of Kaintuck’ by William Grant Still with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra, Chelsea Tipton II conducting, was broadcast nationwide on National Public Radio’s Performance Today.

Greg has performed throughout the Midwest, including appearances with the Toledo, Lima, Perrysburg, Purdue, and Lafayette, Indiana Symphony Orchestras, and given solo piano and chamber music performances at the Great Gallery of the Toledo Museum of Art, Bowling Green State University, Owens Community College, Adrian College and Oakland University in Michigan, St. Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana, the Performing Arts Series at Firelands, and with the Tippecanoe Chamber Music Society (TCMS) in Lafayette, Indiana, a group he founded. Highlights of his 2007-08 season include performances with the University of Toledo Symphony Orchestra and the Monroe County (Michigan) Community College Band, the inaugural Chamber Music Toledo season, and return engagement at the St. Roch Chamber Music Festival in Caseville, Michigan.

Dr. Kostraba holds masters and doctoral degrees in piano performance from the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and a degree in international relations from American University in Washington, D. C. He has studied piano and chamber music with Dorothy Bolognini, Alan Mandel, Richard Morris, Sandra Rivers, and the late Richard Fields, and participated in master classes with Eugene Istomin as well as members of the La Salle, Audubon, and Tokyo String Quartets.

When he's not playing or listening to classical music, Greg enjoys big band music, especially recordings of his father, trumpeter Dan Terry. Most Tuesday nights, you can find him with his father at John’s Korner Bar and Grill in South Toledo, where he plays piano with the Rusty’s Jazz Café Orchestra. A Subdeacon at St. George Orthodox Cathedral in Rossford, Ohio, Greg enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters.