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Her Vision, Her Voice, Her Song: A Mountain Stage Celebration
Sunday, March 7, 8:00 p.m.

Hosted by Lisa Mullins of PRI's The World, this two-hour program features historic live performances and interviews with some of the world's greatest female artists. The music spans a broad array of forms: folk, jazz, blues, gospel, world music and country. This special edition of the public radio program Mountain Stages celebrates the depth, passion and heart that women performers bring to the contemporary music scene. Featured artists include Jean Ritchie, Joan Baez, Cassandra Wilson, Indigo Girls, Norah Jones and Mariza.
Mountain Stage regularly guarantees listeners the best seats in the house for new performers and established artists. It is a two-hour exploration of the exciting and spontaneous sound of live performance, offering intelligent, contemporary music seasoned with traditional and roots artists. This award-winning show is the longest-running program of its kind-over 1,200 artists have appeared on the Stage since it premiered nationally in 1985.

About the Host
A seasoned journalist, Lisa Mullins brings more than twenty years of reporting experience to public radio. Mullins has covered major news events around the United States and produced reports from China, Albania, Italy, Mexico and Northern Ireland. She has interviewed key figures on the international stage, including U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai.
Public radio listeners nationwide have praised Mullins as one of the best announcers in public radio. She received the bronze award for "Best Network Anchor" in the New York Festival's international radio competition, and Boston Magazine honored her with its "Best Radio Voice" award. Mullins has won numerous other awards, including the Golden Reel Award in the category "National News and Public Affairs" from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters.

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Deep In Our Hearts
Sunday, March 14, 8:00 p.m.

Deep in Our Hearts tells the stories of a group of young white women who came of age during the civil rights movement, participated actively in it and were, in many ways, transformed by it. Their backgrounds belie the stereotypical profile of whites in the movement. They are not all upper-class students from the east coast, as the participants of Freedom Summer are sometimes portrayed. They are Irish, Jewish and southern. One grew up in poverty, others in affluence. Some were raised to treat blacks as subordinates, and some from families that worked for social justice. Deep in Our Hearts explores the reasons why these women chose to defy the color line and live out their ideals.
Created by veteran audio producer Sandra Sleight-Brennan and based on the book of the same name, Deep in Our Hearts illuminates the turbulent 1960s and sheds light on the moral conviction of four courageous women.

About the Host
Jan Sole is the daytime classical music host for the WOUB Public Radio Network in Athens, Ohio, and has just celebrated her twentieth anniversary at the station.
After graduating from the Ohio University Scripps School of Journalism, she chose to remain in Athens, where she resides with her husband, John, and daughter, Olivia. When she is not at the radio station, Sole dabbles as a freelance artist, and in her spare time enjoys tennis and golf, cooking, reading, and playing the piano.

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Castles of Gold
Sunday, March 14, 9:00 p.m.

Come visit Castles of Gold for a captivating hour of songs and stories that explore the joys and sorrows of Irish emigration. Two prominent Irish Americans are the storytellers: Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Frank McCourt, author of "Angela's Ashes" and "'Tis," and Roma Downey, star of the TV series "Touched by an Angel." The stories they tell are by playwright Katerie Morin, whose family emigrated from County Mayo in the early 1900s. Morin draws on her family's oral history to re-create the experiences of leaving Ireland for America.
The songs, sung by acclaimed vocalist Pan Morigan, are filled with history, longing and powerful imagery. They lament the forced exile from Ireland and honor the memories of places and people left behind. Morigan's band includes world-renowned Irish musicians, including violinist Liz Carroll, piper Jerry O'Sullivan, as well as Irish whistle and flute player Joannie Madden. Castles of Gold also features world-music players such as celebrated frame-drum master Glen Velez and jazz, classical and guitar virtuoso Ben Butler.

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The Breast Cancer Monologues
Sunday, March 21, 8:00 p.m.

Approximately one in nine women in this country develop breast cancer within an eighty-five year lifetime. The Breast Cancer Monologues tells the stories of these women through interviews, readings and dramatizations. The women talk about a range of experiences, from diagnoses to body image to recovery.
The program was produced by Peabody Award-winning audio producer Dmae Roberts, who says the women she interviewed inspired her. "I was surprised by how often they laughed," she says. "There is a great need for support and to be able to talk about this as part of your life and how you get through the day. There are a lot of problems with treatments and finances and sexuality, but what ultimately moved me was the strength of women to overcome the biggest challenge you could have-fighting for your life everyday."

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Odyssey: Wealth and Politics
Sunday, March 21, 9:00 p.m.

This edition of Odyssey explores how wealth shapes American politics.
As the 2004 presidential election approaches, it is clear that money influences politics in the United States. Presidential candidates spend millions on their campaigns. Wealth and economic class are central to policy debates over tax cuts, social security and health care.
What effect does wealth have on the formation of a person's political views? How does wealth affect the ways in which Americans participate in the political system? Does wealth determine who runs for office? And how does money influence public policy? Join host Gretchen Helfrich as she explores these questions with distinguished panelists and audience members. Produced by Chicago Public Radio in association with WKNO.
Odyssey is a daily talk show of ideas produced by WBEZ Chicago Public Radio. Host Gretchen Helfrich explores topics ranging from religion in the public sphere to reasoning about risk; pacifism to post-national identity; memory to Microsoft; societal views on mental health to the state of marriage.
Odyssey's guests have varying and complementary views and are invited to investigate ideas and issues, rather than just debate them. The first part of the program is an in-depth discussion of ideas that influence the world in which we live. Towards the end of each show, listeners are invited to call in and join the conversation.

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Met Opera National Council Grand Finals Concert
Sunday, March 28, 7:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m.

Discover the opera stars of the future at The Met Opera National Council Grand Finals Concert, hosted by Frederica von Stade.
The Grand Finals is the culmination of probably the most important singing competition in the country. Young singers who are regional winners from around the United States and Canada will compete for cash prizes and regional auditions. The final round of auditions takes place in a special concert at the Met, with judges on hand to select the winners at the concert's end. Special guest performers include past participants Thomas Hampson, Hei-Kyung Hong, Samuel Ramey, Deborah Voigt and Dolora Zajick. Marco Armiliato conducts The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.

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Behind the Scenes at NPR: What's in a Theme Song?

Have you ever wondered what your personal theme song would be? What combination of notes would best introduce you as you enter a room, or send you on your way as you exit? Coming up with your own personal theme song is not easy! Composing a radio show's theme song is just as tricky a task. Yet when listeners hear theme songs, the notes seem to fall into place. As show after show is produced, how do theme song composers find new and different combinations of notes? And do those notes really just fall right into place?
Veteran NPR theme song composer BJ Leiderman begins the process by learning everything about the given show: the pace, the audience and the sound. "The biggest challenge," says Leiderman, "is having the piece of music musically be what the show is." Every now and then, however, the process gets switched around, as it did when a theme song was needed for another NPR's Morning Edition. Leiderman was approached for the job, and when his demo was complete, producer Jay Kernis played it for the show's creators as an example of what he wanted the show to sound like. Anyone can do the producing and arranging, insists Leiderman. It's finding the right notes and tune that are the hard parts.
But it's different strokes for different folks, and for composer Greg Smith, who hears everything from horns to percussions in his head as he composes, it is just a matter of translating what he hears onto tape. According to Smith, it is nearly impossible to write everything out when recording a theme song. As a result, says Smith, "the musicians have to be flexible and ready to play in different moods and styles." In other words, what Smith hears in his head may not be the end product.
Radio theme song composers like Greg Smith and BJ Leiderman have one more thing to keep in mind: the emphasis in radio is entirely on the audio, as opposed to TV that can rely on the visual. "Theme songs themselves are governed by a different set of musical rules," according to Smith. He uses the example of fitting a song into "theme version," whereby an average-lengthed song is cut down to theme-song length, a process Smith considers rarely successful.
Now that you have had a few moments to think about it, where would you begin when composing your own theme song? What mixture of sounds best exemplifies you? Remember: you may not get it the first time around, but be flexible and the tune might just come to you.

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Daniel Schorr: A Life in Journalism

"It's a cute little toy," Daniel Schorr said when he first saw a TV set at the 1939 World's Fair, "but I don't think it will ever amount anything."
Schorr went on to spend twenty-five years on television at CBS News, first as one of "Murrow's Boys"-as the best and brightest of broadcast journalists who worked for Edward R. Murrow came to be known. He is now NPR's Senior News Analyst and a reporter-commentator on Weekend Edition.
Schorr, 86, has spent sixty years as a journalist reporting on some of the major events of our time. The Army-McCarthy hearings, the Cuban revolution of the 1950s; the building of the Berlin Wall, the American civil rights movement, national political conventions, and the War on Poverty, are among the many stories Schorr has covered.
But it was when Schorr was covering the Watergate Congressional hearings in the early 1970s that he got what he calls the "most electrifying moment" of his career. During a break in the hearings, Schorr read on live television a list of twenty "enemies" targeted by the Nixon White House-including his own name. While on the air, "I managed to not gasp," he recalls, and then "broke into a big sweat" when the camera turned off. He had unwittingly become part of the history he was witnessing.
Schorr gained his first toehold in big-time journalism when, shortly after World War II, he was a Holland-based freelancer for news organizations such as The Christian Science Monitor, Time, Newsweek, The London Daily Mail, The New York Times and CBS.
After a stint with the fledgling CNN in the early 1980s, Schorr began to see TV journalism evolve into something that now discourages him. Today, he says, too much of TV news emphasizes entertainment over enlightenment. It is "run by people who want to know what the bottom line is. As opposed to the people I knew in journalism, like Murrow . . . also like Bill Paley [the founder and longtime head of CBS], who thought it was very prestigious to be able to have documentaries to tell people what's going on, even if it didn't make a lot of money."
Reflecting on his years at CBS, Schorr says he worked there "happily, more or less," but "never felt completely at home with the world of television." In 1985, then-news director Robert Siegel (now one of the hosts of All Things Considered) invited him to join the NPR News team.
"I realized very soon that I really loved the medium [of radio] because I was dealing with the substance of things rather than make-up, the teleprompter, camera angles, and all of that. I could finally deal with journalism as pure journalism rather than as a way to make yourself a star."
Daniel Schorr appears on Weekend Edition every Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.

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Gardening with Moya
New gardening module coming to WFIU

When Moya Andrews isn't teaching in the Speech and Hearing Sciences department, or working as the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculties at IU Bloomington, she's following her passion of gardening. Beginning this spring, WFIU will broadcast a new program created by Dr. Andrews dedicated to the art of gardening. Each two-minute module will include information about the culture and display of flowering plants, shrubs and trees in southern Indiana. So get out your pruners and get ready to listen to master gardener Moya Andrews as she helps you create a beautiful garden. Airtimes to be announced.

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March Community Events

Visit the WFIU web site for links to these and other events: wfiu.indiana.edu.

WonderLab
Brain Teasers
308 West 4th Street, Bloomington

Brain Teasers challenges individuals or groups of people to solve intriguing puzzles by looking for patterns and using creative thinking. For example, how do you balance 13 nails on the head of one nail? Other mind-boggling puzzles involve ropes, rings, pegs and blocks.
The puzzles provide hands-on learning opportunities that relate to Indiana science and mathematics standards. Further enrichment will be offered through a special activity station, which will be open weekends and selected times on weekdays, and through associated programs, including Your Brilliant Brain, Saturday, March 6 and Family Math Night, Friday, March 26.

BAAC Performance Series
Polly Maynard's A non A miss!
Co-produced with Bloomington Classical Guitar Society
Friday, March 5, 8:00 p.m.
John Waldron Auditorium

Experience a delightful journey through the history of women in music in Polly Maynard's multimedia production that includes, art, costume and guitar. The Texas-based artist illuminates the role of women in music from the 15th Century to the present, employing early instruments and period costumes to re-create paintings from the past. An entertaining, informative and thought provoking performance!

BAAC Performance Series
Aria da Capo by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Trifles by Susan Glaspell
Directed by Stephanie Harrison
Co-Produced with Detour Theatre Company
March 26-27, March 1-3, 8:00 p.m.
March 28 & April 4, 2:00 p.m.
Rose Firebay

An evening of two-one act plays by women of the Provincetown Players. Founded in 1915 by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Susan Glaspell, Eugene O'Neill and others, the Povincetown Players led a new direction in American theater. The realistic drama "Trifles," based on an actual murder case in Iowa in 1900, is one of the most widely anthologized and frequently produced one-act plays in America. In the absurd poetic play, "Aria da Capo," Millay revives the harlequinade as a piercing response to war and contemporary struggles.

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Musical Highlights for March
by Robert Lumpkin, Music Director

Artist of the Month
March is Women's History Month, and WFIU will present the artistry of women composers and performers. Artist of the Month for March is pianist Karen Shaw. She has appeared in numerous performances throughout the United States, Europe and the Far East as both recitalist and soloist with orchestra. Dr. Shaw is also well known as a pedagogue, teaching at Indiana University's School of Music and participating in many master classes and seminars. We will hear Karen Shaw in three performances this month of the complete Études-Tableaux of Sergei Rachmaninov. On Thursday, March 11 at 7:07 p.m., join us for the études Op. 33. Another large set, Op. 39, comes your way on Wednesday, March 17 at 10:12 p.m. The Op. Posth. études can be heard Wednesday, March 24 at 7:07 p.m.

New Releases
Highlights of March's new recordings include music from the Baroque to the 20th Century. On Thursday, March 4 at 7:07 p.m., St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble performs the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 by Bach from a new Delos recording. Pianist Joanne Polk plays the Sonata for Solo Piano by Judith Lang Zaimont on Sunday, March 15 at 11:08 p.m. That is on a new release from the Albany label.
Join us on Thursday, March 25 at 7:07 p.m. for The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams, played by violinist Corey Cerovsek. That Aguavá New Music Studio Recording also features a volunteer orchestra conducted by Gerald Sousa. Naxos has recently issued performances by the Maggini Quartet of music by Frank Bridge. Finally, on Wednesday, March 31 at 10:12 p.m. we will hear the String Quartet No. 3 from that same recording.

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Profiles

March 7 - Wendy Wasserstein
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein has created a distinguished body of work that invites audiences to consider womens' lives. Her works include "Uncommon Women and Others," "Isn't It Romantic," "The Sisters Rosensweig" and "The Heidi Chronicles." Join us for this hour-long interview produced at KQED in San Francisco.

March 14 - Bobbie Ann Mason
Considered a singular voice in southern literature, Bobbie Ann Mason has used her upbringing in the rural south as a backdrop for most of her fiction. Much of her writing is set in Kentucky, her home state. Her latest book, "Elvis Presley," brings her to the biography genre. This one-hour interview was produced at KQED in San Francisco.

March 21 - Sandra Cisneros
"I am a woman and I am a Latina," says poet and novelist Sandra Cisneros. "Those are the things that make my writing distinctive." Growing up in an impoverished Latino family, Cisneros dwelt outside of the cultural and class norms of American society. Her best work is the widely acclaimed "The House on Mango Street." She spoke with Angie Coiro at KQED in San Francisco.

March 28 (7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.) - The National Council Grand Finals Concert
The Metropolitan Opera holds its annual competition to discover the opera stars of the future. The broadcast is hosted by Frederica von Stade. See page [____] for details. Profiles returns next week.

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The Radio Reader with Dick Estell

"A Perfect Day"
by Richard Paul Evans
(Through Tuesday, March 16th)

Robert Harlan has three loves in his life: his wife, Allyson; his daughter Carson; and his writing. A sales rep for a small radio station, he has hopes of one day leaving it all behind for a successful writing career. When he is unexpectedly laid off from his job, Allyson encourages him to pursue his dream of writing. He writes a novel entitled "A Perfect Day," based on the last few months Allyson and her father spent together as he died of cancer.
The story becomes a huge success and Robert finds himself swept into a new world, far from his wife and home. In time, Robert loses tracks of things he loves most-until he meets a stranger who begins to tell him intimate details about his past, his present and most important, the brevity of his future. Thinking that he has just months to live, Robert begins to discover the truth about himself-who he has become, what he has lost, and what it will take to find love again.

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Broadcasts from the IU School of Music

BACH-Flute Sonata in E, BWV 1035; Barbara Kallaur, fl.; Thomas Gerber, hpsd.; Liam Byrne, viol. Airs: 3/1 at 7:00 p.m., 3/2 at 10:00 a.m., 3/5 at 3:00 p.m.

HOTTETERRE-Premier Livre . . . Pour Les Flutes, Op. 2a: Troisième Suite; Barbara Kallaur, fl.; Thomas Gerber, hpsd.; Liam Byrne, viol. Airs: 3/8 at 7:00 p.m., 3/9 at 10:00 a.m., 3/12 at 3:00 p.m.

IBERT-Carignane for bassoon and piano; Kim Walker, bssn.; Shigeo Neriki, p. Airs: 3/15 at 7:00 p.m., 3/16 at 10:00 a.m.

MOREL-Chaconne en trio; Barbara Kallaur, fl.; Thomas Gerber, hpsd.; Wendy Gillespie, vla. da gamba; Liam Byrne, viol. Airs: 3/22 at 7:00 p.m., 3/23 at 10:00 a.m. 3/25 at 3:00 p.m.

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV-Scheherazade, Op. 35; David Effron/IU University Orch. Airs: 3/24 at 10:00 p.m.

ELGAR-Romance in d, Op. 62; Kim Walker, bssn.; Shigeo Neriki, p. Airs: 3/29 at 7:00 p.m., 3/30 at 10:00 a.m.

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An Independent Life
Independent producers share a passion for storytelling

"The Breast Cancer Monologues," "Lost and Found Sound," "Prison Diaries." Some of the most memorable and provocative programming heard on WFIU is the work of independent producers. With a passion for radio and for stories, independent producers find voices that tell personal stories and illuminate larger truths and introduce listeners to hidden sides of life.
The point of independent producers' work, says David Isay, is "to jar people and to shake people. To snatch them out of their haze and bring them back to the world. To help them to dip their toes in the real lives of real Americans-the sort of struggles, feelings and joys, and tragedies people go through."
Isay is the founder of Sound Portraits Productions, an independent production company dedicated to giving neglected American voices a national audience. One of Sound Portraits' most noted works is "Ghetto Life 101," a documentary about two young boys living in one of the most notorious public housing projects in America. The program won almost every major award in American broadcasting, and Isay has been similarly decorated for his many other works.
Joe Richman believes that "radio is a great medium for telling intimate, personal stories," making "the universal feel personal and the personal feel universal." An adjunct professor at Columbia University, Richman is also an award-winning independent producer and reporter with Radio Diaries, a nonprofit organization that finds extraordinary stories in ordinary places through voices rarely heard-teenagers, seniors, and prison inmates. Recently, Radio Diaries produced "My So-Called Lungs," the audio diary of a 21-year-old woman battling cystic fibrosis, which recorded her attempts to lead a normal life with failing lungs.
The independent producer draws inspiration from everything imaginable. Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, also known as the Kitchen Sisters, find stories by "having an ear to the ground on every level." That's what it took for Silva and Nelson to produce their Peabody Award-winning radio series, "Lost & Found Sound," as well as "The Sonic Memorial Project," a national collaboration with other radio producers, artists, historians, archivists and the public broadcasting community to collect and preserve audio remembrances of the World Trade Center, its neighborhood and the events of 9/11.
"Davia is famous for hearing other people's conversation and turning to them and saying, 'this would be a remarkable program!'" says Silva. "It's about keeping your ears and mind open."
Once a producer finds the inspiration to tell a story, the process of creating a piece for NPR newsmagazines like All Things Considered or Morning Edition is lengthy and meticulous-and sometimes frustrating. For many projects, the first step is to pitch the story idea to NPR while simultaneously pitching a funding source.
"It's kind of a Catch-22," Silva notes. "The funding agencies want to know you are going to be able to get that piece or series aired, preferably by one of the big shows, because they want justification for funding you. So, you are writing the grant, pitching the story idea and trying to get the shows to write letters of support, or at least say they are interested in possibly airing this series if it's funded."
In spite of this painstaking process--not to mention juggling up to 15 different pieces at a time or turning hundreds of hours of recordings into perhaps only 22 minutes of aired material--says producer Dan Collison, "for the most part, radio is pretty simple. It's usually just a tape recorder, a microphone and two people. The trick is being there at the right time, and also being patient, developing enough trust with a person to get them to talk about themselves in an open, honest way." Collison's recent projects include "Learning to Live: James' Story," the documentary of an ex-felon's transition from prison to the free world; and "Movin' Out the Bricks," where he followed "Coco" and her children, as she moved out of Chicago's Stateway Gardens-public housing that Coco described as "hell."
Whether telling the stories of ex-felons or inviting listeners into the life of a teenager with a life-threatening disease, independent producers approach their work with dedication. And perhaps they inspire others to do the same. For up-and-coming producers, David Isay offers this advice: "Follow your heart. Never compromise. Set your audience on fire."

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Created and maintained by Michael Toler
Last updated: Saturday, February 28, 2004
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Indiana University