Ted Olson: Bob Dylan and the creative leap that transformed modern music
Sixty years ago, on Halloween Night 1964, a 23-year-old Dylan took the stage at New York City’s Philharmonic Hall. He had become a star within the niche genre of revivalist folk music. But by 1964 Dylan was building a much larger fanbase through performing and recording his own songs.
Louise Bogan: Musician
Now with great ease, and slow,
The thumb, the finger, the strong
Delicate hand plucks the long
String it was born to know.
Video: Hildegard of Bingen | Love Aboundeth In All Things
There are more surviving chants by Hildegard than by any other composer from the entire Middle Ages, and she is one of the few known composers to have written both the music and the words.
Michael Simms: Strange Meadowlark
years later jazz, a free communal experience
embodying love, saved me just as poetry saved me
Video: Snow Raven
In a spellbinding talk and performance, singer Snow Raven mimics the hoot of an owl, the grumble of a bear, the howl of a wolf and more.
Miriam Levine: Let’s Go
That out queen
Mark Morris, hefty as he is, dances the role of Queen
Dido to measures of Purcell’s opera and, flashing his
long arms, makes Dido’s suicide lyrical.
Video: Dumpster Archeology
Self-proclaimed “Dumpster Archeologist” Lew Blink embarks on thrilling expeditions through dimly lit alleys where every item holds a story waiting to be brought to life.
Video: Fleshwork
At a butcher shop in Jeromesville, Ohio, four meat processors situate their labor within their own minds and bodies.
Abby Zimet: Wearin’ Yesterday’s Misfortunes Like A Smile
He’s a poet he’s a picker he’s a prophet he’s a pusher
He’s a pilgrim and a preacher and a problem when he’s stoned
He’s a walking contradiction partly truth and partly fiction
Taking every wrong direction on his lonely way back home
Carmel Mawle: The Calisia
When Mama and Baba pulled us from under their bed, we stood where our wall had been and looked over the smoking city.
Video: The Blossom, by William Blake
Performed by Wienananda, a group of Sahaja yogis in Vienna.
Marlowe Starling: Unsilencing the Desert
“Nomads are in contact with nature every day, surrounded by rivers, mountains, and deserts. The silence of the desert allows them to hear nature.”
Susan Kelly-DeWitt: Frangible Operas
Tonight the bells of the flowers ring out
