Podcasts

Wampum & Fiber Artist and 2023 National Heritage Fellow Elizabeth James-Perry (Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head, Aquinnah) discusses her artistic practices which combines a creative eye with traditional tribal ecological knowledge and science to create da...

Harmonica Player and 2017 National Heritage Fellow Phil Wiggins talks about -and demonstrates- playing the Blues.

Marking Disability Pride month by revisiting my 2020 interview with Rebekah Taussig who discusses her memoir in essays (and current NEA Big Read title) Sitting Pretty The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body.

A conversation with Gil Rose who founded and heads three organizations-- the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), Odyssey Opera and BMOP/Sound—that greatly expand the repertoire of contemporary music.

Meet former Singing Sergeant and current Director of Music and Opera at the National Endowment for the Arts Ann Meier Baker—the woman who went to boot camp so she could sing with a professional chorus!

Saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and 2023 NEA Jazz Master Kenny Garrett talks about his life in music.

2011 MacArthur Fellow, 2021 National Book Award winner, historian, and novelist Tiya Miles discusses how fiction and history meet in her novel.

Jericho Brown reads and discusses his work, his creative process, and Black queer poetry’s capacity to expand concepts of love.

Nicole Chung writes of family and loss with a focus on broader societal failures.

In this 2017 interview, Dancer and Choreographer Dana Tai Soon Burgess looks back at 25 years of creating dance and leading a company.

A look at the Creative Forces Community Engagement Grant Program: we have an overview of the program from partner Mid-America Arts Alliance and a conversation with one of the grantees, Tennessee Shakespeare Company.

In his documentary in process, "EJ Lee: All-American," filmmaker Jason Rhee tells the story of EJ Lee a Korean immigrant in Louisiana who was a phenomenal college basketball player in the 1980s and subsequently attempted to work as a head coach on c...

Author and 2021 National Humanities Medalist Amy Tan discusses “The Joy Luck Club,” her writing with its themes of family and identity, and her relationship with her mother.