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Program Guide - Sunday
What would it be like to hear the Juilliard String Quartet perform in your living room? Or to invite violinist Joshua Bell over for brunch and Bach? Many people believe that chamber music is open only to connoisseurs, but each week Saint Paul Sunday's veteran host Bill McGlaughlin (pronounced "mih-*GLOCK*-lun") disproves this all-too-common view.
He opens the studio to the world's best classical artists—musicians of every conceivable style and mix—for both performance and conversation, giving listeners intimate access to how music is created at the highest level. It's all done with a great sense of exuberance and curiosity. The series' unique approach has won it hundreds of thousands of loyal listeners and, most recently, a 1995 George Foster Peabody Award.
From Wikipedia:
For each hour-long show, host Bill McGlaughlin invites a virtuoso soloist or chamber ensemble into the studio to discuss and perform music. Generally, the music featured on the program fits under the wide umbrella of classical music. Guests often bring compositions by renowned composers like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms. Other composers featured, such as Hildegard of Bingen and John Rutter, run the gamut from the late medieval through the contemporary. Many of the contemporary pieces featured owe their origins to non-classical or non-European genres.
McGlaughlin's eager curiosity and enthusiasm for music lend a welcoming warmth to the program.
About Bill McGlaughlin
Each week for nearly twenty five years, Bill McGlaughlin has invited listeners into the Saint Paul Sunday studio where he brings musical performances of the highest order down to earth for all who tune in. Unafraid to ask the most basic questions, Bill reflects and cajoles, translates and turns pages-anything to illuminate the spirited music-making that takes place each week on the program. "If I had been able to imagine Saint Paul Sunday as a kid," he says, "I think I’d have been in ecstasy at the idea of having the whole wide world of music to run around in, and best of everything, to be able to bring friends along."
His accent is left over from childhood, a combination of influences from his Scots grandfather and south-Philadelphia upbringing. When an older brother was no longer interested in going to pre-paid piano lessons, McGlaughlin was sent along instead, and a life-long passion was born. "Happily, I understood immediately what a wonderful thing I'd stumbled into. I can remember thinking as I walked away from my second piano lesson, 'Well, that's it-I'll be a musician.' Of course, I had no idea what that decision meant exactly."
He pursued his studies at Temple University, and under the tutelage of William Smith, then associate conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, he began to conduct. He went on to conducting positions with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Tucson Symphony, and, most recently, the Kansas City Symphony, for which he served as Music Director. During his twelve-season tenure in Kansas City, he greatly expanded the orchestra’s repertory, commissioned many new works, and was widely credited with strengthening its reputation.
It was not until 1997 that McGlaughlin made a public debut in the role that he considers the most challenging- that of composer. His Three Dreams and a Question: Choral Songs on e. e. cummings, a work dedicated to memory of the young composer and pianist Kevin Oldham, was enthusiastically received by audience, performers, and press at its première with the Kansas City Symphony-and it was quickly followed by five more premières within a 10-month span. Aaron’s Horizons, a work dedicated to the spirit of Aaron Copland, with whom McGlaughin worked in the 1970s, has been heard nationwide in a Saint Paul Sunday broadcast with members of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra.
In the summer of 1998 McGlaughlin signed a contract with Subito Music, which now publishes all of his work. He is currently at work on a number of works and is still, in his words, "on cloud nine" after having been selected as a participating composer in Continental Harmony, a Millennium project sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Composers Forum. McGlaughlin's commission engaged 800 voices and orchestra and was performed at an international festival that convened choruses from five continents.
It's rare for a classical series to have a working musician as host, and it makes for a complicated, if deeply rewarding, schedule for McGlaughlin. Conducting, composing, and interviewing may seem to have little in common, but to McGlaughlin they complement one another and spark new insights for each.
When he is not working with musicians, he's frequently hanging out with them. He is often on the road with his partner, acclaimed jazz singer Karin Allyson. And when music is not the focus of his attention, he may be biking (too fast), playing Frisbee golf, or cooking up some spicy noodles for friends. He loves to teach and has plans to do more composing, arranging, and conducting in future years.
Whether revealing events in small-town America or overseas, or profiling notable personalities, Weekend Edition from NPR News appreciates the extraordinary details that make up every story. This two-hour morning newsmagazine covers hard news, a wide variety of newsmakers, and cultural stories with care, accuracy, and a wink of humor, courtesy of hosts Scott Simon and Liane Hansen.
On Saturdays, Simon’s award-winning commentaries sum up an idea or event related to the week’s news. Clever, information-packed exchanges with NPR senior news analyst Daniel Schorr, sports columnist Ron Rapoport, gardening guru Ketzel Levine, entertainment critic Elvis Mitchell, and other commentators contribute to the unique feel and personality of the show.
On Sundays, Weekend Edition combines the news with colorful arts and human-interest features, appealing to the curious and eclectic. With a nod to traditional Sunday habits, the program offers a fix for diehard crossword addicts-word games and brainteasers with The Puzzlemaster, a.k.a. Will Shortz, puzzle editor of The New York Times. With Hansen on the sidelines, a caller plays the latest word game on the air while listeners compete silently at home. The NPR mailbag is proof that the competition to go head-to-head with Shortz is rather…vigorous.
Another trademark of Sunday’s program is Voices in the News, a montage of sound bites from the past week, poignant in its simplicity. Hansen also engages listeners in her discussions with regular contributors, including Daniel Schorr and special correspondent Juan Williams, who cover a wide range of national and international issues.
From Wikipedia, the Online Dictionary:
Weekend Edition is the name given to a set of American radio news magazines produced and distributed by National Public Radio (NPR). It is the weekend counterpart to Morning Edition. It consists of Weekend Edition Saturday (WESat for short) and Weekend Edition Sunday (WESun), each of which airs for two hours. As of 2007, those programs are hosted by Scott Simon and Liane Hansen, respectively.
The programs feature longer stories than most NPR newsmagazines and more arts and culture stories. On Saturdays the program has a discussion of the week’s events with commentator Daniel Schorr. On Sundays the show broadcasts “Voices in the News”, an audio montage of sound clips from the week’s events, and has the “Puzzle” game with New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz.
Weekday sibling Morning Edition breaks up each hour into five segments, none more than nine minutes long; Weekend Edition uses only three segments per hour, allowing longer stories than could be allowed on Morning Edition.
Weekend Edition begins with a sixty-second billboard. WESat’s Scott Simon uses the billboard to talk about an interesting event on that date in history; WESun’s Liane Hansen uses the billboard as a general discussion about what’s coming up in the hour. A standard five-minute NPR newscast follows, until six past the hour. A thirty-second music bed follows the newscast, allowing local stations an opportunity to promote programming or local news/weather/traffic.
Segment A begins at 6:30 past the hour (duration 11:29). It’s here that the most important news of the day is placed. Regular features such as Daniel Schorr’s weekly news wrap-up and WESun’s “Voices in the News” appear in this segment. At eighteen minutes past the hour, a two-minute station break starts. The first minute is a music bed solely for use of the member stations. The second minute, from nineteen to twenty past, is a “headlines” segment in which the NPR newscaster on staff that morning recaps the major stories of the hour. Some stations decide to use the entire two minutes for local purposes, taking the opportunity to deliver their own headlines, underwriting or events calendars.
At twenty past the hour, Segment B begins, running 14:19 in length. NPR offers local stations a cutaway from the national feed at 34:20 past the hour. The cutaway is identified by the host when he or she says, “This is Weekend Edition, from NPR News,” or some variation thereon. For stations that opt to stay with the national feed, a short interview or commentary piece is delivered, running 2:59 in length. Another two-minute station break, following the same music bed/headlines format as the first, ensues.
Segment C, the longest segment of the hour, starts at 40:00 after the hour and runs for seventeen minutes, forty-nine seconds. WESat usually slots musical performances, arts stories or interviews in Segment C. WESun uses the time for its weekly puzzle segment with Will Shortz, as well as interviews and light features. At the end of the segment, Simon or Hansen will read the credits and sign off for the hour. Segment C is followed by a forty-second funding credit announcement, and then ninety seconds of music.
Garrison Keillor went to work for Minnesota Public Radio in 1969 on the 6 to 9 am morning program called A Prairie Home Companion—named after the Prairie Home cemetery in Moorhead, Minnesota. It was after he began work on an article for the New Yorker magazine about the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville that he developed an idea for a radio show with musical guests and commercials for imaginary products. And on July 6, 1974, Keillor hosted the first live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion at the Janet Wallace Auditorium at Macalester College, Saint Paul. Producer Margaret Moos sold tickets for $1 for adults (50 cents for children), and the audience of 12 produced a total gate of something less than $8.
During its first 10 years, A Prairie Home Companion produced 477 live shows. On March 4, 1978, the show moved to The World Theater in Saint Paul, which at the time was boarded-up and expected to be demolished. The former World Theater, now the renovated Fitzgerald Theater, has been the program's home base ever since. The show ended for a time on Saturday, June 13, 1987, leaving the airwaves after a run of 13 years in Minnesota. Keillor said, "The decision to close is mine—the sort of simple, painful decision that our parents taught us to make cheerfully. It is simply time to go."
However, two short years later after some time abroad, Keillor set up shop again in 1989 in New York at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as The American Radio Company. The show gathered momentum and stations (over 200 public radio stations carried the program), and on March 28, 1992, Keillor announced that the program would return to Minnesota. In 1993 the show resumed the name A Prairie Home Companion.
Today, A Prairie Home Companion is heard by over 4 million listeners each week on over 580 public radio stations, and is heard abroad on America One and the Armed Forces Networks In Europe and the Far East. Keillor remembers, "When the show started, it was something funny to do with my friends, and then it became an achievement that I hoped would be successful, and now it's a good way of life."
A Prairie Home Companion is produced by Prairie Home Productions, and distributed nationwide by American Public Media. The program is underwritten by Toyota and Select Comfort.
From Wikipedia
The earliest radio program to have this name bears little resemblance to what is currently heard on Saturday evenings. A Prairie Home Companion was originally a morning show running from 6 to 9 a.m. on Minnesota Public Radio.
After researching the Grand Ole Opry for an article, Keillor became interested in doing a variety show on the radio. On July 6, 1974, the first live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion took place. That show was broadcast from St. Paul in the Janet Wallace Auditorium of Macalester College. Twelve audience members turned out, mostly children. The second episode featured the first performance on the show by Butch Thompson, who became house pianist. Thompson stayed with the program until 1986, and still frequently performs on the show.
In 1978, the show moved into the World Theater in St. Paul, which was renovated in 1986 and renamed the Fitzgerald Theater in 1994. This is the same location that the program uses today.
The show went off the air in 1987, and Keillor married and spent some time abroad during the following two years. He returned to radio from New York City in 1989 with The American Radio Company of the Air (renamed Garrison Keillor's American Radio Company in its second season.) In 1993, this show moved to Minnesota and was renamed A Prairie Home Companion. While most of the episodes originate from St. Paul, the show often travels to other cities around the U.S. and overseas to do the weekly broadcast.
The show was originally distributed nationally by Minnesota Public Radio in association with Public Radio International. Its current distributor is MPR's distribution unit, American Public Media.
Each show opens with the Spencer Williams composition "Tishomingo Blues" as the theme song, but with lyrics written especially for A Prairie Home Companion. Before 1987, the show's theme was Keillor's singing of the Hank Snow hit "Hello Love".
Each show features a story-telling monologue from Keillor, claiming to be a report from Keillor's fictitious hometown of Lake Wobegon, "the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve ... where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average." The opening words of the monologue usually do not change: "Well, it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown, out on the edge of the prairie." The News from Lake Wobegon does not have a set structure per se, but often features recurring characters and places, such as the Chatterbox Cafe, the Sidetrack Tap, Pastor Inqvist of the Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church, Father Wilmar of Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility Roman Catholic Church, the Lake Wobegon Whippets sports teams, various members of the Bunsen and Krebsbach families, and an assortment of nearby "Norwegian bachelor farmers". The lengthy monologue is generally delivered without reference to notes.
The show is "sponsored" by the fictitious product "Powdermilk Biscuits," whose slogan is "Made from whole wheat raised in the rich bottomlands of the Lake Wobegon river valley by Norwegian bachelor farmers; so you know they're not only good for you, but pure ... mostly. Buy them ready-made in the big blue box with the picture of the biscuit on the cover, or in the brown bag with the dark stains that indicate freshness. Whole wheat that gives shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. Heavens they're tasty, and expeditious!" Powdermilk Biscuits has its own theme song, sung by Keillor every week.
Car Talk is a hilarious, fast-paced call-in program in which hosts Tom and Ray Magliozzi take the fear out of car repair and find the fun in engine failure. Every week, these uninhibited Boston brothers dispense automotive first aid and roadside philosophy to more than 4.1 million listeners on 588 public radio stations—and the audience is still growing!
Winner of the Peabody, broadcasting's most prestigious award, Car Talk has been lauded by the media since its national premiere in 1987. Segments about Car Talk have appeared on 60 Minutes, 20/20, The Tonight Show, Late Night with David Letterman, The Today Show, and Martha Stewart Living, along with print features in the New York Time, Newsweek, Time, Smithsonian, USA Today, People, and Rolling Stone.
Car Talk is distributed by NPR via satellite and airs in every major market in the country. Car Talk also produces “Click and Clack Talk Cars,” a nationally syndicated, twice-weekly newspaper column, distributed by King Features Syndicate and carried by 335 papers.
Car Talk’s website, the Car Talk section of cars.com, receives more than 400,000 unique visitors each week and has been hailed by Hotwired, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, PC Week, Wired, USA Today, and Yahoo!
Tom and Ray's most recent books are In Our Humble Opinion and A Haircut in Horsetown and Other Great Car Talk Puzzlers, both published by Penguin Putnam. Their most recent audio collections are Born Not to Run: More Disrespectful Car Songs, The Hatchback of Notre Dame: More Car Talk Classics, and Car Talk Car Tunes: The Car Talk Compendium of Disrespectful Car Songs, Volume 1.
From Wikipedia:
As a call-in radio show, listeners call with questions related to motor vehicles maintenance and repair. Most of the the advice sought is diagnostic with callers describing symptoms and demonstrating sounds of an ailing vehicle, while the Magliozzis make an attempt at identifying the malfunction. While the hosts pepper their call-in sessions with jokes directed at both the caller and at themselves, the depth and breath of ther knowledge of automobiles is extensive and they are usually able to arrive at a diagnosis and give helpful advice. Also, if a caller does not have a common name, they will inquire about the spelling, pronunciation, and/or origin of their name.
Throught the program, listeners are encouraged to dial the toll-free number, 1-888-CAR-TALK (1-888-227-8255), giving the impression that real-time calls are being taken. The 800 number actually connects to a 24-hour answering service which is screened by Car Talk staff. The service receives approximately 2,000 queries weekly from across North America for various motor vehicle types and problems. However, the questions are unknown to the Magliozzis in advance as, "That would entail researching the right answer, which is what? ...Work." The producers select and contact the callers a few days ahead of the show's Wednesday taping to arrange the segment. The caller speaks briefly to a producer before being connected “live” with the hosts, and given little coaching other than being told to prepared to talk and to "have fun." The segments are edited, mostly for time, before broadcast.
Car Talk was first broadcast on WBUR in Boston, Massachusetts in 1977. It was picked up nationally by NPR ten years later. For most of its national run, Car Talk has been the highest-rated and most financially successful program on public radio in the US. NPR reports that it is heard on more than 370 stations by an audience of more than two million weekly listeners.
The Car Talk theme song is "Dawggy Mountain Breakdown" by David Grisman.
Car Talk hosts, brothers Ray and Tom Magliozzi are long-time car mechanics. Ray Magliozzi has a degree in general science from MIT, while Tom has an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from MIT, an MBA, and a DBA from the Boston University Graduate School of Management.
The duo, usually led by Ray, are known for rants on the evils of the internal combustion engine, people who talk on cell phones while driving, Peugeots, women named Donna (who always seem to drive Camaros), the use (or misuse) of the English language, and just about anything else, including themselves. They have a laid-back humorous approach to cars, car repair, cup holders, pets, lawyers, car repair mechanics, SUVs, and most everything else. They often cast a critical insider's eye (jaundiced, mostly) toward the auto industry. Tom and Ray are committed to the values of defensive driving and environmentalism. In the late 1990s they pioneered an effort to rid the world of French pronunciations of words, intentionally pronouncing many words phonetically such as "Chev-ro-let" for Chevrolet.
The Magliozzis operate the Good News Garage in Cambridge, Massachusetts just a few blocks north of the MIT campus. Their offices are located nearby at the corner of JFK St. and Brattle St. in Harvard Square, marked as "Dewey, Cheetham and Howe", the imaginary law firm they reference on-air.
The two were commencement speakers at MIT in 1999.
In 2006, the Magliozzis voiced Rusty and Dusty Rust-Eze (previous names were Clink and Clunk), a 1963 Dodge Dart V1.0 and a 1963 Dodge A100 van respectively, in the film Cars. Tommy notoriously once owned a green Dodge Dart, known as the "Dartre".
A recurring feature is "Stump the Chumps", in which the revisit a caller from a previous show to determine the effect, if any, of their advice. A similar feature began in May 2001, "Where Are They Now, Tommy?" Like "Stump the Chumps", a previous caller was revisited with the difference being, as described by Tom Magliozzi, "an excuse to talk to some of the previous wack jobs we've had on the show."[citation needed] The feature was short-lived, lasting only a few months.
Celebrities have been callers as well. Examples include Geena Davis, Morley Safer, Ashley Judd, Gordon Elliott, and astronaut John Grunsfeld from the Space Shuttle. There have been numerous appearances from NPR personalities, including Bob Edwards, Susan Stamberg, Scott Simon, Ray Suarez, Will Shortz, Sylvia Poggioli, and commentator/author Daniel Pinkwater. On one occasion, the show featured Martha Stewart as an in-studio guest, whom the Magliozzis twice during the segment referred to as "Margaret".
During the show, the Magliozzis would take a break at approximately the half-hour mark of the show. More recently, two breaks divide the show into approximately 20-minute segments referred to as the "three halves" of the show.
The show opens with a comedic monologue, followed by eight call-in sessions. During the winter shows, they run a contest called the "Puzzler", in which a general knowledge word puzzle is presented. The answer to the previous week's "Puzzler" is given during the second half of the show, and a new puzzler is given during the third half. The hosts give instructions to listeners to write answers addressed to "Puzzler Tower" on some non-existent or expensive object, such as a 26-dollar bill or an advanced SLR digital camera. This gag initially started as having the answers "on the back of a twenty dollar bill." In reality, they have received answers on objects as unlikely as a dead fish.
The humor of Car Talk also extends into the end credits. The show is produced under the Magliozzi corporate banner, Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe, a common lawyer joke. After listing (and lampooning) the actual staff of Car Talk (including their producer, Doug "The Subway Fugitive", "Not a Slave to Fashion", "Bongo Boy", "Frogman" Berman), the brothers list a long series of unusual names. "Paul Murky of Murky Research", assisted by statistician "Marge Innovera" and their Russian chauffeur Picov Andropov are only a few of a long series of perennial "staffers" in the Car Talk credits.
At the end of almost every show, Ray warns the audience not to drive like his brother, who in turn warns them not to drive like his brother. There have been variations—such as "Don't drive like my sister"..."and don't drive like my sister." Click and Clack used this signature phrase in a cameo for the Pixar film Cars, in which Tom and Ray voiced anthropomorphized vehicles with personalities similar to their own on-air personae.
For a long time, This American Life was only a radio show, one with a hard-to-describe sound, millions of listeners, and a bunch of awards. Then, after more than a decade on the radio, we started the television show, mostly because it seemed like it might be fun. We continue to produce the weekly radio show, which can be heard on more than 500 public radio stations around the country (find a station near you) as well as on this website, through our free podcast. The television show is on the Showtime network.
The radio and TV shows follow the same format. There's a theme to each episode, and a variety of stories on that theme. It's mostly true stories of everyday people, though not always. There's lots more to the show, but, like we said, it's sort of hard to describe. Probably the best way to understand the show is to start at our favorites page, though we have full guides to our TV show and our radio show, with clips. If you want to dive into the hundreds of episodes we've done over the years, there's an archive of all our old radio shows and listings for all our TV episodes, too.
Oh, and we know what you're thinking: radio is so 80 years ago, and TV is so 50 years ago. Well, what about social networking? That's only 2 or 3 years ago, and we're all over it. Find us on MySpace and Facebook and YouTube, too. We've also got a bunch of instant messaging icons, wallpapers, and blog badges for your downloading fun over on our Showtime site. Go nuts.
From Wikipedia:
This American Life (TAL) is a weekly hour-long radio program produced by Chicago Public Radio. It is distributed by Public Radio International and is also available as a free weekly podcast. TAL, hosted by Ira Glass, is primarily a journalistic non-fiction program, although it has also featured essays, memoirs, field recordings, short fiction, and found footage.
A television series is in production for the Showtime cable network. The first episode aired on March 22, 2007.
Each week's show loosely centers on a particular theme. The theme of the show is explored in several "acts," usually two to five. On occasion, an entire program will consist of a single act. A notable exception was the show 20 Acts in 60 Minutes, which broke the normal convention by presenting twenty acts in one hour. Each act is produced using a combination of staff and freelance contributors.
Content varies widely by episode, and stories are often told as first-person narratives. The mood of the show ranges from gloomy to ironic, from thought-provoking to hilarious. The show often addresses current events, such as Hurricane Katrina in After the Flood. Listeners are just as likely to be introduced to subjects and or issues completely new to them as the island nation of Nauru in the story, stories which explore aspects of human nature, such asKid Logic, which presented pieces on the faulty reasoning of children.
The end of each show is punctuated by a spliced quote from somewhere in the show, and attributed out of context to WBEZ general manager, Torey Malatia.
Ira Glass, the creator of This American Life, has served as producer and host since its November 17, 1995 debut . The show's first year was produced on a budget that was tight even by U.S. public radio standards: US$243,000 outfitted a studio, covered marketing costs, purchased satellite time, and paid for four full-time staffers and various freelance writers and reporters. National syndication began in June 1996, now airing on 509 public radio stations in the United States, reaching an estimated 1.7 million listeners each week.
Originally titled Your Radio Playhouse, the show's name was changed beginning with the March 21, 1996 episode. The reference to each segment of the show as an "act" is a holdover from its original "playhouse theme." TAL helped launch the literary careers of many including contributing editor Sarah Vowell and essayists Augusten Burroughs and David Sedaris.
Discussions of a television adaptation of TAL date back to at least 1999. In January 2006, Showtime announced it had greenlighted six episodes of a new series based on TAL. The announcement noted that each half-hour episode "will be hosted by Ira Glass and will explore a single theme or topic through the unique juxtaposition of first-person storytelling and whimsical narrative."
For budgetary reasons, Ira Glass and four of the radio show's producers left Chicago for New York, where Showtime is headquartered. In January 2007, it was announced that Glass had completed production on the show's first season, with the first episode set to premiere on March 22. TAL has a contract for a total of 30 shows over the next four years.
Stories from TAL have been used as the basis of movie scripts. In 2002 the show signed a six-figure deal with Warner Bros. giving the studio two years of "first-look" rights to its hundreds of past and future stories. One film to have apparently emerged from the deal is Unaccompanied Minors, a 2006 film directed by Paul Feig and reportedly based on In The Event of An Emergency, Put Your Sister in an Upright Position from Babysitting.
Since its debut in 1971, this afternoon radio newsmagazine has delivered in-depth reporting and transformed the way listeners understand current events and view the world. Heard by more than 11 million people on over 600 radio stations each week, All Things Considered is one of the most popular programs in America. Every weekday, hosts Melissa Block, Michele Norris, and Robert Siegel present two hours of breaking news mixed with compelling analysis, insightful commentaries, interviews, and special - sometimes quirky - features. Debbie Elliott hosts a one-hour edition of the program on Saturday and Sunday.
In September 2005, correspondent Debbie Elliott became the new host of NPR's Weekend All Things Considered.
As a correspondent for NPR News, Elliott covered the Gulf Shore region. Elliott traveled around the deep South, reporting on a variety of issues and events.
Since joining NPR in 1995, Elliott has covered the re-opening of civil-rights-era murder cases, the legal battle over the Ten Commandments at the Alabama Supreme Court, the Elián Gonzáles custody dispute from Miami, local homeland security initiatives, the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and a number of hurricanes. She was a part of NPR series on girls and the juvenile justice system, the 50th anniversary of Brown versus the Board of Education, science and the courts, and homework.
In addition to covering news from around the Southeast, Elliott was NPR's specialist on tobacco litigation. She has covered landmark smoker lawsuits, the tobacco settlement with states, tobacco-control policy, and the latest trends in youth smoking.
Elliott also contributed to NPR's ongoing, in-depth coverage of Southern politics. Elliott was stationed in Tallahassee, Florida, for election night in 2000, and was one of the first national reporters on the scene for the contentious presidential election contest that followed. During the 1998 elections, she traveled up Interstate 65 from Mobile to Indiana for a series of conversations with voters.
For more than 20 years, Elliott has been reporting from her native South, a region rich in cultural and historical significance and teeming with colorful characters. In addition to her work with NPR, Debbie has filed reports internationally for the BBC, the CBC, and the former Monitor Radio. She is an occasional contributor to Alabama Public Television. Her experience includes three years in Montgomery, Alabama, covering state government for the Alabama Radio Network, and several years as a sports reporter and producer at commercial radio stations and networks.
A cum laude graduate of the University of Alabama College of Communication, Elliott first worked in public radio during college. She hosted local news breaks during NPR's Morning Edition at WUAL in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where she eventually became news director. She served on the national Board of Public Radio News Directors, Incorporated, and helped coordinate the 1994 Public Radio Journalism Conference that led to publication of Independence and Integrity: A Guidebook for Public Radio Journalism. She was recognized as the 2000 Outstanding Alumna in Telecommunication and Film from the University of Alabama College of Communication.
Elliott was born in Atlanta, grew up in the Memphis area, and now lives with her husband and two children in Washington, DC.
Spirited reels and jigs, and haunting ballads of days gone by, harmonious strains and exuberant rhythms of new music born of deep roots — such are the pleasures of The Thistle & Shamrock. Now in its 20th year of national distribution, the one-hour weekly Celtic music series embraces the spirit and character of America’sthriving cultural influences.
Hosted by Fiona Ritchie, one of the most engaging hosts on the radio, Thistle comes to listeners from Edinburgh, Scotland, via NPR member stations. Ritchie beckons listeners to her radio soundstage, in the rich warm accent of her homeland. There, for an hour each week, music, legend and the sturdy fiber of Celtic culture are woven into a richly embroidered tapestry. While The Thistle & Shamrock’s magical strands reach back thousands of years, they also reflect an integral part of contemporary life in the Celtic fringe of Europe.
Thistle’s copious assembly of recordings showcase artists of today and yesterday and performances captured on location. Ritchie also presents exclusive in-studio appearances by leading Celtic music performers from both sides of the Atlantic.
The object of considerable critical acclaim and admiration from folk music communities, Thistle was conceived by Ritchie as a way to share the vibrant, joyful and authentic sounds of Celtic music with pubic radio listeners. Ritchie selected the show’s title to evoke the cozy pubs and lounges in which Celtic tunes are heard most often.
Roots
by Fiona Ritchie
I was born on the banks of the River Clyde in the West of Scotland in 1960. While studying at the University of Stirling for my undergraduate degree (in psychology), I spent a semester on student exchange to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
After graduating in Scotland, I returned to the U.S., and was about to drift into postgraduate student life when I heard public radio for the first time. That was all it took to derail me. I became a volunteer, and was then hired to oversee promotion and fundraising for WFAE-FM in Charlotte, NC.
Originally a one-time special, The Thistle & Shamrock® began on WFAE in 1981, and was first introduced to a national audience in the U.S. on June 4, 1983. Every week since then I've taken great pleasure in filling the airways with an hour of music by remarkable musicians.
In the early 1990s, I established a permanent office for The Thistle & Shamrock® in North Carolina and then returned to Scotland to produce my radio programs there. This allows me to relate more effectively to artistic communities on both sides of the Atlantic.
In 1993, we opened an archive for The Thistle & Shamrock® at the Scottish Heritage Center of St. Andrews Presbyterian College, Laurinburg, NC.
This collection now incorporates a large number of out of print vinyl record albums from the radio program, along with an archive copy of every show in the history of the program.
We're proud that these shows have received four World Medals from the New York Festival's International Competition for Radio Programming. President Clinton further honored us, and all our colleagues in NPR Cultural Programming, by presenting us with the National Medal of Arts for the year 2000.
In some ways I'm amazed to see the 20th anniversary of the program on the horizon. But when I stop to think about it, why not spend 20 years surrounded by brilliant music, and the opportunity to say so often and to so many: "Hey everyone. Listen to this!"
The Back Porch first aired on KRWG and continues weekly every Sunday evening from 6 to 8 pm. The show was designed to be a presentation of acoustic music in a myriad of forms. In any given show the listener will be treated to an unpredictable mix of blues, bluegrass, Celtic, Cajun, roots, folk, ethnic and world, singer/songwriter, instrumental, jazz and other forms of acoustic expression. The show is also a forum for live programming. Local musicians and artists traveling to the area for gigs are always welcome on the show to play and talk about their muse and music, and discuss upcoming gigs and new releases. Our ever sleuthful host offers that there’s no shortage of acoustic music to present to the listening public as more and more musicians discover the limitless expressive abilities of traditional and contemporary acoustic instruments for all types of music.
Back Porch is hosted by Benjy Rivas.
Music heard on the Back Porch can be purchased online from The Public Radio Music Source at prms.org or by telephone from The Music Service at (877) 448-4719, or by visiting the Public Broadcasting One Music Service page.
The New Dimensions Foundation is a social profit, public benefit, tax exempt, 501(c)(3) educational, organization supported by listeners. Our primary activity is the independent production of broadcast dialogues and other quality programs that explore creative solutions to urgent challenges facing humankind.
The purpose of New Dimensions Radio is to deliver life-affirming, socially and spiritually relevant information, practical knowledge and perennial wisdom through the voices and visions of those who are asking new questions and are looking at the world in positive and inspiring ways. It is through the exchange of ideas and information that we can be empowered and enabled to meet the future with greater energy and clarity.
New Dimensions seeks out the most innovative and creative people on the planet, engages them in spontaneous, deep dialogues, and broadcasts these programs to a worldwide audience.
Our programming presents a diversity of views from many traditions and cultures, and strives to provide listeners with an experience of what it means to be human on the planet in these times.
New Dimensions fosters the process of living a more healthy life of mind,body and spirit while deepening our connections to self, family, community, planet and the natural world.
Hearts of Space began as a San Francisco late night radio show in 1973, went national on public radio in 1983 and to our eternal amazement, grew to almost 300 stations. We started an independent record label in 1984, ultimately releasing almost 150 albums.
In 2001 we launched an online music streaming service with nearly 700 programs — The Hearts of Space Archive. That same year we sold the record label to Valley Entertainment. While we still help produce new recordings for the label, we no longer run it day to day.
These pages tell you more about us and what we've been doing for over 30 years. Our goal is to bring you great music using the latest technology, deepen your understanding of ambient/ space/contemplative music, and save you time. The good stuff is out there. We help you find it.
Echoes is a daily two-hour music soundscape, distributed by Public Radio International and broadcast on over 150 radio stations from Maine to California. With host John Diliberto, a writer for Billboard, Pulse and other magazines, Echoes brings together a wide array of styles, from acoustic to electronic, jazz to space music, the avant-garde to rock. Echoes is a sound that is cross-cultural and trans-millennial, merging cultures and forms, technology and tradition, the ancient past and the possible future.
In addition to the many recordings heard on Echoes, we also produce interview features with popular modern music figures such as Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush and Enya, as well as less well-known known composers such as Dead Can Dance, Steve Roach, and The Orb.
Echoes also produces Living Room Concerts, live performances recorded in musician's homes or studios and broadcast on Echoes. Concerts thus far have included Mark Isham, Steve Roach, Patrick O'Hearn, Ottmar Liebert, Michael Brook, Robert Fripp, Nightnoise, R. Carlos Nakai, Ancient Future, Sheila Chandra, Adrian Legg, Michael Hedges and many more.
John Diliberto is a nationally published writer and award- winning radio producer who has spent the past 17 years exploring and exposing new music. He currently is the host and producer of Echoes, a nightly music soundscape on Public Radio International, and heard on over 145 public radio stations.
John was born in Worcester, Massachusetts and grew up in Tewksbury, Mass. A child of the British invasion, John remembers his first music awakening coming with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Animals, Kinks and Zombies. By the time he hit junior high, John had two passions, Marvel comics and "underground" rock. When his parents got a console-style stereo, John remembers putting on The Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and laying with his head beneath the console where the bass speakers were located.
John's parents were always tolerant of his music. Little did they know the ramifications of getting him albums by The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors and Steppenwolf. Recognizing that John would rather listen to music than watch TV, they put extension speakers in his basement bedroom. If they only realized that the only time they would see John again was when he came upstairs to turn an album over on the turntable. John is never found without music playing somewhere. In fact, the only time he doesn't hear music is when he's scuba diving.
Inspired by Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull and Andy Kuhlberg of The Blues Project, John began playing flute in 9th grade, but he had to give it up at the end of the year because he wouldn't join the marching band. John didn't have problems with marching music, but it was difficult to change from his football uniform to a band uniform at halftime. That soothing voice you hear was a marauding All-Conference defensive center for the Tewksbury Redmen.
"It wasn't your usual jock mentality team," recalls John. "We'd have football practice until 6pm and then we'd bomb into Boston or Lowell to catch Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Ten Years After, Yes and King Crimson. His first concert ever was The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Soft Machine and the Eire Apparent at the Framingham Music Tent in Framingham, MA.
In the meantime, John had gotten a flute and started learning on his own, picking up licks from Rahsaan Roland Kirk and trying to make a flute sound like a distorted guitar.
John's football playing got him a scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. That's when things really began to happen. In his sophomore year he got involved with the campus radio station, WXPN. It wasn't long before he was hosting Diaspar, a high energy show that included space music, avant-garde, jazz, and new wave sounds.
In 1975 John created Star's End, a "journey to the outer limits of your aural universe." A seamless soundscape of ethereal music, Star's End is still on the air today, and in the same time slot, Sunday morning 1-5am.
Upon leaving the University in 1976, John worked in various record stores while starting to write for the local alternative paper the Drummer. His editor was David Fricke, now the music editor of Rolling Stone. In 1979 he began writing reviews for Audio magazine. A sidetrack in 1980 brought him to Berkeley California where he was Program Director of KALX, the university station there. John spent a year trying to indocrinate the rabid punks on the staff into the wonders of progressive and space music. In 1981 he returned to Philadelphia where he continued hosting shows at WXPN. That same year, he and the station's music director Kimberly Haas began producing programs for national distribution. Their first was a five part series on the electronic underground called Electronic Minstrels. These half hour documentaries included David Borden, Helen Thorington, Woz, The Ghostwriters and Michael William Gilbert.
More documentaries followed: The Mythic Worlds of Sun Ra, Bird Flight: A Portrait of Charlie Parker, and Edgar Varèse's Liberation of Sound. The latter was a runner-up for the major Armstrong Award. All these programs were funded by The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Pennsylvania Humanities Council.
Then came Totally Wired: Artists in Electronic Sound. Originally conceived as a 26 part series, it evolved into a weekly documentary highlighting artists working at the cutting edges of music. Some of the highlights:
- Interviewing Vangelis the day after he won the Academy Award for Chariots of Fire and getting an in-studio keyboard performance.
- Interviewing Depeche Mode one week, still in their teens, and interviewing Karlheinz Stockhausen, then heading towards 60 a few days later.
- John Cage.
- Trolley hopping with Holger Czukay in Cologne.
- Interviewing Robert Fripp surrounded by his class of Crafty Guitarists in West Virginia
- Having Steve Roach reveal the next step every time since they met in 1983.
- Traveling to the Forbidden Planet with Bebe & Louis Barron.
- Keith Jarrett giving a private performance on harpsichord and clavichord.
In all, 88 Totally Wireds were produced from 1982-1989. It won The Major Armstrong Award, The Ohio State Award, and the National Federation of Community Broadcasters Golden Reel Award. Funding for Totally Wired came from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, National Public Radio's Satellite Program Development Fund, Sequential Circuits, Yamaha Corporation, and Ensoniq, the Pennsylvania Humanities Council and Meet the Composer.
Totally Wired ended when Echoes began in October, 1989. On ECHOES, John is the producer and host. He oversees the selection of music on the program, conducts, produces and writes most of the interview features.
Some Echoes Highlights for John:
- Brian Eno walking out of an interview.
- Brian Eno sitting down for a four-hour interview and "Blindfold Test."
- Being 3 feet away from Sheila Chandra while she sang. There is a heaven.
- The first Living Room Concert with Mark Isham.
Many of John's interviews can also be found in magazine form. He's a nationally published music journalist whose reviews and features have appeared in Musician, Billboard, Downbeat, Jazziz, Pulse, Audio, CD Review, Music Technology, Electronic Musician, Mix, and other publications.
John has also worked on a few albums. Besides the Echoes Living Room Concerts CDs, he compiled and wrote liner notes for MBNT: A recollection of proto-ambient music from Hearts of Space (Hearts of Space), wrote liner notes for The Big Bang (Ellipsis Arts), Musique Mechanique (Celestial Harmonies) and Shadows and Light (Deutsche Gramophone), Planet Soup (Ellipsis Arts), Paul Dresher's Casa Vecchia (Starkland) and Jeff & Joan Beal's The Gathering (Triloka).
Oh yes, John and Kimberly got married in 1984. They reside comfortably in Chester County, Pennsylvania where they have two children, one dog and one cat.
Echoes website
KRWG FM is a public service of New Mexico State University. © 2006, Regents of New Mexico State University. P.O. Box 3000, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003. (575) 646-2222. Contact information. Legal information. Last updated on
April 25, 2008.