Podcasts

Kill Shakespeare Comics

This podcast, part of the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series for the Folger Shakespeare Library, looks at a comic book series in which Shakespeare’s most popular characters team up in rival, warring camps bent on seizing control of the kingdom that is the world of Shakespeare’s plays.  It’s called Kill Shakespeare, and Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col have been publishing the series since 2010. Barbara Bogaev interviewed the authors while they were at Comic-Con in New York in 2015 for the release of their new book — a volume that combines all the Kill Shakespeare comics in a single book, complete with annotations by leading Shakespeare scholars.

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Freedom, Hey-Day! Hey-Day, Freedom!

This podcast, part of the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series for the Folger Shakespeare Library, is the second of two podcasts on Shakespeare and the African American experience. It examines some of the many ways—including, but not limited to, performance—that black Americans have encountered, responded to, taken ownership of, and sometimes turned away from Shakespeare’s words. Rebecca Sheir narrates this expansive, interview-filled look at the intersection between African American life and Shakespeare, from stage productions to personal and academic encounters with the texts.

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JFK and the Arts

Part of the series “Art In Camelot” produced for ArtsEdge at the John
F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, narrated by Richard Dreyfuss.  We always look for clues on Inauguration Day about what the new Administration will bring.  At his swearing-in, President Kennedy gave an unusual signal, letting America know that whatever else it did, “ the Kennedy Administration was going to spend time and attention promoting The Arts in America.  The president followed through on the promise of that inauguration.  This story explains how.

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Cultural Diplomacy

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Part of the series “Art In Camelot” produced for ArtsEdge at the John
F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, narrated by Richard Dreyfuss.  Even while the United States was entering the Cold War with the Soviet Union in 1961, the Kennedy administration strengthened their commitment to cultural diplomacy. This audio story highlights some of the important ways President Kennedy used the arts to help improve the image of the United States around the world.

Fight Songs

Part of the series “Touchdown Song” produced for ArtsEdge at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.    There’s nothing to make you feel team spirit or school spirit like a fight song.  In this installment, Tom Hedden (who composed songs for 19 years at NFL Films) tells us about some of the famous people who’ve written fight songs, why most of them were written with in just a few years of each other and why they’re called “Fight Songs” in the first place.

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Halftime

Part of the series “Touchdown Song” produced for ArtsEdge at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.    Even though it’s nothing more than a chance for football teams to go an rest, Halftime has become an American institution where fans cheer, dance and to get up and shout.  It’s also brought us multiple styles of marching band music that are uniquely American.  Join the Verizon-ArtsEdge Half Time Report, hosted by Tom Hedden, who composed songs for 19 years at NFL Films, and learn everything there is to know about the music that comes between the action.

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Murders have Been Performed too Terrible for the Ear

This podcast, part of the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series for the Folger Shakespeare Library, looks at how, from the duels in Romeo and Juliet to a brutal mob in Julius Caesar, street fighting transforms several of Shakespeare’s plays. We also look at how much it reflects (or differs from) the mean streets of Shakespeare’s day. Rebecca Sheir talks violence in Elizabethan times with Vanessa McMahon, author of Murder in Shakespeare’s England, and Casey Kaleba, an expert in Elizabethan street crime and one of the Washington, DC, area’s most sought-after fight coaches for stage plays.

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What Makes Arabic Music Unique?

Part of the series “Arabesque: Music of the Arab World” produced for ArtsEdge at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Georges Collinet (Afropop Worldwide) is joined by scholars and musicians to explore unique elements of Arabic musical culture, including improvisation, ornamentation, audience participation, and the state of “musical ecstasy.”

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Instruments and Rhythms of the Arab World

Part of the series “Arabesque: Music of the Arab World” produced for ArtsEdge at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.  Host Georges Collinet (Afropop Worldwide) explores the fascinating history and sounds of musical instruments of the Arab World, many of which are direct ancestors of modern Western musical instruments.

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American Classical Music – 18th Century

Part of the series “American Classics,” produced for ArtsEdge at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.   While Vivaldi in Italy, Bach in Germany, and their contemporary George Frideric Handel, in England, were writing marvelous and sophisticated music, America was a backwater. If you looked for classical music in the early days of America, you’d be hard pressed to find it, even in the big cities and the centers of wealth, commerce, and social sophistication. But it was there; in some odd locations including the backwoods of North Carolina and the Port of New Orleans. Miles Hoffman, Morning Edition music commentator and dean of the Petrie School of Music at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina takes us on a tour of classical music in early America.

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