Celebrate Creativity

Send us Fan Mail Today we have the privilege of speaking With the ghost or if you will the spirit of Ludwig van Beethoven —arguably the greatest composer of all time. Ghost  sound Maestro Beethoven, thank you for joining us. Could you begin by telling us about your background? Herr Bartley, it is extremely strange to look back from beyond the grave, but let me oblige. I vas born in Bonn, December...

Send us Fan Mail And here, right on time is the ghost of maestro Haydn to tell us about his story - his life and his music - Maestro Haydn, why don't you start at the be ginning. Certainly, Herr Bartley. I, Joseph Haydn, vas born in 1732 in the small Austrian village of Rohrau, near the border of Hungary. My father, a humble vheelvright, could not imagine that his son vould one day travel to...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to celebrate creativity - in ze past few episodes, I'm afraid I've been a bit off in ze numbering of episodes - this is actually ze fourth season, and I believe that this is episode 483 - now we began this episode with ze Gavotte in G by ze ghost or if you will spirit - of our guest today. Herr Bartley — good day.  It is certainly good to meet you. Ya, I am Maest...

Send us Fan Mail I have the ghost of Herr Bach right here -  Frst could you tell us about your early life and family. Herr Bartley, I vas born in 1685 in Eisenach, Germany. My family had been musicians for generations: organists, cantors, court players. To be a Bach vas, in truth, to be a musician. My father, Johann Ambrosius, vas Eisenach’s town musician. From him, I learned the violin and the ru...

Send us Fan Mail Host: Welcome to the "Echoes of Genius series” -  the podcast where we explore the lives and legacies of the greatest classical composers.  This is episode 480 - Red Priest Rising.  The music that you have heard at the beginning of each episode, and will continue to hear throughout this podcast series is a brief the ghost of the composer who stands at the pinnacle of the Ital...

Send us Fan Mail First I have a confession to make. I plan to do an episode regarding a musician every day, but my right hand started hurting and I mean excruciating painful. I worried about what to do, and realized if I continue to overdo it on an already injured hand/ I would have serious problems. I thought about giving up this podcast altogether but eventually decided to take a day by day appr...

Send us Fan Mail This is the first of what I hope to be a series of 25 podcast episodes regarding some of the most influential and creative musicians prior to the 1900s - all ranked chronologically - then the following month, I will deal to some of the most influential musicians after the 1900s.  It somehow didn't seem right to have Beethoven and the Beatles compete with each other in a list...

Send us Fan Mail Well, I checked my stats for Celebrate Creativity and I am now just 7 downloads 25,000 downloads in 100 countries and territories - something I could have never envisioned five years ago when I started this podcast as Celebrate Poe.  And I will soon be starting a new series of podcasts where I talk to the ghosts - or if you will - spirits of various musicians.  Therefore before I...

Send us Fan Mail Spring intro “Welcome, my friends, to The Microphone Episode. Yes, this is the one where the.  greatest composers of all time—individuals who shuffled off their mortal coil long ago—are handed a microphone for the very first time. Now you might also think of this episode as a promo or the introduction to the majority of the episodes in October where I take a deep dive into the lif...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to Celebrate Creativity - Episode 475 - Echoes of Horror   Man is capable of tremendous atrocities against other individuals.  An example is The Great Chinese Famine (1959-1961): This was a period of mass starvation under Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward.  While the exact number of deaths is debated, estimates range from 15 to 55 million people. While not a direct camp...

Send us Fan Mail When people talk about the most successful writers of all time, one name is almost always among the first: J. K. Rowling. The author of the Harry Potter series didn’t just sell books — she created a cultural earthquake. For millions of readers, Hogwarts was not a fictional castle, but a place they knew as well as their own schools. Her novels inspired midnight release parties at b...

Send us Fan Mail Toni Morrison shows us that literature can be both beautiful and necessary. That stories, especially the hard ones, can teach us how to see, how to remember, and maybe even how to heal. Morrison's importance stems from several key aspects of her work: Her novels powerfully explore the complexities of Black life in America, often focusing on the perspectives of Black women and...

Send us Fan Mail "Before Narnia ever existed, C.S. Lewis had a secret weapon: a band of Oxford friends who argued, challenged, and inspired him—the Inklings." Think C.S. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia all by himself? Think again. Lewis was part of the Inklings, a group of Oxford professors, writers, and thinkers who met to read aloud, debate, and challenge one another. When we thin...

Send us Fan Mail =Eugene O'Neill's development as a playwright was deeply rooted in his turbulent personal life and a deliberate rejection of the popular theater of his time. He evolved from a young man adrift to become a revolutionary force in American drama. O'Neill's upbringing was steeped in theater, but not in a way that he admired. His father, James O'Neill, was a su...

Send us Fan Mail The subject of today's podcast, Oscar Wilde is extremely important because of his efforts in making wit an art form. His plays — such as The Importance of Being Earnest — are still laugh-out-loud funny more than a century later, which almost no other Victorian writer can claim. He exposed the hypocrisy and absurdity of his society with dazzling one-liners that still feel shar...

Send us Fan Mail Leo Tolstoy is Russia’s other literary giant — a master of epic storytelling, moral inquiry, and psychological insight. His genius lies in observing the human soul with relentless curiosity, asking the questions every creative mind wrestles with: How do we live well? How do we understand ourselves and others? In Tolstoy, as in Dostoyevsky, we see that the tension between human des...

Send us Fan Mail In the previous episode, we walked with Walt Whitman down the open roads of America, hearing the chorus of ordinary lives. Now we cross continents and step into the narrow corridors of the human soul with Fedor Dostoevsky—where freedom and conscience wrestle in shadows. Whitman’s poetry celebrated the sweep of America, the chorus of countless lives, and the boundless possibilities...

Send us Fan Mail Walt Whitman’s writing helped to capture and define the spirit of the growing United States during the challenging 1800s. He had a bold and unusual way of writing that created a new artistic style for America. Whitman's importance comes from three big changes that he led: a new way of writing poetry, a new way of thinking about democracy, and a new influence on American art. ...

Send us Fan Mail Within the past few days, this podcast has dealt with Victor Hugo, Jonathan Swift, and Edgar Allan Poe - all these individuals were giants who challenged the status quo, but in vastly different ways. Today I would like to add Henry David Thoreau to the mix for a hopefully a compelling contrast. He's often misunderstood, just like Poe, but his rebellion was one of quiet solitu...

Send us Fan Mail First you might ask - why should I read Victor Hugo.  Well I'm glad you asked.  You see, Reading Victor Hugo is an immersive and profound experience.  But before we deal into Les Miserables, I want to say a little bit about his earlier novels. You see, before his masterwork Les Misérables (1862), Victor Hugo wrote several other significant works, including novels, plays, and...

Send us Fan Mail I can't believe it, but we are halfway through the list of writers.   I have at least 13 of the 25 writers on the list finished - and today is Charles Dickens. Now, Charles Dickens was a brilliant storyteller, a powerful voice for social justice, and a master of crafting unforgettable characters. You could say that Charles Dickens was The Voice of the Common Person. Dickens u...

Send us Fan Mail Imagine this: William Wordsworth, in the early 1800s, walking the hills of England’s Lake District. He stops to watch a field of daffodils swaying in the breeze, and suddenly, the moment becomes eternal. For Wordsworth, nature is not just scenery — it is a teacher, a healer, even a kind of companion. The world outside reflects the life within.  And it’s reflective moments like the...

Send us Fan Mail What if I told you one of the most famous writers in history calmly suggested… eating babies? Here's the situation: You’re sitting down with a brand-new pamphlet in Dublin, 1729. The author, Jonathan Swift, is proposing a solution to poverty in Ireland. And here’s the solution: the Irish poor should sell their babies as food to the wealthy. Yes, you heard that right. Children...

Send us Fan Mail Now, Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, was a prolific and multi-talented English writer, journalist, and spy, whose life was as adventurous as his most famous characters. Born Daniel Foe around 1660 in London to a family of Dissenters (Protestants who did not conform to the Church of England), he later added the aristocratic-sounding "De" to his name. Defoe&ap...

Send us Fan Mail "Darkness visible — a phrase that captures the paradox of John Milton’s life: eventual blindness in body, yet vision without bounds in the mind.” "Imagine a world gone dark — yet in that darkness, a man named John Milton could see more clearly than anyone else." John Milton grew up with privilege, expectation, and a mind hungry for knowledge. His father, a scrivener...