WPKN Music, Arts, and Culture Podcast

Jackie Downing of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven discusses the Great Give 2026! The Great Give, now in its 17th year, raises over $4.4 million annually for more than 500 local nonprofits. The fundraiser also offers over $200K in matching funds. The Great Give takes place Wednesday, May 6th and Thursday May 7th. Advance gifts can be made for The Great Give beginning at 8:00 a.m. on...

WPKN radio host Joseph Celli interviews guitarist/composer Julian Lage as he discusses his early training, guitarists that influenced him and that he admires as well as several of his Blue Note releases. Lage, a child prodigy, presents several cuts of his music including the solo Day & Age , his quartet recording with Bill Frisell and a cut from his newest release Scenes From Above .  “Mr. Lag...

For the first edition of “Rockers Arena” of the new year, the Night Nurse, Amy Wachtel, invited her long-time friend, Jamaican percussionist Larry McDonald to sit in with her and shoot the breeze. They spent much of the time reviewing Larry’s long and illustrious career, including time with Taj Mahal and his almost 30 years with Gil Scot-Heron. The loquacious octogenarian is currently a member of...

WPKN is a media partner for Parranda y Salsa at the Downtown Cabaret Theatre in Bridgeport on Thursday, December 18th , running from 5 to 10 pm . Now in its third year, this holiday celebration brings the Parranda traditions of the Caribbean together with live salsa music for a night of dancing, community, and culture. The Downtown Cabaret Theatre is located at 263 Golden Hill Street in Bridgeport...

Joseph Celli WPKN's host of My Other Music (MOM) and SoundPrintAsia interviews composer/guitarist Nels Cline (WILCO) about his inspiration to devote his life to ‘sound’ with his wide range of music making groups ranging from progressive rock to free improvisation.  Nels  talks about the differences between recording and live performance and his love of improvisation and live audiences.  During the...

Atelier Cue is a collaborative design and fabrication studio specializing in place-making, community engagement, and the creation of architectural works of art. Partners Ioana Barac and Marissa Dionne Mead founded the Atelier as a stage for connecting the art of design and the craft of making. Essential to our method is a process of experimentation, prototyping, and fabrication which ensures a sen...

Cathode ray televisions, LED monitors, digital scanners, laptops, desktop tower computers, digital photo frames, cell phone and smartphones: these are among many of the pieces of technology that Paul modifies and deploy in my practice as a new media artist. Most of these devices are used once they’ve become so ubiquitous in public life, that they are either offered up with deep discounts, passed a...

I make work out of unconventional materials such as tarpaper, string, vinyl, foam and pom poms often combining them with paint. My work combines the handmade with industrial, and organic with geometric.. I explore how memories can be suggested, using form, color and pattern that incorporate nature, landscape, science, culture and more. My work has been exhibited in museums and galleries internatio...

Amelia Ingraham is a photographer and creator producing work out of her New Haven studio. She works as a freelance commercial photographer for a variety of companies and publications. The personal work she produces is often surreal and highly conceptual. Being raised by an artist and an auctioneer inspired an endless amount of ideas while building her sets. Her photography boasts a minimalist poin...

Valerie Richardson spoke with four of the five members of the artists' collective G.L.O.C. who will be presenting a collective work during Erector Square Open Studios. G.L.O.C = Megan Czekaj, Emily Herberich, Anna Russell, Gabriella Svenningsen, and Allison Hornak (not present for the interview).

WPKN's Valerie Richardson speaks with Eric March, a realist painter and draftsman whose work explores themes of urban life, urban environments, and narrative-often through dense multi-figural compositions. Since 2020 Eric has created five different large community-focused figurative artworks for public display at local health facilities, including Yale New Haven Hospital and Cornell Scott Hill Hea...

WPKN's Valerie Richardson interviews artist Fethi Meghelli, an Algerian-American artist whose career spans more than five decades, three continents, and experimentation in a wide variety of media and styles, from printmaking, masks, and found objects to paintings, sculpture, and collage, often combining the urgency of social realism with the expansive imaginativeness of surrealism. Meghelli earned...

In this episode, Valerie Richardson sits down with Dr. Jennifer Reynolds‑Kaye, Director of the Housatonic Museum of Art, and guest Bill Behnken to explore Ink and Impressions: 110 Years of the Society of American Graphic Artists . Behnke is a former president of SAGA. We talk about SAGA’s legacy and what it means to mark the organization’s 110th anniversary with its 90th annual members’ exhibition...

Valerie Richardson speaks with Rebecca Goodheart, Producing Director of the Elm Shakespeare Company. Their 30th anniversary production is a Bollywood-styled A Midsummer Night's Dream. Performances run August 14 through August 31, beginning at 7:30 pm, in New Haven's Edgerton Park. Admission is free.  elmshakespeare.org

Valerie Richardson speaks with Cynthia Davis on WPKN's Community Hour on August 18, 2025. Cynthia shares the origin story of Our Woven Community and the women whose artistry fuels it—bags, scarves, and new beginnings. She also previews “Sew Strong Together,” the September 7 gala supporting OWC’s next chapter.

WPKN's Lou Pomales (La Esquina Latina) interviews Richard Hill of Mikata as the band approaches their 40th anniversary. WPKN is a media partner in Trova Y Salsa, Mikata, 40 Year Anniversary Celebration happening Friday July 18, at 9PM, at Park City Music Hall, in Bridgeport. Mikata celebrates 40 years of music making. This event is paired with Park City Music Hall’s Trova y Salsa monthly series, d...

2023, Mike Calabrese of Lake Street Dive talks the history of the band and current music making with WPKN's Martha Nachman.

2023, Fred Tackett talks with WPKN's Martha Nachman about all things Little Feat.

Photographer Michael Friedman ( THE LOST ROCK & ROLL NEGATIVES OF MICHAEL FRIEDMAN)  talks about his photography, stories, and book of unreleased 1960's rock 'n' roll photos with WPKN's Martha Nachman.

2018 conversation with Olivia Panella (UMA GAIA, Healer) and Yamin Alma (Afternoon in the Park), hosted by WPKN's Martha Nachman.

2018, WPKN's Martha Nachman in conversation with Nicole Atkins (Singer/Songwriter).

Valerie Richardson speaks with Tod Papageorge, emeritus director of photography at the Yale School of Art, and Lisa Kereszi, assistant director in photography at Yale, about At the Beach + In the Pool: On Influence , a new exhibition at MoCA Westport. The show pairs Papageorge’s iconic black-and-white photographs of 1970s–80s Los Angeles beachgoers with work by 41 of his former Yale MFA students—n...

Sam Carlson, a lynchpin of the modern-day New Haven, CT music scene drops by to preview singles from the new Tines album Barrows (hitting in August 2025), and to share his favorite productions from Sans Serif Recording with music by Offering Field, Mickey Blurr, Ambulance Chasers, Pyramid Rose Band, and Old Milk Mooney. Hear his take on art, music, life and so much more... Sans Serif Recording The...

John Kinsner of Black Ink Presents, and "Jim Henson's" Labyrinth in Concert" talks with WPKN's Herman Olivera (ReHumanize Yourself Radio) about the upcoming Saturday, May 3, 2025 event at College Street in New Haven. Tickets and more information: https://collegestreetmusichall.com/e/jim-henson-s-labyrinth-in-concert-1050219634197/

Gang of Four's Jon King talks with WPKN's Herman Olivera (ReHumanize Yourself Radio) ahead of the band's farewell tour opening date at Verso Studios/Westport Library, Friday, April 18th. Jon King has also a new memoir  To Hell with Poverty! A Class Act: Inside the Gang of Four. King will be in discussion with WPKN DJ Chris Frantz (The Talking Head) ahead of the Gang of Four's performance on Friday...