WHYY’s arts and culture reporter Peter Crimmins first became interested in radio in the fourth grade, when he smuggled a contraband crystal-diode radio into the Boy Scout summer camp. Subsequent radio projects were more successful.
Crimmins has been reporting on arts and culture for WHYY News since 2010, as well as filing award-winning radio and print stories locally and nationally. He started his career in the San Francisco Bay Area, cutting his teeth at community station KALX and producing syndicated radio programming for Ben Manilla Productions. He lives in Fishtown with his wife and two dogs.
More from the Contributor
National Liberty Museum amplifies the liberating power of music
The Old City museum explores the intimate, fraught connection between music and liberty.
2 years ago
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How minstrel tune became the signature song of the Mummers Parade
Once an international star, the Black composer of “Oh Dem Golden Slippers” died penniless in Philadelphia.
3 years ago
The arts are having a bumpy pandemic recovery in Philly, new report shows
An influx of $6 million in federal COVID recovery funds is coming to Philly. But a new study shows the progress in the arts sector is uneven.
3 years ago
Listen 1:13
To die for: The Science History Institute shows us how we dye
A new exhibition at the Science History Institute, BOLD, tracks the cultural and environmental impacts of synthetic dyes.
3 years ago
Listen 2:57
For 5 years, Cherry Street Pier has given us a reason to visit the Delaware River
Since 2018 the former industrial fruit dock has fostered an artist community to give people a reason to visit the waterfront.
3 years ago
Listen 1:04
‘The least of us’: The Crossing premieres hymns written for an imagined religion
Composer David Lang wrote “poor hymnals” for a congregation solely focused on helping the less fortunate.
3 years ago
Oscar Hammerstein’s farmhouse in Doylestown will become a museum
The ink is dry on a deal to buy the musical theater giant’s property in Doylestown, Pa., to turn it into a museum and education center.
3 years ago
Listen 3:09
First-time conductors take a crack at Philadelphia Ballet’s ‘The Nutcracker’
Philadelphia Ballet is extending the baton to aspiring conductors for selected performances of the holiday classic.
3 years ago
Piffaro offers the music of a German Christmas, circa 1500
Piffaro, Philadelphia authentic Renaissance band, will play music of Southern Germany from 500 years ago.
3 years ago
Listen 1:43
This year, the nativity scene has turned 800 years old. Glencairn Museum samples their endless variety.
3 years ago
Listen 2:22
The scent of a symphony: The Philadelphia Orchestra premieres a new work about how music smells
Jimmy López Bellido explores olfactory synesthesia in his new work, “Ephemerae.”
3 years ago
Listen 1:41
Paint it, black: A dark dinner party tableau at Philly’s historic Hill-Physick House
Artist Heather Ujiie has created a morbid Victorian tableau “Dark Forest” inside the 19th-century home of the father of modern surgery.
3 years ago
Listen 1:17