jenny attiyeh

Posted on by — 3 Responses to

The Borromeo String Quartet Meets Steve Reich!

Note: So far, this piece has been broadcast on the following public radio stations:  New Hampshire Public Radio’s Word of Mouth,  WDAV’s Artist Spotlight, Tapestry on 90.3 WBHM in Birmingham Alabama, WRVO in Upstate NY and KUAR, in Little Rock!

Steve Reich is perhaps the preeminent composer living today. And one of his most heart-wrenching and affecting works is called Different Trains for String Quartet and Tape. It tells the story of Steve Reich’s early childhood — his train trips between the East and West coasts to visit his separated parents — and also of the train trips Jews were forced to take during the Holocaust.

The piece, commissioned by the Kronos Quartet in 1988, is notoriously difficult to play. But the Borromeo String Quartet has recently taken up the challenge. ThoughtCast’s Jenny Attiyeh attended a rehearsal at the New England Conservatory, where the Borromeo is currently in residence.

Click here: to listen — (7 minutes) on ThoughtCast!

Click here: for a shorter version (4:30 mins.)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Posted on by — 3 Responses to

Art & Science with Alan Lightman

Note: This program was broadcast on WCAI, the Cape and Islands affiliate of WGBH.
Alan Lightman, the MIT physicist and best-selling author of Einstein’s Dreams, is a man of unusual ability. Talented in both the sciences and the arts, he’s both left- and right-brained, a condition that confers challenges as well as benefits.
Lightman has recently come out with a new book which explores these two realms – and it’s called Ghost! It deals with the permeable boundary between hard science and the paranormal — and asks, where does science fail us, and what, if anything, can take its place? Does mystery take over? And can it step in where science falls short?
Click here: to listen (28:30 minutes) on ThoughtCast!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Posted on by — 3 Responses to

Faith and Philosophy with Harvey Cox and Simon Blackburn

Note: this program was broadcast on the WGBH public radio sister stations WCAI/WNAN, on the Cape and Islands, and on WRNC-LP!
In this half-hour, ThoughtCast talks with two very different men, with one thing in common — a belief in humanism. Harvey Cox, the renowned Harvard Divinity School Professor and author of The Secular City and When Jesus Came to Harvard, talks with ThoughtCast about his faith, and the religious resurgence taking place here in America and abroad. Cox has a unique take on Christianity — while he doubts the Resurrection, he celebrates the life of Jesus, and urges us all to follow in his footsteps, and take his teachings to the streets, to enact them in our flawed, real, and secular world.
Simon Blackburn on the other hand rejects religion but embraces the wisdom of philosophy. He too is an author — of Truth: A Guide, Think and Being Good, among others — and he teaches philosophy at the University of Cambridge, in England. What he offers is a philosophy that’s not just for the educated elite, but for the rest of us!

Click here: to listen (29 minutes)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Posted on by — 3 Responses to

Astrophysics in Cambridge — at the Planetarium!

As part of the Cambridge Science Festival, Noreen Grice, the operations coordinator of the Charles Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Science in Boston, hosted a series of presentations that feature new research in astrophysics taking place in Cambridge. Specifically, she highlighted the work of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, in Kendall Square, as well as scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and MIT.

Click here: for Noreen Grice’s presentation at the planetarium (30 minutes)
Click here: for an interview with Noreen Grice (15 minutes)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Posted on by — 3 Responses to

Marc Hauser on “Moral Minds”

Note: This interview was broadcast on WCAI/WNAN, and is also featured on WGBH’s Science Luminaries series, as part of WGBH Science City.
The provocative Harvard psychologist Marc Hauser recently spoke about “The Evolution of Our Moral Intuitions” at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, as part of the Cambridge Science Festival. This ThoughtCast interview with Hauser serves as a good “first course” — but to get to the meat and potatoes, check out his book Moral Minds.
Click here: to listen. (17:40 minutes)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Posted on by — 3 Responses to

The BBC and CBC weigh in…

Paul Brannan, the Deputy Editor of BBC News Interactive, offers a candid assessment of the state of public broadcasting here in the US – and back home in London. It seems the BBC’s way ahead of us, as Paul, who spoke at the 2007 Integrated Media Association Conference here, explains. He’s an evangelist for “integrated media” and knows from hard experience what that abstract phrase actually means.
Click here: to listen to the interview (8.5 minutes).

Across the pond in Canada, Sue Gardner is the Senior Director of CBC.CA, the website of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She shared the podium with Paul at the conference, and offers her views on ThoughtCast about how to remain “relevant” in today’s evolving media marketplace — in other words, how to broaden the appeal of public broadcasting without “dumbing down”!
Click here: to listen to the interview (6 minutes).

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS