SUMMARY: The Copenhagen Jazz Festival ends this weekend in Denmark's capital. The organizers claim it's the world's biggest such event. Some musicians from the U.S. express envy that this quintessential American genre now thrives abroad, thanks to Danish government investment. Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports on why the city's jazz is attracting international attention.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): The Copenhagen Jazz Festival ends this weekend in Denmark’s capital. The organizers claim it’s the world’s biggest such event, and that Denmark has now become the epicenter of global jazz.
Some of the American musicians there express envy that this quintessential American music now thrives abroad, thanks to Danish government investment.
Special correspondent Malcolm Brabant is based in Copenhagen and he brings us all that Danish jazz.
MALCOLM BRABANT, special correspondent:The streets and squares are alive to the sound of improvisation, as the city stages 1,400 concerts in 10 days, leading to claims that Copenhagen is now the jazz capital of the world.
SUMMARY: Archaeologists and scholars are learning more about Africa than ever before, from the digitization of records and the unearthing of ancient treasures. Audie Cornish talks with Henry Louis Gates Jr. of Harvard University about Africa's rich but overlooked history and how his six-part PBS series “Africa's Great Civilizations” took shape.
AUDIE CORNISH, NPR:The history of the African continent, home to the 15 percent of the world's population, remains a mystery for many.
Historian and Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. admits, in his youth, it was a place he rarely considered. Now he has a new PBS documentary series that reveals great moments in the continent's pre-colonial history.
HENRY LOUIS GATES JR., Harvard University: Thanks. Thanks for having me on.
AUDIE CORNISH: So, you have tackled all kinds of African-American history, but this goes all the way back, way back to cave paintings.
So, what was the genesis of this idea?
HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.: I wanted to do a comprehensive history of Africa, and this is it.
I have been thinking about it five years. Took us a year to shoot. We went to 12 African countries. And it's exhilarating, six-hour series on 200,000 years of African history.
SUMMARY: "A Prairie Home Companion" has always been synonymous with one man: Garrison Keillor. Since his departure, the live variety radio program transitioned to a new host. But 35-year-old Chris Thile isn't actually new -- he's been performing on the show since he was 15 and listening since early childhood. Jeffrey Brown reports on how the iconic program is changing -- and how it's remaining the same.
CHRIS THILE, A Prairie Home Companion: You know, I suspect we're going to have some fun this evening.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):The new “A Prairie Home Companion,” still at the beautiful Fitzgerald Theater in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota, still a two-hour variety show presented live on public radio, but now led by 35-year-old Chris Thile.
CHRIS THILE: I'm obsessed with the good things that people make to give to one another. This show is a place, has been one of America's most consistent sources of good things for 40 years. And I feel like it's imperative that it continue.
JEFFREY BROWN: Since its founding in 1974, of course, “A Prairie Home Companion” has been synonymous with one man, Garrison Keillor. He hosted it, wrote it, embodied it with a sense of the people and place he knew in his bones.
GARRISON KEILLOR, A Prairie Home Companion: That's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking.
JEFFREY BROWN: Two years ago on this very stage, Keillor told me of the magic of radio and storytelling.
GARRISON KEILLOR:I think there's — there's a lot of power in listening to one person talking to you. And — and this should never be underestimated.
JEFFREY BROWN: It was Keillor who hand-picked his successor, one who'd been performing on the show since age 15 and had listened to it even earlier.
CHRIS THILE: Some of my earliest memories are of hearing Garrison Keillor's voice in our living room, at a point when I…
JEFFREY BROWN: Really?
CHRIS THILE: Yes, when I couldn't even tell the difference between his voice and my father's voice. It's like an authoritative — this authoritative, paternal sound coming from the radio.
JEFFREY BROWN: Chris Thile, who grew up in Southern California, was a child prodigy on the mandolin. With groups like Nickel Creek and the Punch Brothers, he grew into a leader of a new generation of bluegrass-based, genre-bending musicians.
He can seemingly do anything with his instrument. I first spoke to Thile three years ago when he recorded an album of 'Bach Partitas.'
CHRIS THILE: The fugal pieces where they're all about precision, and these second voices come in and then there's a third voice.
SUMMARY: Since its first performance in 1935, “Porgy and Bess” has earned acclaim as one of American history's best pieces of musical theater. But over time, many have come to view the opera's black characters as stereotypes. Now, a new production in Charleston aims to rectify the issue by emphasizing the characters' -- and the city's -- African roots. Jeffrey Brown reports.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):“Summertime,” from the 1934 American opera classic “Porgy and Bess.” It's a story set in Charleston and now being performed here as the centerpiece of the 40th anniversary celebration of the Spoleto Festival USA.
The music was familiar, but as the opera progressed, it had a less familiar look, just as visual director Jonathan Green wanted.
JONATHAN GREEN, Artist: You have to know what the stereotypes are to move away from the stereotypes.
JEFFREY BROWN: And what did you see in the stereotypes?
JONATHAN GREEN: I saw in the stereotypes a complete disrespect of a continent of Africa, not being a part of the culture of a people.
JEFFREY BROWN: Green, one of Charleston's most prominent artists, is himself from the Gullah community, descendants of West African slaves who lived in this area, the very setting of “Porgy and Bess,” for which he's imagined a kind of alternative history.
JONATHAN GREEN: What if West Africans came as immigrants? What would we be looking at? What would we see? And what are we missing because we haven't supported that?
JEFFREY BROWN:The bright colors, patterns, and vivid designs, Green believes, fill in a missing piece and offer a greater truth about both the opera and the city.
Set in the 1920s, “Porgy and Bess” is the story of the disabled beggar Porgy, sung by Lester Lynch, the beautiful prostitute Bess, Alyson Cambridge, and their life in Catfish Row, a Charleston tenement. It's based on the 1925 novel “Porgy” by DuBose Heyward, who lived near the real-life tenement, then called Cabbage Row.
HARLAN GREENE, Historian: This very picturesque place was once a slum.
JEFFREY BROWN: Local historian Harlan Greene has studied the period and the people. He even found this photo of the real-life man, Samuel Smalls, on whom Porgy is based.
I asked him about the success of Heyward's original novel.
HARLAN GREENE:What he did that was truly earth-shattering is that he showed a love story between a black man and a black woman, and this — a passionate love affair. And it wasn't Uncle Remus. It wasn't Aunt Jemima. He took real people, and it wasn't a race novel. It wasn't a stereotype.
He shattered all sorts of conventions at the time.
SUMMARY: At the Baltimore School for the Arts, students are admitted solely on their artistic potential; notable alumni of the pre-professional high school includes Jada Pinkett Smith and designer Christian Siriano. We meet some of the educators and current students who bring passion and dedication to every school day.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now to a school training the next generation of great artists.
At the Baltimore School for the Arts, a pre-professional high school, students are admitted solely on their artistic potential without a review of any academic grades. Still, the school’s students have some of the highest tests scores in the state of Maryland. Notable alumni include actor Jada Pinkett Smith and fashion designer Christian Siriano.
We followed the students before the recent protests and unrest in the city and found their combination of dedication and focus, inspiring. Take a look.
MATEEN MILAN, Student: My family isn’t in the arts. I’m the only person who really does, like, classical music. I’m the only person who like takes lessons and goes to a school like this. My name is Mateen Milan. I’m in the 12th grade and I go to Baltimore School for the Arts.
MAURICE MOUZON, Student: It all started out when I was just on my own doing street dance. My friends went and told my teacher that I was dancing. I showed her and she told me that I should try out for Baltimore School for the Arts. My name is Maurice Mouzon. I’m a 12th grader at Baltimore School for the Arts.
CHRIS FORD, Director, Baltimore School for the Arts: Kids enter by audition. We don’t look at their academics at all, which is an interesting piece. And they follow a pre-professional arts program, as well as a college prep academic program.
My name is Chris Ford, and I’m the director of the Baltimore School for the Arts.
SUMMARY: When was the last time you went to the theater, or watched a modern dance concert? Why are Americans less connected to the arts? In his new book, “Curtains? The Future of the Arts in America,” Michael Kaiser, a former chief of the Kennedy Center, American Ballet Theatre and others, considers what arts organizations can do to thrive and survive. Kaiser discusses his book with Jeffrey Brown.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Have you been to the theater lately, seen a modern dance concert? Have your children? Will those theater dance and other arts institutions survive?
The questions are at the heart of a new book with a question in its title, “Curtains?: The Future of the Arts in America.”
Author Michael Kaiser has headed many arts organizations, including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the American Ballet Theater and the Alvin Ailey dance troupe. He now heads the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland.
And welcome to you.
What’s the — if I say, what’s the essential problem, is it economic, cultural? What is it? How do you sum it up?
MICHAEL KAISER, Author, “Curtains?: The Future of the Arts in America”: We have faced many challenges in the arts for many years, but more recently, so much entertainment and arts are available online or in movie theaters. And they are becoming very important competitors to those who present live performances in their theaters.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): Finally tonight: A classical art form meets cutting-edge technology, an opera that will be simulcast, where viewers around the globe can interact with the performance this Sunday.
Jeffrey Brown has the story.
MAN: Wow. They remember their parts.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): In the future there will be robots. But there will also be opera, the power of technology joined to the human imagination.
(SINGING)
JEFFREY BROWN: That, at least, is one message from the opera “Death and the Power” by composer, computer scientist, and futurist Tod Machover.
TOD MACHOVER, “Death and the Power”: A lot of my work has been about humanizing technology and making technology, especially in music, be an extension of human gesture.
JEFFREY BROWN: Machover’s opera tells the story of Simon Powers, a successful businessman seeking immortality through technology by downloading his mind and spirit into a computer program called the System.
Now, stay with us here, because his essence becomes incorporated into physical objects. Robots line up on stage, representing each of the main characters of the show. During the prologue and epilogue, they also serve as a kind of Greek chorus. They’re all that is left on planet Earth. Once every year, they gather to remember and tell the story of Simon Powers, even though they have no real knowledge of human emotion.
They are moved about by iPads and remote controls using cutting-edge software such as a position tracking system and 3-D visualization.
With a libretto by former poet laureate Robert Pinsky, it’s a new twist on old-age life-and-death questions, and newer ones about the role of technology.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
LINK DISCLAIMER:
There is no guarantee that any link provided in this blog will always work, especially for older links. The validity of any link is governed by the source-site policies. Some sites will archive articles and require subscription to access. Very small sites, such as a local town newspaper, may not archive at all.
