Art Works Podcast

Jenny Mendez, director of the Mattie Rhodes Art & Cultural Center in Kansas City, Missouri, discusses the center’s work in arts education and community programming. The Mattie Rhodes Center has been a force on the west side of Kansas City for over 125 years.  Believing that the arts are a basic and integral part of every person’s education and growth, Mattie Rhodes opened its art center 50 plus years ago. In fact, Jenny Mendez first began going there as a child. In this podcast, Mendez discusses the art programs for children, preparation for back-to-school, their role in the school district, and the  center’s broader community programs, like the month long celebration of Dia de los Muertos. Mendez also discusses Mattie Rhodes’ holistic approach to its programming and services and the ways all the programs—art programs, emergency services, family services, and community support—work together and  intersect with one another to address family and community needs.

Jacob Ming-Trent has been moving from strength to theatrical strength. He played Falstaff to rave reviews in the Public Theater’s 2021 production of “Merry Wives” the play that re-opened theater in New York City after the pandemic shutdown and was set in the African immigrant community of Washington Heights.  Right now, Ming-Trent is starring as Bottom in the Folger Theater’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” which is being performed in the great hall of the National Building Museum. This play has also been recalibrated: it very much highlights Bottom and the play within the play that workers are creating to honor the Duke’s wedding.  While there are still the wayward lovers and the fairy Queen Titania with her husband Oberon and the mischievous Puck, its center is Jacob Ming-Trent’s wonderfully playful and textured performance as the weaver and would-be actor Bottom. In this podcast Ming-Trent talks about theater and live performance, why he returns to Shakespeare continually, the barriers he has faced in theater, why he had left the stage, and why he has returned. Follow Jacob Ming-Trent on Instagram or Twitter  

Almeta Ingram-Miller is the leader of the powerhouse gospel group and 2022 National Heritage Fellows the Legendary Ingramettes. The Legendary Ingramettes are a case in point. In this musical podcast, Ingram-Miller, a born storyteller, talks about the group’s six-decade-long journey and the vison and legacy of her mother Maggie Ingram, who began the group when she was left with five children to raise on her own. Her goal was to keep her family together. So, she taught them to sing gospel, and Maggie Ingram and the Ingramettes were born—singing in churches in South Florida until the family moved to Richmond, Virginia in 1961. Ingram-Miller talks about living and traveling in the Deep South during that time, the way gospel music reflects the struggles and the joys of the Black community, how the Ingramettes began performing at folk festivals that expanded their audiences, and the group’s work with correctional facilities. She also discusses the matriarch of the group, Maggie Ingram, and how her songwriting reflected her experiences, Maggie’s passing that led to Almeta taking on the leadership of the group and making the recording Take a Look in the Book, and the legacy of service begun by Maggie that remains at the heart of the Legendary Ingramettes. Other links: National Heritage Fellows National Council of the Traditional Arts Virginia Folklife Program Center for Cultural Vibrancy Richmond Folk Festival

In today’s podcast, Sarah Smarsh discusses her book Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth which is a 2018 National Book Award finalist and a 2022-2023 NEA Big Read title. Smarsh discusses her family background in rural Kansas, intergenerational poverty, and the difficulty of recognizing the impact of class in America. We also talk about her decision to tell the story of her family against a broader background of systemic inequality and of public policies that impact and shape the lives of rural working poor. In this conversation, as in the book, Smarsh combines sharp socioeconomic insights with the deep psychological understanding that comes from a lived experience in poverty.  

We’re celebrating the announcement of the 2023 NEA Jazz Masters by revisiting my interview with 2021 NEA Jazz Master and 2016 Pulitzer-Prize winner Henry Threadgill. Threadgill  remains one of music’s great innovators—as a composer and as a musician. In this podcast, Threadgill reflects on the vast musical legacy he found in his hometown of Chicago and the early influence of Muhal Richard Abrams and The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.  He looks back at his ensembles and the various musical languages he’s expressed with each as well as his overall philosophy of composing and making music—explaining why he believes the true test of music is in the live performance.  Henry Threadgill is not just a musical seeker, he’s also a deeply thoughtful and very funny storyteller.  Follow us on Apple Podcasts!

The 2022 National Heritage Fellows have been recently named and we’re celebrating that and kicking off our “Artful Lives” series by revisiting my interview with songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Louie Pérez whose music with Los Lobos has deep roots in his neighborhood of East LA. The interview is a wonderful snapshot of Los Lobos’ fifty year journey as well as the beauty and strength of culture grown in community, a core principle of the concept of Artful Lives and of the National Heritage Award*.*  Louie Pérez is a great story-teller and in this podcast he discusses the creation of Los Lobos, the band’s love for and admiration of traditional Mexican music, their half- century commitment to bring that music and culture to the world, the extraordinary journey of “La Bamba,” the influence of East Los Angeles on the music, and the brotherhood the band shares. The 2022 National Heritage Fellows are: Michael Cleveland, Bluegrass Fiddler from Charlestown, Indiana Eva Enciñias, Flamenco Artist, Albuquerque, New Mexico Excelsior Band, Brass Band Musicians, Mobile, Alabama Stanley Jacobs, Quelbe Flutist and Bandleader, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands The Legendary Ingramettes, Gospel Musicians, Richmond, Virginia TahNibaa Naataanii, Navajo/Diné Textile Artist and Weaver from Shiprock, New Mexico Francis “Palani” Sinenci, Hawaiian Hale Builder, Hana, Hawaiʻi Tsering Wangmo Satho, Tibetan Opera Singer and Dancer, Richmond, California C. Brian Williams, Step Artist and Producer, Washington, District of Columbia Shaka Zulu, Black Masking Craftsman, Stilt Dancer, and Musician, New Orleans, Louisiana

Chief Artistic Officer of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) Shanta Thake talks about programming at the intersection of art that speaks to the needs of New York City at this pivotal moment, including bringing blood drives, food donations and health and wellness programs to the Lincoln Center’s campus—with live musical accompaniment. She also discusses the Summer for the City festival with its 300 plus free  or “pay what you will” ticketed events from a Second Line to Mozart’s Requiem, from social dancing to an orchestral tribute to Biggie Smalls. We also talk about the complex scope of her job, expanding on Lincoln Center’s commitment to diversity and innovation as central to all decisions, and her centering the artists themselves in conversations about ways  for LCPA to move forward. Finally, we discuss the continuing influence of her two decades at The Public Theater with its determination to create theater with staff, actors, and audience as diverse as the people who ride New York’s subways.

Dr. Lisa Donovan discusses her work at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) to increase access to arts education equitably in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Donovan talks about the success of the collective impact approach-- working across sectors to create lasting change--, the support of the  Arts Endowment through its Collective Impact Grant Program, the unique assets of Berkshire County, the challenges it shares with other rural areas, and the networks and programs created to meet those challenges and make the arts and arts education easily accessible to all its students across the region. Links to programs and topics discussed in the podcast: MCLA Institute for the Arts and Humanities Berkshire Regional Arts Integration Network Integrating the Arts Across the Curriculum The C4 Initiative Thinking Like a Region

  Saheem Ali is Associate Artistic Director of The Public Theater as well as the director of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Fat Ham.”  In this podcast, Ali talks about working with Fat Ham playwright James Ijames, his ongoing work with plays that contemporize and expand Shakespeare (like Fat Ham which sets Hamlet in a Black Southern backyard barbeque with a Queer Hamlet figure at its center or Merry Wives which sets Shakespeare’s play in Washington Heights in the midst of a community of West African immigrants). Ali also discusses his role as Associate Artistic Director of The Public, the mission of the theater—particularly of its Free Shakespeare in the Park Program--, The Public’s continuing work in interrogating power structures in theater, and its commitment to ensuring diverse voices in leadership, staff, performers, and audience.

We’re celebrating Black Music Appreciation Month by revisiting my 2021 interview with MacArthur Fellow and artistic director of Silkroad Rhiannon Giddens.  A classically-trained singer,  banjo and fiddle-player, and composer, Rhiannon excavates the past to bring forgotten stories and music, particularly of African-Americans, into the present.  Giddens is a co-founder of the Grammy Award winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, which insisted reclaiming for Black musicians  a central and historically-accurate place in old-time music. She then went on to create solo albums of haunting beauty and power born of African-American struggles past and present. Giddens is, first and foremost, an artist determined to be of service which drives her commitment to unearth musical roots and put that knowledge of different musical traditions to good use.  In this podcast, Rhiannon talks about uncovering the Black roots in old-time music, the importance of National Heritage Fellow fiddler Joe Thompson to her musical lineage, the path to creating her opera Omar, the centrality of history on the margins to her music, and her plans to have Silkroad explore the multiplicity of musical worlds within the US.  Keywords: Rhiannon Giddens, Silkroad, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Joe Thompson, Omar