Articulate
SUNDAYS 12/11c
ARTICULATE believes that art is for everyone, that creative expression is a basic human need, and that culture tells us who we are. As such, we approach artists as deep thinkers and doers who both reflect, and help shape, our understanding of the world. ARTICULATE with Jim Cotter; Stories from where life meets art.
Episodes
About Season 9
Articulate connects audiences to the human stories behind art, offering a trustworthy, visually stimulating, never ordinary take on classical, contemporary, and popular art forms. From acclaimed musicians and best-selling authors to designers changing the way we live, each episode explores what great creative thinkers and doers can tell us about who we are, who we’ve been, and who we might become.
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Episode
From Prodigies to Paragons
Yaa Gyasi and Sarah Jarosz were recognized early for their gifts. Now they are becoming role models.
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Episode
Unremitting
Writer Kate DiCamillo and theater artist Ping Chong have navigated winding paths.
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Episode
Fearless Pursuits
Writer Michael Cunningham and poet Joan Naviyuk Kane didn’t let obstacles stand in the way of realizing their potential.
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Episode
By Their Stars
Brandon Flowers’ faith has helped steer the course for his rock band The Killers. Choreographer Mark Morris confidently pushes the limits of modern dance, even in the face of criticism. And violinist Augustin Hadelich uses technical mastery to achieve human connection.
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Episode
Long and Winding Roads
The most successful works to date of singer-songwriter and playwright Anaïs Mitchell and writer Douglas Stuart were decades in the making. Mitchell created “Hadestown,” the box office-smashing, multi-Tony Award-winning Broadway musical. Stuart wrote the Booker Prize-winning, best-selling novel “Shuggie Bain.”
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Episode
The Insatiables
Composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz and writer Susan Orlean have relentlessly inquiring minds, resulting in works of stunning originality.
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Episode
Conscientious Evolution
Singer-songwriter Ben Folds and architect Jeanne Gang have kept their ideas fresh, authentic, and clear of passing trends.
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Episode
Crossing Cultures
String trio Time for Three and choreographer and dancer Akram Khan have drawn from disparate cultures to create work of uncommon originality.
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Episode
Home and Away
Singer-songwriter Aoife O’Donovan and landscape architect Sara Zewde have developed creative practices that blend the perspectives of their immigrant families with American cultural traditions.
About Season 8
Articulate connects audiences to the human stories behind art, offering a trustworthy, visually stimulating, never ordinary take on classical, contemporary, and popular art forms. From acclaimed musicians and best-selling authors to designers changing the way we live, each episode explores what great creative thinkers and doers can tell us about who we are, who we’ve been, and who we might become.
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Episode
Resilience
Even after 50 years of accolades, including a Pulitzer Prize at 26 for his Doonesbury comic strip, Garry Trudeau reckons he may have gotten too much too young. And despite her mastery of the written word, Joyce Carol Oates is skeptical about how well conversation can express the complexities of thought and emotions.
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Episode
Making Her Way
Natalie Merchant has experienced enough for several lives: teen rock star, fiercely independent solo artist, mother, wildly successful environmental campaigner. She’s been around the world and back, and she's done it in her own inimitable style.
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Episode
Taking Time
A fatal accident in his teens would come to define life for Darin Strauss. Also, from champion skier to acclaimed composer, Steven Mackey has never lost his rhythm.
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Episode
Indefatigables
Singer-songwriter Valerie June has been knocked down, but never out, by heartbreak, illness, and hardship. Now in his early 60s, choreographer and dancer Stephen Petronio has built a life and a body of work by deciding whose rules he is prepared to follow.
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Episode
World of Words
Writer Tochi Onyebuchi and visual artist Stephen Powers are both trying to change the world, one word at a time.
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Episode
A Place of Their Own
Playwright Sarah Gancher and folk musicians Jay Ungar and Molly Mason travelled far to find home.
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Episode
Singular Purpose
Poet Terrance Hayes and clarinetist Anthony McGill have been resolute in pursuit of their destinies.
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Episode
Triumph Over Affliction
Deborah Eisenberg and Shira Erlichman fought inner conflicts in search of personal peace.
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Episode
Displacement
Early on, singer-songwriter David Gray and writer Aleksandar Hemon struggled to be heard at home. But when they found acceptance abroad, their own countries—and the world—soon caught up.
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Episode
Self Realization
Author Yiyun Li and choreographer Miguel Gutierrez make work that fuels—and is fueled by—self-understanding.
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Episode
Virtuous Reality
Poet Yusef Komunyakaa and writer Jennifer Weiner know that honest work can reveal new truths.
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Episode
Reflexive Cognition
The observations and experiences of poet Paul Muldoon and multidisciplinary artist Daniel Arsham are powerfully rendered in their work.
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Episode
What Might Be
Writer Samuel R. Delany and interdisciplinary artist and designer Orkan Telhan interrogate the present to glimpse the future.
About Season 7
Articulate connects audiences to the human stories behind art, offering a trustworthy, visually stimulating, never ordinary take on classical, contemporary, and popular art forms. From acclaimed musicians and best-selling authors to designers changing the way we live, each episode explores what great creative thinkers and doers can tell us about who we are, who we’ve been, and who we might become.
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Episode
Seeing & Being Seen
Theater director Kenny Leon and children’s author Sophie Blackall use real life as fodder for their creations. Despite the risks, both are celebrated for making honest works for the masses.
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Episode
Facing Forward
Flutist Claire Chase and architect Mónica Ponce de León are at odds with society’s traditional notions of music and design, but they love a challenge to make something bigger and better.
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Episode
Walk a Mile With Me
Throughout history and across civilizations, the humble shoe, once mere protection for our tender feet, has evolved new meanings. Today, shoes are signalers of taste and markers of status. They are taking us on fresh paths, integrating new technology to become more sustainable while helping push the boundaries of human performance.
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Episode
Breaking Boundaries
At the height of their careers, painter Horace Pippin and singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading were unprecedented, seeding ground for future artists.
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Episode
Teddy Abrams: Articulate in Difficult Times
In this Articulate special, we explore the life and work of conductor and composer Teddy Abrams. The thirty-something music director of the Louisville Orchestra is reviving and revolutionizing the relationship between the orchestra and its community.
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Episode
Breaking Ground
Making things better is the upshot of making things for singer-songwriter Yuna and architect Doris Sung.
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Episode
Pain and Patience
An inevitable part of the human experience, pain is impossible to objectively measure, but felt universally. And: Gil Shaham might be the last musician to own a great violin.
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Episode
Lateral Visions
Novelist Veronica Roth and pianist Amy Yang see a way forward.
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Episode
In the Eye of the Beholder
Physical beauty is assumed to be a passport to a better life, but in truth is a transitory visa. When it fades it can leave an unfillable void.
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Episode
Finding Meaning
Timothy Showalter uses music to share and survive a tumultuous world. John Jarboe wants to help change it.
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Episode
Joseph Conyers in Concert and Conversation
Bassist Joseph Conyers uses music as a tool for social engagement and community building. In this Articulate exclusive, he discusses his community-based work and performs music from a variety of genres.
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Episode
Neverending Stories
Stories have shaped our knowledge and communication and been the bedrock of how we’ve entertained ourselves since time immemorial. And even as technology advances and the world becomes more interconnected, stories are still core to our shared humanity.
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Episode
Finding Their Own Way
Singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers creates story songs that are wise beyond her years; choreographer Brian Sanders questions received wisdom.
About Season 6
Articulate connects audiences to the human stories behind art, offering a trustworthy, visually stimulating, never ordinary take on classical, contemporary, and popular art forms. From acclaimed musicians and best-selling authors to designers changing the way we live, each episode explores what great creative thinkers and doers can tell us about who we are, who we’ve been, and who we might become.
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Episode
The Mirror of Time
Dan Harmon is the creator of seminal television shows Rick and Morty and Community. He’s found success on his own terms, but now, as he approaches middle age, he’s reflecting on how he’s gotten here. Liz Lerman creates dance with purpose that fosters engagement; but, like many great creative thinkers, doubt has always been part of the process.
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Episode
Larger Than Life
Ellen Reid has a lot to say. The music of this softly spoken Pulitzer Prize-winning composer speaks volumes, even when it means confronting her own worst experiences. Vikram Paralkar would appear to be a mass of contradictions: a novelist whose work confronts mortality, a cancer physician who constantly helps others deal with death, an atheist who is married to a minister. Yet his joy for life is
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Episode
Owning Legacy
Gish Jen has spent a lifetime navigating internal cultural conflicts, yet the best-selling novelist has found peace with a personal East/West divide that could serve as a model for all. Thomas Newman is among the most highly respected and successful film composers. Though part of a Hollywood musical dynasty, he has created a unique musical voice.
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Episode
Daniel Hope’s Lands of Glory
Being declared stateless at just six months old did not predict greatness for the celebrated musician Daniel Hope, but the course of his life was changed when his mother began working for the legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin.
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Episode
Their Way
Jason Robert Brown lives and breathes musical theater. From his early days as a fledgling composer through multiple Tony awards, he’s had to do it his way or not at all. Fate almost conspired to take music away from Angel Blue. But she refused to surrender to such a dark destiny and came out on the other side a better woman and a singer on some of the world’s biggest stages.
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Episode
From the Mouths of Poets
Poetry, as a literary form, is a relatively recent idea, yet weaving stories and thoughts in a concise structure that uses rhythm and sometimes rhyme is as old as time. Today spoken word is a popular, more democratic way for poets to get their work and words out. When the pandemic put a halt to groups performing together, dancers from American Ballet Theatre's teen training program found a way.
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Episode
Drawing Meaning from Life
Comics are nothing new. For at least 8,000 years, we’ve been using pictures to tell stories and communicate new ideas. Today, graphic novels have a lot to say. And so do the creators behind them.
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Episode
From Isolation To Ovation
Leif Ove Andsnes has awesome musical powers, yet in person he is quiet and contemplative. Because, he says, the piano is his true voice. Royce Vavrek doesn’t court controversy, but it seems to follow in his shadow. The celebrated opera librettist and lyricist says if his work provokes, it’s not to advance any personal agenda.
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Episode
The Monument Man
Zenos Frudakis has spent the last fifty years sculpting life out of bronze, aiming to capture the likeness and spirit of his subjects and to shine a light on those who have helped foster change in the world.
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Episode
Paying It Forward
Marin Alsop is one of the world’s foremost conductors. She got there by helping change the classical world. For decades, Ian Bostridge has been enraptured by Franz Schubert’s Winterreise. The British tenor has found the song cycle to be as effervescent and relevant now as it was when it was first composed two centuries ago.
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Episode
Mario Lanza at 100
On this Articulate exclusive concert show celebrating Mario Lanza’s centenary, tenor Stephen Costello reflects on the life and work of the beloved singer and Hollywood star.
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Episode
Jets vs. Sharks
In the late 1800s, the first automobile was invented for its function: to improve human transportation. In the decades following, style and substance have been competing factors in the longevity of the automotive industry. Today, cars are part of our larger identity, as a group and as individuals.
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Episode
Written from Life, Itself
The singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright has done things his way, struggling, at times, with himself and the world. Yet, he says, these rough periods haven’t made him tough. Against the backdrop of a global pandemic, composer David Serkin Ludwig created a new work about life in forced isolation.
About Season 5
Articulate connects audiences to the human stories behind art, offering a trustworthy, visually stimulating, never ordinary take on classical, contemporary, and popular art forms. From acclaimed musicians and best-selling authors to designers changing the way we live, each episode explores what great creative thinkers and doers can tell us about who we are, who we’ve been, and who we might become.
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Episode
Idealistic Icons
Idealistic Icons.
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Episode
Living Legacies
The 90-year old graphic designer Milton Glaser has spent a lifetime creating iconic brand identities. Camille Brown is known for integrating African American social dance traditions into uniquely modern choreography. The Pulitzer Prize-winner Julia Wolfe mines history to create her innovative experimental compositions.
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Episode
No Frontiers
The Carthy family has been at the vanguard of English folk for decades. The Israeli conceptual artist Oded Hirsch lives on the periphery- both philosophically and geographically. The rapper, singer and writer, Dessa Darling found peace with heartbreak, scientifically.
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Episode
Transformers
The world-renowned pianist, conductor and activist Daniel Barenboim is dedicated to making real change in the world through music. In the songs of Tift Merritt, the stuff of everyday life is ripe for the picking. For the interdisciplinary artist Vivek Shraya, creativity is at the heart of self-discovery.
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Episode
Pioneering Spirits?
Daniel Libeskind believes that architecture is, fundamentally, an act of optimism and of selflessness. The composer Missy Mazzoli is a trailblazer- undeterred by obstacles, undaunted by the salacious. For more than seven decades, the photographer Elliott Erwitt has been lauded for his humor and visual wit.
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Episode
The Standouts
Ani Liu melds art and science. Howard Jacobson is an unlikely pillar of English literature. Edgar Meyer innovates for the double bass.
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Episode
Andrew Bird: Whistling While He Works
For the last 20 years, talent has allowed Andrew Bird to mostly write his own ticket. Now, he’s coming up with some of his finest work yet. Join us for a full-length episode of Articulate featuring new music by Andrew Bird and personal insights into his life...so far.
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Episode
The Right Left Turns
For the past 40 years, Arthur Yorinks has been the power behind the throne for many of America’s most significant artists. But his work stands on its own. Karen Russell’s stories live in a space between the everyday and the surreal. Jason deCaires Taylor’s greatest assets are underwater. All of his sculptures are entrusted to the oceans.
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Episode
Seeking Deeper Truths
Gregory Pardlo’s writing is informed both by his unconventional early life and his uncannily keen eye. If you’re looking for choreography that is as dense with emotion as it is with intense physicality, look no further than Sonya Tayeh. Bruce Adolphe believes that classical music has much to gain from other, far-reaching disciplines, including neuroscience!
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Short
Staying the Course
Bill T. Jones has lived through tragedy and triumph to become an elder statesman of dance. A decade on, the British pop star Lily Allen is still as forthright as ever- in her lyrics and her personal life. When companies need help refining or defining their identity, they call Michael Bierut.
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Episode
Self Inventors
Thomas Heatherwick is the wunderkind of large-scale 21st century design. The writings of Alice McDermott uniquely express a particular form of Irish-American identity. For more than 4 decades, Dean Friedman has been reinventing himself creatively. But at heart, he’s still a singer-songwriter.
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Episode
Of Page and Stage
The works of playwright Sarah Ruhl rewrite history. Michelle Dorrance is an embodiment of the history of tap dance– a uniquely American art form. With his spindly, whimsical characters, illustrator Ralph Steadman created one of the most identifiable visual styles of the 20th century.
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Episode
Patricia Racette Concert Show
Patricia Racette: Enchanting the Muse On the next Articulate, we explore the life and art of Patricia Racette– a supremely talented singer and storyteller.
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Episode
What Matters Most
Marina Benjamin writes to parse the questions that loom largest in her life. It’s a self-examination, yes. But never self-obsession. Stefan Sagmeister has spent the past 40-odd years demonstrating how graphic design can make even the most abstract ideas tangible. Donald Nally, conductor of the groundbreaking chamber choir, The Crossing, wants audiences to listen, and think.
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Episode
Self, Aside
Self, Aside: Stephanie Blythe: Uncaged: One of the fastest rising stars in opera; Diana Al-Hadid: Excavating the Muse The story of Gradiva– a sculpture that came to life; (What’s So Funny About) Nick Lowe As a young singer-songwriter, Nick Lowe was preoccupied with looking cool and getting famous.
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Episode
Through the Fire
KT Tunstall: From the Ashes The Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall realized she was becoming a pop music cliché– on top, but unhappy.; Pam Tanowitz: Out of the Shadows Pam Tanowitz is among the finest choreographers in modern dance. Natasha Trethewey’s Redemption Natasha Trethewey coped with the tragedies of her young life by turning them into exceptional poetry.
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Episode
The Incomparable
Caroline Shaw is one of the most original new voices in contemporary music, who’s cooking up some very fine music across a wide swathe of genres.
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Episode
The Headliners
Aaron Sorkin’s Second Act - Aaron Sorkin is best known for his award-winning screenwriting- A Few Good Men, The West Wing, Moneyball, The Newsroom. But his first love is the theater. Rhiannon Giddens' Living History - Singer, instrumentalist and folk historian Rhiannon Giddens is on a musical mission, to remind us of what we all share. Regardless of who we are or where we're from.
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Episode
Power Through Purpose
John Darnielle: From Self-Destruction To Self-Construction; Darnielle has excelled as a front-man, songwriter and author; Elizabeth Acevedo’s Literary Realizations: As a grownup, Elizabeth Acevedo realized that the books she had needed as a child still didn’t exist; Meg Saligman: The Big Picture The scale of Meg Saligman’s murals is difficult to grasp close-up.
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Episode
From The Top
Jonathan Safran Foer: Illuminating Everything-Best-selling author Jonathan Safran Foer writes to interrogate his own past, and all of our futures.; Nate Powell: Drawing on Experience-Superstar graphic novelist Nate Powell is known for beautifully rendered comics with a strong moral core; Gustavo Dudamel: Playing Nicely-Venezuelan-born conductor Gustavo Dudamel is on a mission to sew harmony.
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Episode
Life's Work
Perpetual Andrew Motion: Tori Marchiony profiles former U.K. Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion. He’s five decades in and still finding room to grow; Vijay Iyer-Key Changes: Among the most highly regarded jazz pianists of his time, Vijay Iyer has made his instrument of choice an instrument of discovery; Susan Choi-Interrogator of Truth: Susan Choi’s books reflect her skepticism of authority.
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Episode
The Exceptionals
Billy Collins: The People's Poet - Is one of the best-selling poets alive; Gemma New: In Name & In Nature - The conductor, Gemma New, has followed opportunity around the world; Ming Peiffer: Not A Usual Girl - Award-winning writer Ming Peiffer forges works for stage and screen that deconstruct her own observations and experiences of life today.
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Episode
Beyond the Status Quo
This Week: Esperanza Spalding's Discipline(s) Highly distinguished musician, Esperanza Spalding does more than just make music: Lee Child: Not "The Man" Lee Child left his former life behind to author and unlikely hero - Jack Reacher, a vagrant vigilante who reaps justice for the underdog; and Nick Phan: Forging Connection: The award-winning tenor, Nicholas Phan explores the world in song.
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Episode
By the Horns
Tod Williams and Billie Tsien: Made to Last - World-renowned architects united in vision and practice. Carmen Maria Machado: Claiming Her Space - Carmen is self-assured and outspoken, often turning a mirror not only on herself but on society’s unchallenged biases to create immersive fiction.
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Episode
Wayfinders
Elizabeth Strout: Steady As She Goes-author Elizabeth Strout, spent decades finessing her own unique narratives, often using her own upbringing as a touchstone; Pamela Frank: Fit As A Fiddle-celebrated violinist Pamela Frank was at the height of her career when she suffered a life-altering injury; The Very Moving Rennie Harris-pioneer of hip-hop dance theater, but it took a while...
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Episode
The Roots of Creativity
Maaza Mengiste: Writing Home - The award-winning author Maaza Mengiste writes of an Ethiopian home she left behind; Dick Boak’s Eclectic Adventures - Boak followed his instincts and created a role in the evolution of the Martin Guitar company; Nicola Benedetti: A Great Scot - Internationally renowned Scottish violinist was cast into the spotlight at age 16.
