Music

Immanuel Wilkins Highlights Struggle And Triumph Of Black Experience In Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

By NPR News
Candles and books rest on a trunk at the bottom right corner of the wide shot. There, too, are special photographs of alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins with family in his childhood home in Philadelphia. "One of the brightest things about this pandemic was going home to spend time with my mother, father and grandmother after being on the road for a while," Wilkins told NPR Read More

Confronting The Blind Spot In The Great American Protest Song ‘This Land Is Your Land’

By NPR News
Picture of Woody Guthrie performing
Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" has long been offered as an "alternative national anthem," performed by musicians from Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger to Chicano Batman and Sharon Jones. Its message seems fairly simple — we are all equally entitled to the rights of this country, including the land we stand on. But Native Americans will just as soon point out Read More

WATCH: Author Jia Tolentino On American Culture Through The Prism Of The Internet

By PBS Newshour
Jia Tolentino
The January pick for our “Now Read This” book club was a book of essays exploring many aspects of American culture through the prism of the internet and social media. At age 32, author Jia Tolentino has gained acclaim as one of its most astute observers. She’s a also a staff writer for The New Yorker and “Trick Mirror” is her first book. Jeffrey Brown spoke to Tolentino to Read More

StoryCorps Northwest: ‘Hardest Thing To Be Is A Black Person’ Says Jewish Woman Who Hid In Attic

By Sueann Ramella
Step-daugher Robin with her step-mother, Evelyn Woods
When Spokane resident Evelyn Woods was a little girl in World War II Germany, she hid in an attic with her Jewish parents. In today’s StoryCorps Northwest, Evelyn’s step-daughter, Robin, asks her how that confinement compares to today’s COVID-19 restrictions. Evelyn, 82, discusses that and the Black Lives Matter movement in this segment of StoryCorps Northwest recorded Read More

In His 250th Year, Beethoven’s Legacy Is One Of Life, Liberty And Pursuit Of Enlightenment

By NPR News
Ludwig van Beethoven charted a powerful new course in music. His ideas may have been rooted in the work of European predecessors Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Josef Haydn, but the iconic German composer became who he was with the help of some familiar American values: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That phrase, from the Declaration of Independence, is right out Read More
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