Gene Schiller, music director and classical music host for Hawaii Public Radio, will be featured in the Sunday New York Times, according to station officials.

How the heck did the Times find out about a classical music guy who plies his craft from some of the most isolated islands on Earth?

"There’s a chap … who has a lot of street cred in the (classical) music business" who heard Gene during the process of moving to Maui, said Michael Titterton, HPR president and general manager.

"He was enraged that New York City offers nothing like the quality of classical music programming that we do from our grass huts in Hawaii," Titterton laughed. "That’s not far from the original conversation I had with him," he said.

Matthew Gurewitsch (goo-RAY-vitch) is a freelance writer whose work is often published in the Times, said Judy Neale, HPR director of promotion.

He spent a couple of days at the station last month, first sitting in with Schiller during his "Sunday Brunch" program from 9 a.m. to noon. He attended the first performance of the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra (hawaiisymphonyorchestra. org) with several HPR folk that afternoon. He returned to the studio to sit in with Schiller during Morning Cafe and Morning Concert the next morning.

Gurewitsch, "a Wagnerian," Titterton said, "was entranced with Gene’s eccentric record collection and sense of humor."

The writer "seems to feel that (Schiller) is extraordinary," said Neale, making it clear she does not disagree. "The more he listened to Gene the more amazed he was."

That Gurewitsch would not only hear Schiller’s program but choose to write about it for such a vaunted publication as the New York Times "was all very serendipitous," Neale said.

Disclosure: Your columnist is a member of and regular on-air pitcher for Hawaii Public Radio, but would have written about Schiller’s national exposure even if that were not the case.

SATO SAUNTERS EASTWARD

Former Hawaii radio personality Pablo Sato got a new gig in the nation’s capital and starts the day after America celebrates its birthday.

Sato joins morning show personalities "Free," Guy Lambert and "DJ Heat" on July 5 on WPGC-FM 95.5 in Washington, D.C. The show airs from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. weekdays in D.C., which is the No. 7 radio market and is heard in Baltimore (No. 21 market).

Sato, who worked at least two stints at the old KIKI-FM 93.9 (now KHJZ), figured he’d make use of his local connections in D.C.

"I Facebooked the local bruddah Obama, and said ‘Chee who, I’m coming to D.C!!! I need a place to stay, you get room or what?’" he said. "No response yet but, I think he blocked me and Secret Service is ringing on the other line," Sato joked.

Maybe if he shows up at the front door of the White House with omiyage?

Since his first stint at KIKI in Honolulu (market No. 64), Sato has worked at KFMS-FM 101.9 (now KWID) in Las Vegas (market 32); XHTZ-FM 90.3 in San Diego (market 17); and at Tucson’s KOHT-FM 98.3 (market 62) before returning to XHTZ in San Diego, where he used his real first name on the air (Blaine).

He wanted this column to refer to him only as Pablo Sato, but the news release announcing that he had been hired by WPGC identifies him as Blaine "Pablo" Sato. As your columnist assured him they would do, radio industry publications all have used the unfamiliar-to-Hawaii Blaine reference.

Well, maybe the reference is familiar to his fellow 1995 Kaiser High School classmates and to the teachers who used to grade his assignments.

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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com, or on Twitter as @erikaengle.