Collection
Minnesota Sounds and Voices
Dan Olson's Minnesota Sounds and Voices series profiles individual unique stories, and shares tales from our state. Created in 2011, Olson provides an intimate and personal glimpse into fascinating Minnesota lives and experiences.
12 Collection Items
- Minnesota Sounds and Voices: Clyde Bellecourt
On this episode of Minnesota Sounds and Voices, MPR’s Dan Olson profiles Native American activist and White Earth band member Clyde Bellecourt.
- Minnesota Sounds and Voices: Managing a herd - Bison could help restore Minnesota prairie
On this episode of MPR’s Minnesota Sound and Voices, Dan Olson profiles the wildlife management of bison in Blue Mounds State Park and raising them for meat on a nearby ranch.
- Minnesota Sounds and Voices: From chaos to college - Scholarships honor family's journey
On this episode of Minnesota Sounds and Voices, MPR’s Dan Olson talks with Chue Vang about his family’s experience fleeing Laos and coming to the U.S. as refugees. Today, he aims to honor the opportunities found in his adopted home and a late brother with a new scholarship for Hmong students.
- Minnesota Sound and Voices: Orkestar Bez Ime write, play their own brand of Balkan folk
On this episode of Minnesota Sounds and Voices, MPR’s Dan Olson profiles Orkestar Bez Ime, an Eastern European music group, which has become known as a Balkan party band. Olson interviews members of the band about the complicated music form.
- Minnesota Sounds and Voices: For Hmong American women, flag football breaks barriers
On this episode of Minnesota Sounds and Voices, MPR’s Dan Olson profiles several women's Hmong American flag football teams as they prepare to compete at this year's Hmong Freedom Celebration. Playing the game was a formidable cultural hurdle the young Hmong American women had to overcome, as families place a high value on women as wives, rather than competitors.
- Minnesota Sounds and Voices: Dulcimer virtuoso Karen Mueller tunes up for a classical excursion
On this episode of Minnesota Sounds and Voices, MPR’s Dan Olson profiles dulcimer player Karen Mueller. Mueller is one of the country's top dulcimer and autoharp players, classically trained, steeped in Appalachian, Celtic and folk music. The Minneapolis musician is trying something new: performing a rarely heard classical work with a chamber group.
- Minnesota Sounds and Voices: Music from the Islands comes to Minnesota
On this episode of Minnesota Sounds and Voices, MPR’s Dan Olson profiles Kim Sueka and David Burk, two members of St. Paul Rose Ensemble. The two that have created the Lau Hawaiian Collective, a group that brings the islands' music to Minnesota audiences.
- Minnesota Sounds and Voices: Salah Fattah and the Egyptian music of Amwaaj
On this episode of Minnesota Sounds and Voices, MPR’s Dan Olson talks with Minneapolis resident Salah Fattah on how he stays connected to his Arabic culture. Fattah is founder of the 10-year-old Arabic classical music ensemble Amwaaj, which in English means "wave," as in waves of the sea.
- Minnesota Sounds and Voices: Macalester bagpipe director Mike Breidenbach gives a tour of instrument
On this episode of Minnesota Sounds and Voices, MPR’s Dan Olson explores the sounds of bagpiping with Mike Breidenbach, leader of the Macalester College Pipe Band. Olson also interviews members of pipe band.
- Minnesota Sounds and Voices: Jane Belau's piano soothes Mayo patients
On this episode of Minnesota Sounds and Voices, MPR’s Dan Olson presents report on Jane Belau, who has volunteered for ten years playing piano in the Mayo Clinic's Gonda Building lobby. Many at the hospital find the music therapeutic.