March 18, 2003 - A performance Friday in St. Cloud brings together a Korean folksinger, a Cuban drummer, and a quartet performing beat poetry. "Earth Springs" is the latest in a series of world music showcases in the city. The music the events bring to St. Cloud is far from typical -- and so is the 10-year-old boy who puts them together. Vaji Tomas VA-gee toe-MAHS is slightly more driven than your typical fifth grader. Mainstreet Radio's Jeff Horwich talked with him about his latest concert.
March 25, 2003 - The war with Iraq could threaten some of humanity's oldest artifacts and archaeological sites. The region includes the ancient land of Mesopotamia -- the birthplace of writing, the wheel, the plow, and the first code of law. Eva Von Dassow A-vuh vaughn-DASS-oh is a professor of ancient Near Eastern history at the University of Minnesota. She says that if the 1991 Gulf War is any indication, the area's cultural history may be threatened as much by looters as it is by bombs.
March 27, 2003 - As we try to understand what's happening in Iraq right now, one Minnesotan watches and listens with a unique perspective. John Hartnett is a veteran of the first Gulf War. He was a Military Police Platoon Commander with the Marines. His job was to round up prisoners on the battlefield and take them to POW compounds in Saudi Arabia. John Hartnett has written a book about his experiences. He says the job was sometimes very stressful.
March 28, 2003 - MPR’s Marianne Combs reports on Chamber Music Society of Minnesota’s presentation of the Midwest premiere of Aleksander Kulisiewicz’s "Camp Songs" - 5 poems from the holocaust set to music.
April 2, 2003 - MPR’s Dan Olson profiles Vern Sutton, a living Minnesota opera legend, who is retiring. Sutton is ending 36 years as a faculty member at the University of Minnesota School of Music. However, Sutton is not leaving the stage. As he explained to Olson, Sutton loves to perform.
April 3, 2003 - All Things Considered’s Lorna Benson talks with folk musician John McCutcheon about his music career, travels, and musical education. McCutcheon says he first considered becoming a professional musician on a trip he took to Appalachia, while he was a student at St. John's University in Collegeville.
April 4, 2003 - There are more than 200 community theatres in Minnesota. The amateur companies are a place where people can express themselves artistically. For many small towns it's the only local live theatre available. But with a sour economy and budget cuts looming, community theatres are braced for cutbacks. Mainstreet Radios Bob Reha reports. <
April 8, 2003 - Mainstreet Radio's Erin Galbally profiles Somali singer Hibo Mohamed Nuur. The Somali superstar is unrecognized by most people in her new home in Rochester. For decades, Nuur's legendary voice drew thousands to concerts from Mogadishu to Toronto. Fans still call her the “James Brown” of Somali music. Nuur is hopeful she'll sing again in Somalia.
April 11, 2003 - Northfield native Siri Hustvedt says her new book called "What I loved," began with a single image. An naked, obese woman's corpse lying on a bed. The image doesn't appear in the novel. But Hustvedt says it launched the process of writing and re-writing which lasted several years. The image morphed into a series of portraits by an artist. One of them attracts the attention of an art historian. These two are the book's central characters. The men become friends, and the novel follows their lives. We learn how their families are changed by their loves and losses over a period of thirty years. Siri Hustvedt told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr it took a great deal of work to achieve the effect.
April 11, 2003 - On this Word of Mouth program, MPR’s Chris Roberts looks at the Penumbra production of August Wilson’s “Seven Guitars,” Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis hosting the fifth annual American pottery festival, a play adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’s “Main Street” novel, and “Dancing with Shadows” performance art.