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Classical 103.5 Classical 103.5 WQXR · Est. 1976

New York's home for classical music — 24 hours a day, every day since 1976.

Programs & On-Air Voices Established 1976 · WQXK-FM

The Voices of Classical 103.5

New York's home for classical music, on the air 24 hours a day from a Midtown studio — guided by a roster of hosts whose collective broadcasting tenure averages twenty-two years, and whose voices frame every symphony, sonata, and live broadcast you hear on 103.5 MHz.

22 yrs average host tenure 312 in-studio artist interviews in 2024 138 orchestral concerts broadcast per year
The Roster

The On-Air Roster

Four voices, four decades of shared listening. Each program below is broadcast live from our studio at 1450 Broadway and streamed worldwide at classical1035.com.

Portrait of Margaret Halloway, morning host of Classical 103.5 Photographed in Studio A, 2024
Morning Host · 6:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. ET

Margaret Halloway

Margaret has opened the broadcast day at Classical 103.5 since 1998, a tenure that began the morning after she returned from a Fulbright at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Her program pairs the Baroque and early Classical canon with extended artist features; she has conducted 89 of the station's 312 in-studio interviews of the past year alone, including a two-hour conversation with Renée Fleming in February. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, Margaret trained as a soprano before a vocal fold injury rerouted her to the studio. She still programs the morning block by hand, selecting every transition.

On-air tenure
27 years
Featured composers
Bach, Handel, Haydn
Signature segment
“The First Hour”
Portrait of David Reinhardt, midday host of Classical 103.5 Photographed in Studio B, 2024
Midday Host · 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. ET

David Reinhardt

David joined the station in 2002 from the WNYC newsroom, where he covered cultural affairs for eleven years. His midday block is the station's most-listened window among commuters and remote workers across the tri-state, built around full movements of nineteenth-century symphonic works threaded with brief, plainly written commentary. A former violist with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, David brings a player's ear to sequencing; he produces the annual “Brahms Marathon,” now in its fourteenth edition. His Friday program, “New York Live,” previews the weekend's orchestral calendar from Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.

On-air tenure
23 years
Featured composers
Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann
Signature segment
“New York Live”
Portrait of Elena Vasquez, afternoon host of Classical 103.5 Photographed in the Station Library, 2024
Afternoon Host · 2:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. ET

Elena Vasquez

Elena arrived at Classical 103.5 in 2010, after a decade as a producer at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Her afternoon programming foregrounds twentieth- and twenty-first-century work without abandoning the standard repertoire; she programs the station's weekly “Living Composer” slot and hosts the in-studio series on Tuesdays. A native of Bogotá who trained at Juilliard, Elena anchors the station's Spanish-language interview clips and translates select artist remarks for the English broadcast. In 2024 she conducted 71 in-studio conversations, including extended sessions with Gustavo Dudamel and the Emerson Quartet.

On-air tenure
15 years
Featured composers
Stravinsky, Bartók, Saariaho
Signature segment
“Living Composer”
Portrait of Theodore Ashby, evening host of Classical 103.5 Photographed in Studio C, 2024
Evening Host · 7:00 p.m. – 12:00 a.m. ET

Theodore Ashby

Theodore is the station's longest-serving voice. He has hosted the evening block since 1989, the year Classical 103.5 took its current name — and has been broadcasting continuously at 103.5 MHz since the early WQXK-FM years. A former choral director at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Theodore programs a nocturne-leaning evening: late Romanticism, vocal literature, and complete opera recordings staged over four hours on Saturdays. He is the host listeners write to most often, and he reads every letter. In 2024 the NAB honored the station's interview archive with him at its center.

On-air tenure
36 years
Featured composers
Wagner, Mahler, Strauss
Signature segment
“The Nocturne”
A Note From the Newsroom

“A host is the connective tissue between the listener and the music. When Margaret, David, Elena, and Theodore sit down across from an artist in our studio, they are not interviewing — they are translating a life in music into a few minutes of conversation that the listener can carry into the rest of the day.”

— From the 2024 Editorial Standards of Classical 103.5

Of the 312 in-studio artist interviews broadcast last year, every one was hosted by a member of this roster. None are pre-recorded for syndication; each happens live in Midtown, often within the same week as the artist's appearance at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, or the Metropolitan Opera. The station has been the exclusive broadcast partner of those three institutions since 2009, and the host who introduces the concert is, more often than not, the same voice you heard that morning.

Editorial Depth, By the Numbers

The proof behind the programming.

22 years

Average on-air tenure across the four hosts — the highest of any classical station in the New York market.

312 interviews

In-studio artist conversations broadcast in 2024, including Yo-Yo Ma, Renée Fleming, and Gustavo Dudamel.

138 concerts

Live orchestral broadcasts carried each year from Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Met Opera.

49 years

Continuous broadcasting on 103.5 MHz, uninterrupted since the station's founding in 1976.

Programming facts as of Q1 2025. Audience figures from internal 2024 analytics; community figures from the New York Classical Broadcasting Inc. annual report.

Next Step

Browse the Schedule

Find the host whose voice begins your day — and the concerts, operas, and live broadcasts that follow. The full weekly programming grid is published every Friday by noon ET.

Open the Weekly Schedule Support the Station · Become a Member →

Classical 103.5 is 100% community-funded. Sustaining members underwrite every hour of uninterrupted programming you hear — from the first Bach cantata at dawn to the last nocturne at midnight.