WPKN Music, Arts, and Culture Podcast

WPKN is a media partner in the Force MDs and Family Live in Concert Pre Memorial Day Celebration at Foolproof Brewery in Bridgeport, happening Sunday May 18th at 6PM with doors at 4PM. In support of this upcoming event DJ, emcee, and educator Terrible Tee spoke Stevie D and Kahlil Lundy of the Force MD’s along with promoter and record dealer, Gee’s Records. Listen like and subscribe to WPKN podcas...

Guitarist Nels Cline is interviewed by WPKN's Bill Cosentino as they discuss Cline's expansive genre-defying work across multiple projects. Nels Cline's Consentrik Quartet comes to the region Wednesday April 9th, at the Space Ballroom in Hamden, CT.

Radio Host Joseph Celli interviews Grammy Award winning Chinese pipa virtuoso WU MAN prior to her performance with the New Haven Symphony. WU MAN discusses the 2,000 year old pipa tradition, the new pipa concerto ( Ears of the Book ) composed for her by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Du Yun. “…one of the foremost Asian musicians in North America…she has plucked her way through classical, experime...

Andrea E. Reid, MD, MPH is a gastroenterologist at Massachusetts General Hospital where she is also the Director of Diversity and Faculty Development for Gastroenterology. Dr. Reid is also the Associate Dean for Student and Multicultural Affairs and Director of the Office of Recruitment and Multicultural Affairs at Harvard Medical School.

Jason Duncan of the late-60s/70s reissue record label, Just Add Water Records, and rock 'n' roll band So What chats with WPKN's Brendan Toller about being a rock 'n' roll renaissance man, and the upcoming Derv Gordon (the Equals) 2025 tour that has So What backing.

Derv Gordon of the Equals chats with WPKN's Brendan Toller about his life in music, the formation of the Equals, trajectory, and upcoming 2025 tour that stops in New Haven at Cafe Nine on Weds, March 19th.

Joseph Celli will features an interview with award-winning jazz flutist Nicole Mitchell on his My Other Music (MOM) show on Mon., March 10, 9-10am exclusively on WPKN 89.5fm or streaming @ WPKN.org. The internationally recognized musician discusses her creative process, her work with the AACM and her Black Earth Ensemble. The program includes several musical examples of her compositions.

WPKN's Bill Cosentino speaks with Joe Russo about his musical history leading up to and including Joe Russo's Almost Dead (JRAD), as well as his latest project with Selcouth Quartet. They sonically explore some of the improvisational scapes this talented group of musicians have created in Iceland and bring to the area as they kick off their tour in support of this album. Russo's tour is starts in...

Underground techno collective discusses their first vinyl EP release of Buddy City, their popular New Haven dance nights at Cafe Nine, and so much more... https://heatsyncrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-buddy-city-ep

WPKN and Mega Bass Presents: Poets on Fire celebrating Black History Month with a live in-studio poetry broadcast. Listen to a cadre of regional emerging poets including Bridgeport’s own Phillip C. Alexander who has graced stages from Connecticut to Florida, and who recently shared the stage opening for hip hop collective, Brand Nubian. Poet, God Is Tymani Rain, the 2024 Connecticut Grand Slam poe...

ICON interviews Dr Julius Garvey, the son of Marcus Garvey, the first national hero of Jamaica. President Joe Biden on Sunday January 19, 2025 posthumously pardoned Black nationalist Marcus Garvey, who influenced Malcolm X and other civil rights leaders, and was convicted of mail fraud in the 1920s. Garvey’s conviction was politically motivated and an effort to silence the increasingly popular lea...

Mystic Bowie sits down with Amy Wachtel (Night Nurse) and Ebong Udoma ahead of his 2/1 WPKN Black History Month Concert and Bob Marley Birthday Bash at FTC on Saturday 2/1.

Joseph Celli talks with singer-songwriter Vance Gilbert ahead of his Saturday, 2/8, WPKN Black History Month appearance at Jazzy's Cabaret in New Haven. Tickets at Fernandopintopresents.com

Musicologist Scott Freiman speaks with Brendan Toller (Shake 'N' Vibrate Radio) about his upcoming appearance at Fairfield Theater Company where he will present audiences with his Deconstructing Dark Side of the Moon lecture delving deep into this classic album.

Molly Tuttle joins WPKN's Bob Anderson ( A Little Bit of Everything ) for an interview ahead of her Tuesday, November 19th appearance at Fairfield Theater Company in the Warehouse.

Valerie Richardson sits down with Lilia Uribe and Dr. Royce K. Young Wolf, the inaugural Assistant Curator of Native American Art at the Yale University Art Gallery and Collection Manager of the Native North American and Indigenous Collection at the Yale Peabody Museum, to discuss the powerful work of Native American artist Julie Buffalohead.   In honor of Native American Heritage Month, the Housa...

Lenny Kaye talks with WPKN's Martha Willette Lewis on The Flux Capacitor ahead of Lenny's November 8, 2024 appearance at Small Batch Cellars in North Haven.

WPKN's Richard Epstein ( Sometimes Classical ) chats with Jonathan Yates, Music Director of the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra (norwalksymphony.org), and violin soloist for the first concert of the season Alexander Markov (alexandermarkov.com). The pair discusses the 85th season of the Norwalk Symphony and Markov's innovative playing at his recent Carnegie Hall recital.

Nate Hilts of the Dead South checks in with WPKN's Martha Nachman (The Music Never Stopped) ahead of the Dead South's 10/24 performance at College Street Music Hall.

Jason Kao Hwang discusses his early training and eventual emergence in New York’s improv loft scene. He discusses the Asian American music movement, his mentors, and the use of the electric violin. Jason has worked as a violinist with innumerable new music legends including Anthony Braxton, William Parker, Henry Threadgill, Tomeka Reid, Wadada Leo Smith, Joëlle Léandre and many others. He has rece...

WPKN's Rich Kaminsky, host of Off-Beat! airing Saturdays, 2 a.m. – 6 a.m., interviews singer and artist, Exene Cervenka ahead of X's last national tour and new album,  Smoke and Fiction.

The Courettes join WPKN's Howard Thompson (PURE) discussing their fourth tour of the US in conjunction with the release of their new album  THE SOUL OF THE FABULOUS COURETTES...

Jim Reid, singer/songwriter, lead singer, and co-founder (with brother William Reid) for The Jesus and Mary Chain , chats with WPKN's Herman Olivera (ReHumanize Yourself Radio) ahead of the group's WPKN Presents performance at College Street Music Hall on Tuesday, October 1st at 7PM. In partnership with Premier Concerts and Manic Presents.

Tim Butler, bassist, and co-founder of the English rock band the Psychedelic Furs, chats with WPKN's Herman Olivera (ReHumanize Yourself Radio) ahead of the group's WPKN Presents performance at College Street Music Hall on Tuesday, October 1st at 7PM. In partnership with Premier Concerts and Manic Presents.

WPKN programmer Valerie Richardson speaks with artist Iyaba Ibo Mandingo about his exhibition Arwe Journey: Twentieth-Century Afri-Caribbean Migration , which will be on view at the Housatonic Museum of Art from Weds. Sept. 18, 2024, through Feb. 21, 2025. In the 61 paintings in this exhibition, the artist Iyaba Ibo Mandingo tells the story of the 20th-century Afri-Caribbean migration to Europe an...