September 07, 2006
On the fifth anniversary of September 11th, Kurt Andersen looks at the range of creative responses to the attacks. Voices include: the poet Marie Ponsot, the novelist Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close), the novelist John Updike (Terrorist), Lori Guadagno (sister of United 93 passenger Richard Guadagno), and the photographer Joel Meyerowitz (Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive).
Nina Katchadourian is a sound artist with a thing for birds. A few years ago she rigged car alarms to project gorgeous bird calls instead of robotic screeching. Her latest installation is at Wave Hill, a public garden in New York City overlooking the Hudson River. She's using birdsongs again, but this time, it's humans imitating birds as best they can.
Ned Rorem is an American composer who loves French music. He spoke with WNYC's Sara Fishko as part of a series on living composers and their relationship with the past.
How did an 18th century Italian Jew become over the course of his life a Catholic priest, a bookseller, a professor of Italian, a grocer in the United States -- and the librettist of some of the best operas written, Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, Cosi fan Tutte, and Don Giovanni? Kurt got the answers when he talked to Rodney Bolt, who wrote the recent biography of Lorenzo Da Ponte, called Librettist of Venice.
Alyssa Lamb sings in a Brooklyn-based band called Las Rubias del Norte, 'the Blondes of the North.' But her path to singing was circuitous-she was playing the accordion when an injury kept her home alone. She found her calling by singing along with the powerful voice of Lydia Mendoza, a legend of Texas-Mexican music. Produced by Trey Kay.
Studio 360 is a co-production of
Public
Radio International and
WNYC New York Public Radio, and is funded in part by
Ken and Lucy Lehman, the
National Endowment for the Arts, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, and
DK Eyewitness Travel. Studio 360's American Icons series is supported in part by the
National Endowment for the Humanities. Our series on creativity and science is supported in part by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Our series on Underground Heroes is supported in part by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. 
