Podcasts about liberty theater

The Fisher Poets Gathering: remembering those now goneToday, to celebrate the opening of the annual Fisher Poets Gathering in Astoria, Oregon, we honor Fisher Poets who are no longer with us.We'll hear a song from Fisher Poet great Jon Campbell, who passed a few years ago. Jon was a prolific and creative songwriter and performer who hailed from Rhode Island, and his performances were unforgettable.You can hear more of the works of Jon Campbell and other, living, Fisher Poets, at this weekend's Annual Fisher Poets Gathering in Astoria, Oregon. Performances are are happening Friday through Sunday morning.  For more info, see fisherpoets.org.If you can't attend, KMUN radio in Astoria will livestream the Gathering from 6-10 pm Friday and Saturday from the Liberty Theater in Astoria. You can tune into KMUN locally at 91.9 fm, or livestream it at kmun.org, or download the KMUN app. I'll be your host both nights.For a live videostream of FPG performances at the Liberty on Friday and Saturday nights, check out the FisherPoetry Archive Project's live videostream, courtesy of FPAP founder Brad Wartman. You'll find that on the FisherPoetry Archive YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@thefisherpoetryarchive

Host Mike Sakell has the latest Catskills Conversation with Bruce Davidson of the historic Liberty Theater to talk about the vision and restoration project that is bringing this "anchor building" back to life. Davidson plans to bring the Liberty Theater back to its original glory as an entertainment hub in the community and to encourage a renaissance along Main Street in Libety NY.

SynopsisThese days, when “Modern Music” is on the program, a sizeable chunk of the concert hall audience might start nervously looking for the nearest exit—but that wasn't always the case.On today's date in 1882, a 21-year old American composer and pianist named Edward MacDowell took the stage in Zurich, Switzerland, to perform his “Modern Suite” for piano at the 19th annual conference of the General Society of German Musicians, a showcase for new music whose programs were arranged by none other than Franz Liszt.Liszt had met MacDowell earlier that year, and when MacDowell sent him the music for his “Modern Suite” for solo piano, Liszt asked the young composer to play it himself at the Society's conference in Zurich.The success of his First “Modern Suite” lead to the creation of a Second, and both were published a year later by the Leipzig firm of Breitkopf & Hærtel. These two suites were the first works of MacDowell to appear in print, and launched his career as one of the major American composers of the late 19th century.Music Played in Today's ProgramEdward MacDowell (1860 - 1908) First Modern Suite, Op. 10 James Barbagallo, piano Naxos 8.559011On This DayBirths1836 - Brazilian opera composer Antonio Carlo Gomes, in CampinasDeaths1937 - American composer George Gershwin, age 38, in Hollywood, following an operation on a cystic brain tumorPremieres1882 - MacDowell: "Modern Suite" No. 1 for Piano, in Zurich, with composer as soloist1921 - Gershwin: musical revue, "George White's Scandals of 1921," at the Liberty Theater in New York City1996 - James MacMillan: "The World's Ransoming" (English horn Concerto), at the Barbican in London, by soloist Christine Pendrill with the London Symphony, Kent Nagano conducting2003 - Peter Maxwell Davies: "Naxos Quartet" No. 2, at the Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham (UK), as part of the Cheltenham International Festival by the Maggini Quartet;Others1798 - In the nation's capital of Philadelphia, President John Adams signed an Act of Congress establishing the United States Marine Band (The original "32 drummers and fifers" assisted in recruiting and entertained residents)1885 - First concert of the Boston "Promenade" Orchestra (later dubbed the Boston "Pops") at the old Music Hall in Boston; Adolf Neuendorff conducts;1922 - Opening concert of the Hollywood Bowl, with German conductor Alfred Hertz at the podium1940 - Leonard Bernstein's first appearance as conductor of a professional orchestra, leading a performance of Wagner's Act I Prelude to "Die Meistersinger" with the Boston Pops at an open-air Esplanade Concert1998 - "The President's Own" U.S. Marine Band, America's oldest professional musical organization, marks its 200th anniversary Links and Resources On composer Edward MacDowell On the MacDowell Colony

The Liberty Theater in La Grande, Oregon will be receiving a grant for almost $600,000 from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration. In July 1999, the theater was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Almost a decade later, restoration efforts began. Ashley O'Toole is the Board Chair of the Liberty Theater Foundation, the organization that is spearheading restoration efforts. He joins us to share what this federal grant will mean for the theater and his hopes for the future.

Queens of the Mines paperback, ebook, and hardback novel now available on Amazon.    In this episode, we dive into the life of Isadora Duncan.   In How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, the film from 2003, Kate Hudson's character Andy dons a yellow diamond necklace in one scene that they call the “Isadora Diamond”. That $6 million 80-carat yellow diamond in the necklace was designed by Harry Winston and is named after Isadora Duncan. whose philosophy earned her the title of “the creator of modern dance”.   Angela Isadora Duncan, was born in San Francisco on May 26, 1877. The youngest of the four children of banker, mining engineer and connoisseur of the arts, Joseph Charles Duncan and Mary Isadora Gray. Soon after her birth, Joseph was caught embezzling from the two banks that he was hired to set up. He used the money to fund his private stock speculations. Joseph was lucky to avoid prison time. Her mother Mary left Joseph and moved the children to Oakland to find work as a seamstress and piano teacher. The family lived in extremely poor conditions in Oakland and Angela Isadora attended school until she was ten years old. School was too constricting for her and she decided to drop out. To make money for the family, Angela Isadora joined her three older siblings and began teaching dance to local children. She was not a classically trained dancer or ballerina. Her unique, novel approach to dance showed joy, sadness and fantasy, rediscovering the beautiful, rhythmical motions of the human body. Joseph remarried and started a new family, they all perished aboard the British passenger steamer SS Mohegan, which ran aground off the coast of the Lizard Peninsula of Cornwall England on the 14th of October in 1898. Only 91 out of 197 on board survived.  Eventually, Angela Isadora went east to audition for the theater. In Chicago, she auditioned for Augustin Daly, who was one of the most influential men in American theater during his lifetime. She secured a spot in his company, which took her to New York City. In New York, she took classes with American Ballet dancer Marie Bonfanti. The style clashed with her unique vision of dance. Her earliest public appearances back east met with little success. Angela Isadora was not interested in ballet, or the popular pantomimes of the time; she soon became cynical of the dance scene. She was 21 years old, unhappy and unappreciated in New York, Angela Isadora boarded a cattle boat for London in 1898. She sought recognition in a new environment with less of a hierarchy. When she arrived, ballet was at one of its lowest ebbs and tightrope walkers and contortionists were dominating their shared music hall stages. Duncan found inspiration in Greek art, statues and architecture. She favored dancing barefoot with her hair loose and wore flowing toga wrapped scarves while dancing, allowing her freedom of movement. The attire was in contrast to the corsets, short tutus and stiff pointe shoes her audience was used to. Under the name Isadora Duncan, she gave recitals in the homes of the elite. The pay from these productions helped Isadora rent a dance studio, where she choreographed a larger stage performance that she would soon take to delight the people of France.  Duncan met Desti in Paris and they became best friends. Desti would accompany Isadora as she found inspiration from the Louvre and the 1900 Paris Exposition where Loie Fuller, an American actress and dancer was the star attraction. Fuller was the first to use theatrical lighting technique with dance, manipulating gigantic veils of silk into fluid patterns enhanced by changing coloured lights.  In 1902, Duncan teamed up with Fuller to tour Europe. On tour, Duncan became famous for her distinctive style. She danced to Gluck, Wagner and Bach and even Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Female audiences adored her despite the mixed reaction from the critics. She inspired the phenomenon of young women dancing barefoot, scantily clad as woodland nymphs who crowded theaters and concert halls throughout Europe. Contracts and the commercialization of the art while touring distracted Isadora from her goal, educating the young on her philosophy of dance. "Let us first teach little children to breathe, to vibrate, to feel, and to become one with the general harmony and movement. Let us first produce a beautiful human being. let them come forth with great strides, leaps and bounds, with lifted forehead and far-spread arms, to dance.” In 1904, she moved to Berlin to open the Isadora Duncan School of Dance. The school had around 20 students who mostly had mothers who were the primary breadwinners, and the fathers were either ill or absent. The school provided room and board for the students. For three years, her sister, Elizabeth Duncan was the main instructor, while Isadora was away, funding the school from tour. Elizabeth was not free spirited like her sister and taught in a strict manner. During the third year, Duncan had a child with theater designer Gordon Craig. Deirdre Beatrice, born September 24, 1906. At the school, Duncan created a new troupe of six young girls. Anna, Maria, Irma, Elizabeth, Margot, and Erica. The group was called the "Isadorables", a nickname given to them by the French poet Fernand Divoire. At the start of World War I, the Isadorables were sent to New York with the rest of the new students from Bellevue.  Occultist Aleister Crowley founded the religion of Thelema. He identified himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into the Æon of Horus in the early 20th century. Isadora and her bohemian companion Desti fell into his circle after meeting him at a party. Crowley fell in love with Desti and she became a member of Crowley's occult order.  Crowley published widely over the course of his life and wrote that Duncan "has this gift of gesture to a very high degree. Let the reader study her dancing, if possible in private than in public, and learn the superb 'unconsciousness' — which is magical consciousness — with which she suits the action to the melody." Duncan had a love affair with Paris Singer, one of the many sons of sewing machine magnate Isaac Singer. The fling resulted in a son, Patrick Augustus, born May 1, 1910. A year later, Isadora was dancing on tables until dawn at the Pavillon du Butard hunting lodge mansion in the gardens of Versailles. Paul Poiret, the French fashion designer and founder of the haute couture house, known to throw lavish parties, was recreating the roman festival Bacchanalia hosted by Louis XIV at Versailles. On the table in a Poiret Greek evening gown, Duncan tried to not knock over the 900 bottles of champagne that were consumed by the 300 guests. The following year Isadora acquired the Hôtel Paillard in Paris,  which she turned into her new temple of dance called Dionysion. Dionysion was the name of a poem  that Crowley  had published.   Which   maakes m e  curious  how far into Crowleys cult did Isaadora dive? On a rainy afternoon Annie Sims, Isadora's nanny, loaded the children into the car for a drive to meet Isadora in Versailles. Morverand, the chauffeur, had only just pulled onto the road, when a taxi-cab bolted towards the car. Morverand jammed on his brakes, causing the engine to also stop. He got out of the car to check the engine, and turned the starting lever and the car bounded forward towards the river, down the river bank and plunged down 30 feet into the Seine. Morverand was left standing on the street. In the downpour of rain, few were out and about. The only witness, a young woman who watched the car exit the gate then crash, ran back to Duncan's house. Augustine, Isadora's brother, was the  only one home. Augustine ran to the scene, seized Morverand by the throat and knocked him down on the bank. A crowd of boatmen stopped the fight and began looking for the sunken car. The search lasted an hour and a half. A motor boat that was dragging the river discovered the car, which was hauled to the surface, where the bodies of the nanny and Isadora's two small children were found inside. Two doctors made efforts to save them but there was no luck. Morverand gave himself up at the police commissary. He explained that he did not understand how the accident happened. All of Paris was sympathetic.  Isadora went through a depression while mourning her children, and spent several months on the Greek island of Corfu with her brother and sister. She then went for a stay at the Viareggio Seaside Resort in Italy, where she met the beautiful and rebellious actress Eleonora Duse. Duse wore men's clothing and was one of the first women in Italy to openly declare her queerness.  The two had a romantic fling in Italy yet Duncan was desperate for another child. She became pregnant  after begging the young sculptor Romano Romanelli, basically an Italian stranger to sleep with her. She gave birth to a son on August 13, 1914 but he died a few hours after birth. She immediately returned  to the States. Three months later Duncan was living in a townhouse in Gramercy Park in New York City. Dionysion was moved to Manhattan in a studio at 311 Fourth Avenue on the northeast corner of 23rd Street and Fourth Avenue. The area is now considered Park Avenue South. One month later, The Isadorables made their American debut on December 7, 1914 at Carnegie Hall with the New York Symphony.  Mabel Dodge, who owned an avant garde salon at 23 Fifth Avenue, the point of rendezvous for the whole of New York's of the time, described The Isadorables: "They were lovely, with bodies like cream and rose, and faces unreal with beauty whose eyes were like blind statues, as though they had never looked upon anything in any way sordid or ordinary". Duncan used the ultra modern Century Theater at West 60th Street and Central Park West for her performances and productions. The keys were gifted to Duncan by Otto Kahn, sometimes referred to as the "King of New York". Kahn was a German-born American, a well known investment banker, appearing on the cover of Time Magazine. He reorganized and consolidated railroads, was a philanthropist, a patron of the arts and served as the chairman of the Metropolitan Opera. Isadora, somehow, was evicted from the Century by the New York City Fire Department after one month. Duncan felt defeated and decided to once again leave the States to return to Europe to set up school in Switzerland. She planned to board the RMS Lusitania, but her financial situation at the time drove her to choose a more modest crossing. The Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat 11 miles off the southern coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 passengers and crew.   During her voyage to Europe, Isadora discovered that their manager had arranged for a tour for the Isadorables without her. She was so upset that she stopped speaking to her students, despite the man's actions being completely out of their control. After struggling to keep afloat there, the school was dispelled and the younger students sent home to their families. The girls eventually made up with Duncan and in 1917 Isadora adopted all six Isadorables. Yet troubles ensued. The Isadorables were living in Long Island and Isadora urged them to leave New York. Each girl, except for Gretel, had fallen in love and did not wish to go. When Isadora found out her brother Augustine assisted the group in a performance at the Liberty Theater, she forbade them from continuing, producing a legal contract which prevented them from separating from her. They had no choice but to cancel their time at the Liberty. The girls eventually left Duncan a few years later but stayed together as a group for some time. While Duncan ran another school in Paris that was shortly closed due to World War I, the girls entertained troops in the US.  Isadora Duncan went against traditional cultural standards. Her scandalous love life as bisexual made her a controversial figure on the front pages of the papers. She was a feminist, a Darwinist, a Communist and an atheist. Her leftist sympathies took her to the Soviet Union at the end of the Russian Revolution. To her, it seemed to be the land of promise. Duncan opened a school in Moscow and Irma, one of the Isadorables, took the teaching position at the school while Isadora toured and performed. She met the poet Sergey Aleksandrovich Yesenin, eighteen years her junior in Russia and they were married in May of 1922, even though matrimony was against her beliefs. Together, they left for a US tour. Fear of the “Red Menace” was at its height in North America, and the couple was unjustly labeled as Bolshevik agents.  On tour in Boston, she waved a red scarf and bared her breast on stage in Boston, proclaiming, "This is red! So am I!" For this, her American citizenship was revoked. As she left the country, Duncan bitterly told reporters: “Good-bye America, I shall never see you again!” Yesenin's increasing mental instability turned him against her and they were ultimately unhappy. He returned alone to the Soviet Union after the tour and committed suicide. Her spotlight was dimming, her fame dwindled. For a number of years she lived out public dramas of failed relationships, financial woes, and drunkenness on the Mediterranean and in Paris, running up debts at hotels. Her financial burdens were carried by a decreasing number of friends and supporters who encouraged her to write her autobiography. They believed the books success could support her extravagant waywardness. On September 14, 1927 in Nice, France Duncan was asked to go on a drive with the handsome French-Italian mechanic Benoît Falchetto in a sporting car made by the French Amilcar company. Desti sat with Isadora as she dressed for the occasion. Duncan put on a long, flowing, hand-painted silk scarf created by the Russian-born artist Roman Chatov. Desti asked her to instead wear a cape in the open-air vehicle because of the cold weather, but Isadora paid no mind. A cool breeze blew from the Riviera as the women met Falchetto at the Amilcar. The engine made a rumble as Falchetto put on his driving-goggles. Isadora threw the enormous scarf around her neck and hopped in. She turned to look at Desti and said "Adieu, mes amis. "Je vais à l'amour", "I am off to love'. They sped off and Isadora leaned back in her seat to enjoy the sea breeze. The wind caught her enormous scarf that, tragically, blew into the well of the rear wheel on the passenger side, wrapping around the open-spoked wheel and rear axle. Isadora was hurled from the open car in an extraordinary manner, breaking her neck and nearly decapitating her. Instantly killing her.  At the time of her death, Duncan was a Soviet citizen. Her will was the first Soviet citizen to undergo probate in the United States.  In medicine, the Isadora Duncan Syndrome refers to injury or death consequent to entanglement of neckwear with a wheel or other machinery. The accident gave rise to Gertrude Stein's mordant remark that “affectations can be dangerous.” Duncan was known as "The Mother of Dance" was cremated, and her ashes were placed in the columbarium at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. On the headstone of her grave is inscribed École du Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris ("Ballet School of the Opera of Paris"). Duncan's autobiography My Life was published in 1927. The Australian composer Percy Grainger called it a "life-enriching masterpiece."  A plaque commemorating Isadora Duncan's place of birth is at 501 Taylor Street on Lower Nob Hill, fittingly near the Theater District in San Francisco. San Francisco renamed an alley on the same block from Adelaide Place to Isadora Duncan Lane. 

Donna Quinn talks with guest from Astoria’s Liberty Theater about the venue’s plans and projects in the new year. Guest are Executive Director Jennifer Crockett, and Board Members Diane Tiedeman and Dulcye Taylor.

352. Part 1 of our interview with Bruce A. Craft (English, Foreign Languages, and Cultural Studies). “Redbone Rhetoric—Then and Now: An Exploration of the Literary and Historical Narrative of the Louisiana Redbones.” Bruce explores the history and culture of this tri-racial group living in western Louisiana.This week in Louisiana history. February 15 1956 Fed. Judge S. Wright orders desegregation of N.O. schools with "all deliberate speed." This week in New Orleans history. Patent #2,341,866 was awarded to Andrew J. Higgins on February 15, 1944. Higgin's boats, built by New Orleanians and used during World War II, and particularly in the D-Day Invasion of Normandy, prompted Dwight D. Eisenhower to say, "Andrew Higgins...is the man who won the war for us...If Higgins had not designed and built those LCVPs, we never could have landed over an open beach. The whole strategy of the war would have been different." Hitler called Higgins "the "New Noah".  Cajun Country Courir de Mardi Gras February 21-25, 2020 Various Locations in Eunice, LADowntown Eunice, 300 S. Second St., Eunice, LA 70535 337-457-7389 Website      This unique five day celebration is not your typical idea of Mardi Gras with beads and doubloons. In fact you won't find these trinkets in sight, but instead, men and women on horseback donned in hand crafted wire masks, tall hats called capuchons, and very distinctive costumes. This one of a kind celebration begins the Friday before Mardi Gras Day, but the main event is the Courir de Mardi Gras procession or "chicken run" which involves chasing a live chicken to collect for a community gumbo, and silliness by revelers all day. Don't wait till Fat Tuesday to join in the fun. Throughout the weeked, experience the town's rural traditions with jam sessions, street dances, cooking demos, Mardi Gras exhibits and a special Liberty Theater show. Les Jeunes and L'il Mardi Gras runs for children are on Sunday as well as an old time boucherie (hog butchering).     The Eunice Courir de Mardi Gras dates back from when the town was first established in the late 19th century. The Courir was abandoned for a few years during World War II, but in 1946 a small band of riders revived the tradition. Today, the Eunice Courir de Mardi Gras has more than 2,000 participants on the run, and it continues to increase each year.  Postcards from Louisiana. Craig plays on St. Peter St. Listen on iTunesListen on StitcherListen on Google Play.Listen on Spotify.Listen on TuneIn.The Louisiana Anthology Home Page.Like us on Facebook.

Kelley Astoria intro We’re still in Portland but we’re going to talk about a special holiday show in Astoria with singer/composer Kelley Shannon who has done a lot of travelling since she moved away a few years ago. But she’s right here with me in the Cupping Room at World Cup Coffee and Tea at NW 18th & Gilsan along with a lovely little two-year-old named Violet. Her holiday show in Astoria at the Liberty Theater, The Astoria Christmas Fantastic on Saturday, December 22 features her, of course, plus Gordon Lee, Dave Captein, and Todd Bishop along with the North Coast Chorale…and she’ll tell us all about it. There are very few individuals quite like Kelley Shannon and you’re about to find out why. Here we go.

For as long as human beings have been on earth, we ve been on the move. If you re a Creationist, Adam and Eve were the first travelers when God told them to pack up their fig leaves and get out of The Garden of Eden. If you re an Evolutionist, geological finds support the theory that early humans wandered far and wide across the continents in search of food. Today, millions of us are on the move. Either for absolutely no reason other than our own amusement, or a desire to hang out with other people who have the same occupation as us. Amusing ourselves through travel or meeting up for business is a multi billion dollar industry. Here in Acadiana, the person charged with making sure we get our share of those billions is Ben Berthelot. Since 2012 Ben has been the President and CEO of the Lafayette Visitors and Convention Commission. If you re a tourist in Acadiana, unless you re coming for a music festival, you re probably not visiting for any specific reason. We don t have a spectacular national park like The Grand Canyon, or a man made attraction, like Disney World. If you re a tourist here you re probably coming to experience the food, music, and ambience or what we call "daily life." One of the daily life attractions in Acadiana are our quaint small towns and the culture within them. Like Eunice and it s famous Liberty Theater. The person responsible for both the theater and the town is the Mayor of Eunice, Scott Fontenot. Ben and Scott s decisions and actions over the next few years are going to affect almost all of us in Lafayette and Eunice. This conversation is an insight into what they re thinking and planning. Photos at Cafe Vermilionville by Lucius Fontenot. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Not matter how much of a music geek you may be, globalFEST is a music festival of discovery for everyone. Now in its 15th year, it's a celebration of music from around the world.This year's festival featured extraordinary Congolese music from Jupiter & Okwess, Brazilian avant-pop from Ava Rocha, a twist on traditional Irish music from Jarlath Henderson, modern Iranian songs and poetry from Mohsen Namjoo, and so much more.The gathering happens in just one evening. This year, a dozen bands performed on three stages in midtown Manhattan at B.B. King Blues Club, its smaller sister-venue in the same building called Lucille's and at the Liberty Theater directly across 42nd Street.All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen was there at globalFEST this past Sunday, along with around 1,500 people, including NPR Music's Anastasia Tsioulcas, Afropop Worldwide's Banning Eyre and WFMU's Rob Weisburg, home of his show "Transpacific Sound Paradise." On this edition of All Songs Considered, they share our favorite discoveries from globalFEST 2018.

A New Collaboration for The Decemberists: Offa RexThe Decemberists may have finally met their match. The band has been collaborating with British singer Olivia Chaney to reinterpret tradition Scottish, Irish and English songs under the name Offa Rex — a reference to an Anglo-Saxon king. The resulting album, “The Queen of Hearts," comes out July 14 and is produced by local whiz Tucker Martine, and you can see Off Rex perform live July 23 at the Aladdin Theater.Kinetic Sculpture Racers Pedal On at Revamped DaVinci Days in Corvallis - 11:37This weekend, Corvallis celebrates the return Da Vinci Days: the festival where art and science mix. It started 29 years ago in the spirit of Leonardo DaVinci — a man as much about math as Mona Lisa. Da Vinci Days includes a full-three day schedule this year filled with live music, lectures, poetry readings, and a competition that may best embody the ingenuity and play at the festival’s heart: the Grand Kinetic Challenge, a race over land and water in handmade vehicles. Gallery 114’s Exhibition, “Human Being,” Centers Work by Incarcerated Artists - 22:04“Human Being,” the art show on view at Gallery 114 in NW Portland, features paintings and drawings and mixed media works by men who are serving life sentences in prison. David Slader, a former attorney who has devoted his retirement years to painting, invited three guest artists, Jerome Sloan, David Drenth, and B. Pat, to show artwork created in their Oregon prison cells alongside his own work.Boone Howard, PNW Rocker and Sound Engineer, Releases Solo Debut - 27:44An accomplished musician and former front man of Portland rock band The We Shared Milk, Boone Howard is also a sought-after live sound engineer. Now’s your chance to check out both his music and sound engineering chops on his solo debut record, “The Other Side of Town.” You can find videos of Howard's opbmusic performance here.Bend Arts Center Opens in a Changing Central Oregon Arts Landscape - 33:20Atelier 6000, a studio dedicated to printmaking and book arts, re-opened this month with a new name signifying a much broader mission: the Bend Art Center. The Center will offer expanded class offerings and a broader range of art exhibitions, but the name change is also a signpost for the restless conversation in Central Oregon art circles about who speaks for art, and what needs to be said. We check in with the folks at the new Bend Arts Center, plus local artists and art advocacy leaders, about possibilities and limitations for art in the region. U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith - 40:01In June, Tracy K. Smith was named 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States. This is just the latest add to an impressive string of titles: in 2012, Smith won a Pulitzer for her poetry collection Life on Mars, she runs the creative writing program at Princeton University, and, this year, published a new memoir. Arts Funding at the Capitol - 45:23 The legislative session just wrapped up, and we kept up on bills and funding packages so you don’t have to. One success for arts advocates: six million dollars in lottery bond money for Main Street Preservation grants. We check in with folks at the Liberty Theater in LaGrande, which will benefit from the bill. Plus, more on legislation that mandates a consideration of regional differences when state arts grants are awarded, and a look at the Oregon Arts Commission, which is facing a 16 percent budget cut.

Confluence Story Gatherings are live story-driven conversations designed to elevate indigenous voices in our understanding of the Columbia River system. This discussion is framed by audio excerpts from interviews we conducted with tribal elders and leaders with our partners at NW Documentary. This public event was recorded on February 18, 2017 in the Liberty Theater in Astoria, Oregon. Thanks to the Oregon Community Foundation, Oregon Cultural Trust, Paul B. and Deborah D. Speer, Steve and Jan Oliva and Brot and Mary Bishop.

Over the past decade, Astoria quietly became a hotbed for creatives looking for inspiration, community, space, and affordability. Now that economic times are on the rebound, how can Astoria keep its lifestyle affordable?This show was recorded before a live audience at the glorious Liberty Theater, home to the Astoria Music Festival and seasonal programming of all kinds.1:29 - We start out the show with one of Astoria's most vocal recent converts, writer Matt Love. He recently penned a self-declared love letter, "A Nice Piece of Astoria: A Narrative Guide."7:12 - Astoria Music Festival's artistic director Keith Clark and chamber music director Cary Lewis tell us about the history of festival, before being joined by Oregon Symphony concertmaster Sarah Kwak and Russian cellist Sergey Antonov for performances of Brahms Sonata for Piano and Violin, No. 2 in A major and Scriabin's romance for Horn & Piano. 28:16 - We sit down with Fort George Brewery co-founder Jack Harris, Clatsop County Commissioner Sarah Nebeker, and visual artist Darren Orange to talk about what what makes Astoria such an inspirational place for visual art, music, and the written word, and what might keep it that way in years to come.36:56 - After recording their first EP in an old cannery building in Astoria (and drawing their name from the Pilot boats that help guide freighters down the Columbia), Israel Nebeker and Ryan Dobrowski gained national attention with their band Blind Pilot. They were living in Portland at the time, but they've since moved to the Astoria area. They share the reasons for their move, as well as play a couple songs, including a new one, "And Then Like Lions."