Jeff Esworthy came to MPR from northeast Ohio, where he started in radio as a volunteer on the Kent State campus in 1978. Being a "fairly nocturnal person," Jeff looks forward to hosting the intimate hours of Music Through the Night, Monday through Friday. Here he gives us a peek into his musical background:

Have you always worked with classical music?

No, actually, I have a widely diverse musical background ... When I was 16 I developed a keen interest in the classical music of North India and I studied sitar. In college I minored in anthropology, and I dabbled in mostly Indian music, but I also dabbled in Japanese music, African drumming, South Indian drumming, and music from rural Northern Thailand. ... I think classical music sometimes takes itself too seriously. And this ethnic musicology training has given me the perspective that classical music is great, but there are other music systems in the world that are equally as old and equally as complex as this Western music .... I also have an interest in folk music, too. I'm a player in a southern string band; I play banjo. I'm hoping to be able to drop into the old timey scene in the Twin Cities.

How do all these interests and your background fit into to your presentation of classical music?

Surprisingly a lot of classical composers have drawn on music of other cultures; especially music of the 20th Century. For example, if you go back to composers like Ravel and his piece called Mother Goose (Ma Mére l'Oye), one of the movements in that is the "Empress of the Pagodas." The way the story goes is at the 1899 World's Fair, Ravel heard a Gamelan ensemble - an orchestra from Indonesia, another amazing musical culture from half way across the world. Ravel was blown away by the sound of it and tried to recreate it in the Empress piece.