Podcasts

2010 MacArthur Fellow Sebastian Ruth talks about the community-based arts organization he founded, Community MusicWorks, which won a 2010 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award for its teaching, mentoring, and performing activities with urb...

Choreographer Parker Esse talks about creating new choreography for Arena Stage's revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical "Oklahoma!."

Author Jeffrey Sweet talks about the revitalization of theater in Chicago through the Second City and other theater companies, as well as his own experience as a playwright and the art of theater and musical theater.

One of the most well-regarded postwar American artists still working, Frank Stella discusses his five-decade career in the visual arts, from paintings to sculptures to murals to architecture.

Musician Chuck Brown talks about his career, from honing his chops in prison in Lorton, Virginia, to developing his own musical genre in DC: go-go music.

The only general director to found and lead two opera companies (Michigan Opera Theatre and Opera Pacific), David DiChiera talks about his career, bringing opera to Detroit audiences, and composing his first opera in his 60s

The Legendary soprano talks about her career in opera, including working with such luminaries as Leonard Bernstein, Plácido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti.

NEA Literature Fellow for Translation on the complexities of translating Bolaño's epic novel "2666" and other tribulations of working as a translator.

Rudolfo Anaya talks about the writing of his acclaimed novel "Bless Me, Ultima" as well as in the influence of the oral tradition and folk tales on his writing and his life growing up in New Mexico.

Awarded the 2010 Bess Lomax Hawes Award for the preservation of cultural heritage, Judith McCulloh talks about her extensive work as a folklorist and editor at the University of Illinois Press.

The NEA National Heritage Fellow talks about growing up in East Galway, Ireland, and learning flute playing from his father, as well as coming to America and eventually returning to Irish music in his 50s as both a performer and teacher.

Bluegrass legend Del McCoury discusses his 50-year career, from joining Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys in the 1960s to multiple appearances at the Bonnaroo music and arts festival in the 2000s.

NEA Literature Fellow and National Medal of Arts recipient Julia Alvarez discusses how her life as a reader led to her life as a writer and the rich source material she finds in her family's immigrant experience.