Podcasts

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.

Author and Library of Congress’s 2023-24 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Meg Medina wants to spark joy in young readers as they find themselves and others in books.

The late NEA Jazz Master Ahmad Jamal talks about his celebrated career in this 2012 interview.

Ecopoet and two-time NEA Literature Fellow Camille T Dungy on the complications of writing about nature.

Dramaturg and literary manager Otis Cortez Ramsey-Zöe and casting director Joseph Pinzon takes us behind the scenes at Washington DC’s Arena Stage for the revival of “Angels in America.”

In part two of our interview, Violinist and 2023 NEA Jazz Master Regina Carter discusses some of the highlights of her spectacular career.

An interview with Regina Carter, part 1:Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman.

Meet Tsione Wolde-Michael, the Executive Director of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH).

Novelist and poet Bushra Rehman celebrates the Pakistani American community of 1980s Corona, Queens, and the coming of age of a queer Muslim girl and budding writer in her novel "Roses in the Mouth of a Lion."

Artistic Director Janis Burley Wilson discusses the culturally specific multidisciplinary programming of the August Wilson African American Cultural Center for the Pittsburgh community.

Drummer and 2023 NEA Jazz Master Louis Hayes talks about his long and distinguished career as a musician.

Director Timothy Johnson talks about bringing the brilliant work of Harlem Renaissance playwright Eulalie Spence to the stage.

Chair Maria Rosario Jackson looks back at her first year leading the Arts Endowment and shares her ideas, plans, and initiatives for the year ahead.

The acclaimed choreographer Kyle Abraham talks about his history, inspirations, and collaborations.

Author and MIT physicist Alan Lightman explores the similarities between artistic and scientific impulses.

Carolyn Mazloomi shines a powerful light on African-American narrative quilts.

Author of the NEA Big Read title "Nothing to See Here" Kevin Wilson discusses the serious issues at the heart of this outrageous (and outrageously funny) novel.