Soundcheck

About the Staff

John Schaefer (wowe - www.wowe.it)

John Schaefer has hosted and produced the popular new-music radio program New Sounds since 1982. Schaefer's program was called "The #1 radio show for the Global Village" by Billboard magazine. He is also executive producer and host of the nationally-syndicated series Chamber Music New York. Since 1986, he has produced and hosted New Sounds Live, an annual series of live broadcast concerts devoted to many types of new, unusual and overlooked forms of music. Since 1991 he has produced and hosted WNYC's programs of classical performances, both in studio and in various concert halls. He has been heard regularly on the BBC, the ABC (Australia), Taipei Public Radio and Radio New Zealand. Schaefer's writings include New Sounds: A Listener's Guide to New Music (Harper & Row, NY, 1987; Virgin Books, London, 1990); a biography of composer La Monte Young (in Sound and Light, Bucknell University Press, 1996); and Songlines: The Voice in World Music (Cambridge Companion to Singing, Cambridge University Press, UK, 2000). He was contributing editor for Spin and Ear magazines, and has written numerous articles and reviews. His liner notes appear on more than 100 recordings, ranging from The Music of Cambodia to recordings by Yo-Yo Ma, Bobby McFerrin, and Terry Riley.

In 2003 Schaefer joined an elite group of honorees when he was presented with the American Music Center's prestigious Letter of Distinction for his "substantial contributions to advancing the field of contemporary American music in the United States and abroad."

In May 2006, New York Magazine cited Schaefer as one of "the people whose ideas, power, and sheer will are changing New York" in its Influentials issue.

A lover of both New York and Los Angeles, Gisele (Gi-SEH-lee) came to WNYC after serving as the managing producer for KCRW's nationally-syndicated program, To the Point, and also for Which Way, L.A.? Before joining public radio, she worked as a print reporter for AmericaEconomia magazine, for the daily newspaper Gazeta Mercantil and for the news agency Agencia Estado, covering topics such as business, trade, foreign relations, and public policy in the U.S., Latin America and India. She has also worked as a freelance writer for American publications and her work has appeared on Newsday and Latin Trade magazine, among others. This native of Brazil has a Masters in Business Journalism from the nearby Baruch College and a BA from Escola de Comunicaçoes e Artes, USP. She lives in a trilingual (Portuguese, Spanish and English) house in Brooklyn with her husband Eduardo Porter and son Mateo.

Brian Wise joined the Soundcheck team in September 2003. His background includes various aspects of the music and media industries, working a classical-music public relations firm, at a custom publisher of program books, and most recently, at WQXR radio. Brian has also worked as a print journalist and his articles have appeared in the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Travel & Leisure, BBC Music Magazine, the Financial Times, Newsday, Time Out New York, Opera News, and other publications. Brian studied musicology and journalism at the University of Michigan and Northwestern University, and he currently lives in Manhattan.

Joel Meyer joined Soundcheck in March 2007. His radio career began 11 years earlier, when his dreams of rock stardom were dashed by a sudden lack of musical talent. (Friends and relatives quietly nodded in agreement.) With only his record collection and a deep voice to his name, he joined Radio K, the University of Minnesota’s alternative-rock station, where he served as a student morning-show host and program director. After graduating with a degree in communications, Joel continued preaching the college-rock gospel to Hofstra University students as a full-time manager at WRHU-FM. Later, he worked as a blogger and associate editor at Broadcasting & Cable, a television business magazine. (It was during this time that Joel became a disciple of the best show on TV, HBO’s The Wire.) Most recently, he served as an associate producer on Air America Radio’s The Al Franken Show and The Sam Seder Show. Joel holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. More importantly, he’s married to his wife Linda. And also to the Minnesota Twins.

Summer of 1994 Irene Trudel began a long and happy run as an engineer at WNYC Radio. Among her many tasks as Technical Director of Soundcheck (which includes mixing all the audio and live bands for the show), she is a part of the concert crew for New Sounds and other live music broadcasts and recordings.

The radio bug bit Irene Trudel in the 70's while attending Morristown High School (NJ), which owned a 10-watt student-run station (WJSV). Around that same time she made her first tentative steps toward becoming a recording engineer by taping local folk singers at a coffeehouse for later broadcast.

Years later, following a grossly unsatisfying start in the commercial broadcast world, Irene realized her heart was in non-commercial radio. Preceding her stint at WNYC, in 1986 she joined the DJ staff at WFMU and has been quietly producing the kind of radio that has sadly disappeared from most other stations. Irene has hosted shows at WFMU for over 20 years and still finds great music to share with the listeners. And the music is one of the many reasons she enjoys working with the Soundcheck crew at WNYC.

Irene's home is in New York City with husband Peter Keepnews and kitties Gracie and Nica.

Rob Christiansen has been fiddling with tape recorders and musical instruments since he was a wee lad in Marblehead, Massachusetts. He honed his mixing skills at Emerson College's radio station, WERS, in Boston, and studied recording and Physics The American University in Washington, D.C. He has recorded such indie-rock greats as LaBradford, Unrest, Tuscadero, and Wimp Factor Fourteen, and has played in bands, Eggs, Grenadine, Tsunami, and Stick Insect. He was also a founding member of the Sisterhood of Convoluted Thinkers (link www.convolutedthinkers.com). His sound design work appears in commercials, video games, in the artwork of Sue deBeer at 2004's Whitney Biennial, and in the trailer for "Revolver," which won the "Golden Trailer Award" in the "Best Trailer - No Movie" category. (Anyone got any cash?) He started his public radio career in 2001, when he began working at NPR's news bureau in New York, and soon jumped over to WNYC to work with On the Media. Currently, in addition to his work with the music shows, Soundcheck and Spinning on Air, he mixes Selected Shorts, and runs Fading Fliers, a studio in Brooklyn.

Additional information on staff biographies for all of WNYC's shows.