Music
Vulnerable venues: The effort to preserve Philly’s stages
Promoters and musicians discuss efforts to preserve Philadelphia’s vulnerable venues and the future of live entertainment.
5 years ago
Bilingual version
La Gua Gua 47: A salsa song compuesta por una latina poderosa, Alba Martínez
La Gua Gua 47— the 47 Bus —honors the summer day in 1985 when Martínez rode SEPTA to the heartbeat of Philadelphia’s caribeña community.
5 years ago
Listen 4:52
Version en Español
La Gua Gua 47: Una canción de salsa compuesta por una latina poderosa, Alba Martínez
La Gua Gua 47— the 47 Bus —honors the summer day in 1985 when Martínez rode SEPTA to the heartbeat of Philadelphia’s caribeña community.
5 years ago
Listen 4:52
English version
La Gua Gua 47: A salsa song written by SEPTA stan and Latina powerhouse Alba Martínez
“La Gua Gua 47” — the 47 Bus — honors the summer day in 1985 when Martínez rode SEPTA to the heartbeat of Philadelphia’s caribeña community.
5 years ago
Listen 4:52
We discuss the ways in which the pandemic has affected the lives of musicians, and the efforts to get Spotify to pay musicians more for their streams.
Air Date: March 18, 2021 10:00 am
Listen 49:29
James Levine, former Met Opera music director, is dead at age 77
Levine's singular tenure at the Metropolitan Opera ended in a flurry of accusations of sexual abuse.
5 years ago
Philly arts institutions use COVID downtime to focus on accessibility and diversity
One silver lining of the yearlong pandemic is many theater companies have started putting plays and performances online.
5 years ago
Listen 3:36
Banished ‘witches’ sing of their pain — and their dreams
An estimated 1,000 women in northern Ghana have fled their homes because of witchcraft accusations — and the fear that they will be physically attacked as a result.
5 years ago
Philly musicians scream, sweat, strip to rock out in a lockdown
“When there is an audience, I am involved with the audience and I thrive off their participation. But it's the music that ultimately injects that electricity into me,”
5 years ago
Listen 4:16
North Philly teen Cam Anthony impresses judges on ‘The Voice’
Morning Edition host Jennifer Lynn speaks with Cam Anthony, a North Philly teen who impressed judges on “The Voice” last week.
5 years ago
Listen 1:57
Jazz legend, after house partially collapses, gets help from philanthropist, neighbors
The bottom literally fell out from the terrestrial headquarters of the intergalactic jazz ensemble. Ninety-six-year-old bandleader Marshall Allen lives inside.
5 years ago
Listen 2:11
This week; the battle over the Delaware River watershed fracking ban, what's new with N.J.'s marijuana laws, and the concert series to fall asleep to.
Air Date: March 1, 2021 10:00 am
Listen 49:00
‘Why have I never heard of this?’: Phila Orchestra revives America’s first Black woman composer
Florence Price had one of her pieces performed in 1933, by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Since then, she has disappeared from the classical canon.
5 years ago
Listen 3:58
NPR
Music therapy brings solace to COVID-19 patients and healers
Even when forced online by the pandemic, music therapy sessions continue to help patients in some ways talk therapy can't. "Music is this portal," says one therapist.
5 years ago
‘Save the Boys,’ a 134 year-old poem made fresh for 2021
Opera Philadelphia commissioned the composer to use the 1887 Frances Harper poem “Save the Boys” as opera for the Black Lives Matter movement.
5 years ago
Listen 3:17