Michael Tilson Thomas 
Awarded 2008 Karl Haas Prize for Music Education

The 2008 Karl Haas Prize for Music Education has been awarded to Michael Tilson Thomas, Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony and host of the 8-part radio series, The MTT Files.

Tilson Thomas' seemingly effortless style of communication is near perfect in its ability to draw the listener into his world of music. The radio series is just one component of "Keeping Score," the ambitious cross-media undertaking by the San Francisco Symphony. Michael Tilson Thomas is the linchpin that makes the project so successful in communicating with its intended audiences.

This award's namesake, the late Karl Haas, received the first Fine Arts Radio International Awards Lifetime Achievement honor in 2000. WCLV was the producer and distributor of Karl's program, Adventures in Good Music, from 1970  to 2007.  WCLV won the Classical Music Education via Radio award in 2002 for its Klassical Kids (spelled with a K) program.

The Fine Arts Radio International Awards (FARIA) were inaugurated in 2000 by The Klassix Society of radio station KXMS at  Missouri Southern State University for the purpose of recognizing outstanding achievements in classical music education via the medium of radio. Each year two awards are given: the contest award for the best entry in the annual worldwide competition, and the Karl Haas Prize for Music Education, given to an outstanding individual whose contributions to classical music education via the medium of radio are deemed of exceptional merit by The Klassix Society board of directors.