Art Works Podcast

NEA Jazz Master Ron Carter, bassist/cellist/educator extraordinaire, talks about his career playing jazz and classical music. 

Playwright, actor, and activist Anna Deveare Smith talks about her extraordinary career and her current one-woman show, Let Me Down Easy .

Isabel Wilkerson talks about her book, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration , focusing on the transfer of Southern culture to the North, creating a new, vibrant culture in the country.

Author of two memoirs about her life in Iran, Reading Lolita in Tehran and Things I've Been Silent About , Azar Nafisi talks about her books, her life in Iran, her parents, the Iranian Revolution, and, of course, the power of literature. 

Bert Crenca talks about founding the community arts center AS220, its interaction with the city Providence, and its arts education offshoot AS220 Youth.

Author Luis Alberto Urrea talks about the inspiration for and writing of his novel Into the Beautiful North , which takes place from Sinaloa, Mexico, all the way up north to Kankakee, Illinois. 

Dan Morgenstern, recipient of the 2007 A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy, discusses the 2011 class of NEA Jazz Masters. [27:27]

Molly Smith talks about American theater, including the often-overlooked musical, her commitment to new play development, and her vision for the newly-renovated Arena Stage at the Mead Center.

Shirley Sneve talks about the mission of the Native American Public Telecommunications organization, which shares stories of Native American people through the creation, promotion, and distribution of Native media on television and radio. 

2010 MacArthur Fellow Sebastian Ruth talks about the community-based arts organization he founded, Community MusicWorks, which won a 2010 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award for its teaching, mentoring, and performing activities with urban youth in Providence, Rhode Island. [27:11]

Choreographer Parker Esse talks about his experience creating new choreography for Arena Stage's revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical Oklahoma! .

Jeffrey Sweet talks about the revitalization of theater in Chicago through the Second City and other theater companies, as well as his own experience as a playwright and the art of theater and musical theater.  

One of the most well-regarded postwar American artists still working, Frank Stella discusses his five-decade career in the visual arts, from paintings to sculptures to murals to architecture. 

Musician Chuck Brown talks about his career, from honing his chops in prison in Lorton, Virginia, to developing his own musical genre in DC: go-go music. 

The only general director to found and lead two opera companies (Michigan Opera Theatre and Opera Pacific), David DiChiera talks about his career, bringing opera to Detroit audiences, and composing his first opera in his 60s. 

Legendary soprano Martina Arroyo talks about her career in opera, including working with such luminaries as Leonard Bernstein, Plácido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti. 

Natasha Wimmer was awarded an NEA Literature Fellowship in 2007 to translate Roberto Bolaño's epic novel  2666 . In this interview, she discusses the complexities of translating Bolaño's work and other tribulations of working as a translator. [27:08]

Rudolfo Anaya talks about the writing of his acclaimed novel  Bless Me, Ultima  as well as in the influence of the oral tradition and folk tales on his writing and his life growing up in New Mexico. 

Awarded the 2010 Bess Lomax Hawes Award for the preservation of cultural heritage, Judith McCulloh talks about her extensive work as a folklorist and editor at the University of Illinois Press. 

Mike Rafferty talks about growing up in East Galway, Ireland, and learning flute playing from his father, as well as coming to America and eventually returning to Irish music in his 50s as both a performer and teacher.

Bluegrass legend Del McCoury discusses his 50-year career, from joining Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in the 1960s to multiple appearances at the Bonnaroo music and arts festival in the 2000s. 

Writer Julia Alvarez discusses how her life as a reader led to her life as a writer and the rich source material she finds in her family's immigrant experience.

Ed Herendeen talks about founding and sustaining a theater festival committed to supporting bold, daring new works for the stage. [18:27]

Basque writer Unai Elorriaga and Amaia Gabantxo, translator of Elorriaga's novel  Plants Don’t Drink Coffee , discuss the book as well as the art of translation and the Basque language. [25:50]

Joel Nelson talks about how he grew to love poetry and how he writes and recites poetry, as well as growing up on a ranch and his love of horses, among other subjects. [27:00]