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Playlist: ListeningLounge

Compiled By: Tom Niemisto

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#2: The Rite of Spring, or when Lenny met Igor

From Jackson Braider | Part of the Stravinsky@125 series | 13:16

Few musical works have inspired so many stories as Stravinsky's 1913 hit, The Rite of Spring. These are just three or four of them.

Stravinsky_small If ever anything deserved to be called a bolt from the blue, then surely it's The Rite of Spring. At its premiere in Paris in 1913, this ballet provoked a riot; six months later, its composer, Igor Stravinsky, was the darling of the Paris scene. That's what happens when you create a sensation. People talk; they share stories. And over the next half century The Rite of Spring provoked many stories -- about Stravinsky and his genius, about his artistic vision, about how Stravinsky left Leonard Bernstein speechless the one and only time they met. As part of Stravinsky at 1-2-5, a series celebrating the 125th anniversary of the composer's birth, producer Jackson Braider tells some stories from the life of The Rite of Spring, or "When Lenny met Igor."

Are There Any More Rare, Plastic Ponies?

From Julie Shapiro | 20:00

An unknown pastime to most, competitive model horse collecting is a serious passion for girls and women of all ages. But why?

Ps2_small While some lucky girls spend their weekends at the barn brushing their ponies and galloping around paddocks, others are devoted to serious indoor competition - with their plastic model horses. Either way, one thing's certain: Girls love horses. Producer Julie Shapiro spends some time at the stable and at the show ring, talking with riders and collectors of all ages about the timeless bond between them and their beloved animals - both the living and breathing ones and the mass-produced, painted ponies.

Oh Coqui!

From Long Haul Productions | Part of the Song/Story series | 25:06

The Coqui, a tiny, but very vociferous tree frog, is the national symbol of Puerto Rico, beloved in folklore and in song. But while the coqui’s lusty “croak” is a beloved part of the Puerto Rican soundscape, lulling residents to sleep every night, it’s a different story on the big island of Hawaii. Coquis showed up on the island as stowaways a few years back. And because the frog has no natural predator there, they’re proliferating like crazy…'taking over' some locals would say.

Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister - with the help of the musical group Dr Jerky and Mr big - have the story of Hawaii’s reaction to the coqui’s invasion

Coqui_175_med_small The Coqui, a tiny, but very vociferous tree frog, is the national symbol of Puerto Rico, beloved in folklore and in song. But while the coqui’s lusty “croak” is a beloved part of the Puerto Rican soundscape, lulling residents to sleep every night, it’s a different story on the big island of Hawaii. Coquis showed up on the island as stowaways a few years back. And because the frog has no natural predator there, they’re proliferating like crazy…'taking over' some locals would say. Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister - with the help of the musical group Dr Jerky and Mr big - have the story of Hawaii’s reaction to the coqui’s invasion

The Natural State

From Long Haul Productions | Part of the Song/Story series | 10:55

Producers Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister traveled to Arkansas to talk to people about what's going on under their feet ... both the extraction of natural gas, and the multitude of small earthquakes. And they shared the community's voices with musician Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who contributed an original song.

Fracked_well_pump3_small Producers Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister traveled to Arkansas to talk to people about what's going on under their feet ... both the extraction of natural gas, and the multitude of small earthquakes. And they shared the community's voices with musician Bonnie “Prince” Billy, who contributed an original song.

Birdathon

From Long Haul Productions | 28:59

Long Haul Productions follows two teams as they compete in the Southwest Michigan Birdathon

Woodcock_small Every spring since 1989, bird lovers in Berrien County, Michigan, (directly across the lake from Chicago,) have taken part in the annual Southwest Michigan Team Birdathon. Birdathons are much like walkathons, but instead of racking up miles for charities, people pledge donations based on the number of birds a team sees or hears. The proceeds are, for this particular event, donated to nature or conservation groups Participants in the southwest Michigan birdathon can start at midnight and go all out until 7 p.m., tracking down as many species as possible within Berrien County. And because the event is held at the height of spring migration near the shores of Lake Michigan, a major corridor for migrating birds, there are literally hundreds of different species teams can tally on their official checklists. Producers Elizabeth Meister and Dan Collison followed two of the 24 teams who took part in last spring's event. One team was made up veteran birders who won the previous year's Birdathon. The other included younger, less experienced members.

American Dreamer: Sam's Story (half-hour version)

From Long Haul Productions | 26:09

Every year, an estimated 65,000 undocumented students graduate from American high schools. Raised entirely in American culture, they finish high school only to find themselves in a peculiarly American limbo. "American Dreamer: Sam's Story" is a first-person longitudinal half-hour radio documentary sharing the experience of one of these kids.

Sam_small “American Dreamer: Sam’s Story” tells the story of a talented and articulate young jazz musician named Sam, who was brought to the U.S. at age 5 by his Mexican parents. He stayed out of trouble, was drum major of his high school’s marching band, fell in love with playing jazz on the tenor sax, and got his diploma with honors– only to find that for an “illegal,” graduation marks a dead end. .  Though Sam dreams of attending college to study jazz performance, he hides his status from even his closest friends, and can’t legally work, drive, get financial aid, or even gain admission to some colleges.  "American Dreamer" follows him from his high school graduation, through the following summer, as he struggles to raise money to continue his education and weighs the risks of working and driving illegally against his own desire to achieve his American dream.

Teen Contender

From Radio Diaries | Part of the Teenage Diaries series | 15:53

Boxing has been an Olympic sport since the time of the ancient Greeks. But only men have taken part. This year, that changes. For the first time ever, women will step into the ring at the 2012 summer Olympics in London. One of them is 16-year old Claressa Shields.

Claressa_sm_small

Boxing has been an Olympic sport since the time of the ancient Greeks. But only men have taken part. This year, that changes. For the first time ever, women will step into the ring at the 2012 summer Olympics in London.

One of the Olympic contenders is 16-year old Claressa Shields, a junior at Northwestern High School in Flint, Michigan.

Sue Jaye Johnson and Joe Richman of Radio Diaries followed Claressa as she prepared for the Olympic trials. They also gave her a tape recorder to keep an audio diary of her life. This is her story.

This piece was produced by Joe Richman, Samara Freemark and Sue Jaye Johnson of Radio Diaries, with editors Deborah George and Ben Shapiro.

It’s a collaboration with WNYC’s Women Box Project. You can find photos and more about Claressa Shields – and many other women boxers –  at womenbox.com and radiodiaries.org.

Update: Claressa Shields is currently ranked #2 in the world in her wieght class! Her first Olympic fight will be August 5th.

For more updates follow us on twitter @radiodiaries

 

Willie McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair: A Granddaughter's Search for the Truth

From Radio Diaries | 22:59

In 1951, Willie McGee was executed in Mississippi's traveling electric chair for raping a white woman. Six decades later, his granddaughter is on a quest to unearth everything she can about his life - and his death.

Photo_b-wprx_small 30 Minute special also available on PRX: http://www.prx.org/pieces/111157-untitled-february-13-2014

A Guitar, A Cello, and The Day That Changed Music

From Radio Diaries | Part of the Audio History Project series | 14:40

November 23, 1936 was a good day for recorded music. Two men – an ocean apart – sat before a microphone and began to play.

Casals-johnson_003_l_small

November 23, 1936 was a good day for recorded music. Two men – an ocean apart – sat before a microphone and began to play. One was a cello prodigy who had performed for the Queen of Spain; the other played guitar and was a regular in the juke joints of the Mississippi Delta.

But on this day 75 years ago, Pablo Casals and Robert Johnson both made recordings that would change music history.


My Lobotomy

From Sound Portraits | 28:33

One man's quest to uncover the hidden story behind the lobotomy he received as a 12-year-old child.

Howardduring_small On January 17, 1946 a psychiatrist named Walter Freeman launched a radical new era in the treatment of mental illness in this country. On that day he performed the first-ever transorbital -- or "ice pick" -- lobotomy in his Washington, D.C. office. Freeman believed that mental illness was related to overactive emotions, and that by cutting the brain he cut away these feelings.  

Freeman was equal part physician and showman and became a barnstorming crusader for the procedure. Before his death in 1972, he performed ice pick lobotomies on no less than 2,500 patients in 23 states.

One of Freemen's youngest patients is a 56-year-old bus driver living in California. Over two years he has embarked on a quest to discover the story behind the procedure he received as a 12-year-old.

Ghetto Life 101

From Sound Portraits | 31:06

The audio diaries of LeAlan Jones and Lloyd Newman, two young boys living in one of the most notorious public housing projects in America.

Glkids_small In March, 1993, LeAlan Jones, thirteen, and Lloyd Newman, fourteen, collaborated with public radio producer David Isay to create the radio documentary Ghetto Life 101, their audio diaries of life on Chicago's South Side. The boys taped for ten days, walking listeners through their daily lives: to school, to an overpass to throw rocks at cars, to a bus ride that takes them out of the ghetto, and to friends and family members in the community. The candor in Jones and Newman's diaries brought listeners face to face with a portrait of poverty and danger and their effects on childhood in one of Chicago's worst housing projects. Like Vietnam War veterans in the bodies of young boys, Jones and Newman described the bitter truth about the sounds of machine guns at night and the effects of a thriving drug world on a community. Ghetto Life 101 became one of the most acclaimed programs in public radio history, winning almost all of the major awards in American broadcasting, including: the Sigma Delta Chi Award, the Ohio State Award, the Livingston Award, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Awards for Excellence in Documentary Radio and Special Achievement in Radio Programming, and others. Ghetto Life 101 was also awarded the Prix Italia, Europe's oldest and most prestigious broadcasting award. It has been translated into a dozen languages and has been broadcast worldwide. A study guide, for teachers who want to share Ghetto Life 101 with their class, is available at: http://soundportraits.org/data/ghetto_life_study_guide.pdf

My Particular Wishes

From Patricia McMillen | 10:00

Meditations on aging, death, and end-of-life health care

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“From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well.  You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time…”

 

 

                  --Haruki Murakami, “Thailand,” in After the Quake (tr. by Jay Rubin, 2003)

 

“My Particular Wishes,” an audio essay, premiered at a 40th high school reunion gallery show entitled “’70 Nearing 60,” held at Dana Hall School for Girls, Wellesley, MA, in 2010. The narration includes elements of personal essay, “found poetry,” and quotation/slant-quotation from various prose sources, including the Murakami short story quoted above.  It concludes with an extended slant-quotation from a form of advance directive for health care found on the website of Compassion & Choices (www. compassionandchoices.com).  The full text attributed to Tecumseh--to which I was introduced by a friend who died before reaching the age of 40, in 2009--can also be found online, at www.indigenouspeople.net/tecumseh.htm.

 

Musical and other non-narrative sound elements are excerpted from the following: Interview of Josef Marik, elevator operator at The Fine Arts Building in Chicago, March 2010; live performance of Milwaukee Bucks drummers at Midwest SOARRING Foundation Harvest Pow-Wow, Naperville, IL, September 2009; recording of birds at Matsushima Bay, Japan, April 2010 (all producer's personal sound archives); “Oh Death,” traditional song performed by The Horseflies, from The Young Fogies © 1994 Rounder Records Corp.; and the following sound files found on freesound (www.freesound.org) and licensed via Creative Commons protocol(s):

 

 fakeocean.wav, by Noisecollector (http://www.freesound.org/usersViewSingle.php?id=4948)

 

 leon’s tinnitus, by ERH (http://www.freesound.org/usersViewSingle.php?id=215874) 

sounds_before_death.wav, by Nimbyc (http://www.freesound.org/usersViewSingle.php?id=1345028)

Alder Hey's Dawn Chorus

From Ed Prosser | 07:09

Find out how Europe's largest children's hospital is experimenting with the use of birdsong.

Dawn_chorus550_small Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool, UK has called upon the skills of world leading sound recordist Chris Watson to introduce his beautiful wildlife recordings into the hospital soundscape.

This short piece blends interview material with Chris Watson's breath-taking birdsong recordings to explore the therapeutic use of sound amongst Alder Hey's young patients.

The Great Moonshine Conspiracy: The true story behind the movie Lawless

From Big Shed Audio | 16:00

Franklin County Virginia was once called "The Moonshine Capital of the World”, where corruption and exploitation put working families up against the most powerful men in the county. With the help of a former WWI spy and the testimony of hundreds of local farmers, it all ended with the controversial moonshine trials of 1935. (Featuring: author and native Virginian, Charlie Thompson, the accounts of writer Sherwood Anderson, official court transcripts, the story of country music legend Charlie Poole, and an original music score.)

Logo-moonshine-250_small During p rohibition and after
Franklin County Virginia was once called “The Moonshine Capital of the World.” In the most mountainous parts of the county, nearly every farming family was involved in the making and selling of illegal whiskey. The 1920s and 30s were difficult for small scale farmers. In the hills of western Virginia, moonshine offered extra cash and a path out of poverty.

The "Big Wheels" saw an opportunity, and they took it
For the most powerful men in the county, the moonshine trade was an opportunity to get rich on the backs of those farmers, charging large protection fees in exchange for looking the other way. 


Death and taxes
You can’t make that much illegal whiskey without drawing the attention of the federal government. With the help of a retired WWI spy, the Federal government indicted many of those men, including the State’s Attorney, the sheriff, a federal agent, and several deputies. In 1935, over 200 farmers testified about their role in the massive racket resulting in Virginia’s Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial. 

(Sup port  provided by   The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. Produced by  Big Shed Media in collaboration with The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Original music composed by Wes Swing. Visit moonshineconspiracy.org )