Category Archives: Featured Blog Post

Highlights: April 14 to April 20

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KLRU Highlights

Elina Garanca, Giuseppe Filianoti and Barbara Frittoli star in this production of Mozart’s La Clemenza Di Tito on Great Performances At The Met at 2 pm Sunday.

Jenny is seconded to a short-staffed London Hospital to work on the male surgical ward on Call the Midwife  at 7 pm Sunday.

Ellen’s future as the Spirit of Selfridge is on the line as renowned ballerina Anna Pavlova causes a sensation at the store on Masterpiece presents Mr. Selfridge, Part 3 at 8 pm Sunday.

Orchestra of Exiles at 9 pm Sunday tells the story of one man’s four-year odyssey which culminated, in 1936, with the creation of a top-flight symphony orchestra in the desert outback of Palestine.

Antiques Roadshow explores the craftsmanship of Cincinnati carved furniture at 7 pm Monday.

Market Warriors go Antiquing In Rochester, Minnesota at 8 pm Monday to the annual Gold Rush Show, where the pickers are paired up to find something French.

Independent Lens presents Wonder Women! The Untold Story Of American Superheroines at 9 pm Monday. This program traces the evolution and legacy of Wonder Woman.

Central Park Five at 8 pm Tuesday tells the story of Tricia Meili, a woman that was found brutally raped, beaten and left for dead after jogging through Central Park in New York City in April 19, 1989.

On Story at 10 pm Tuesday presents Buck Henry: A Hollywood Story. Iconic comedic and distinctly American writer, director, and actor Buck Henry recalls his long and storied career in Hollywood.

Arts In Context presents Woman at 10:30 Tuesday. Art is enjoyed by all, but these pieces are strictly woman’s work.

James Prosek, artist, writer, and eminent naturalist, takes on the mystery of the eel, shedding light on the animal and the strange behavior it inspires in those who seek to know it on Nature  The Mystery Of Eels at 7 pm Wednesday.

NOVA   Austalia’s First 4 Billion Years: Life Explodes at 8 pm Wednesday takes viewers on a rollicking adventure from the birth of the Earth to the emergence of the world we know today.

Guts With Michael Mosley at 9 pm Wednesday uncovers the secret life of our digestive tract in an eye-opening and detailed exploration of the side of the body we normally never get to see.

Artistic Director Stephen Mills and company produce a re-staging of the acclaimed Light / Holocaust and Humanity Project on Arts In Context presents Producing Light at 7:30 Thursday.

Energy expert Dr. Michael E. Webber speaks about the ways we think about energy, and in turn, how we influence energy policy on Energy At The Movies: 70 Years Of Energy On The Big Screen at 9 pm Thursday.

Live from Lincoln Center presents Celebration: Stephanie Blythe Meets Kate Smith at 9 pm Friday. Blythe returns to Lincoln Center with her popular music show paying tribute to the great Kate Smith.

Find out how to grow your own fresh fruit, even in containers on Central Texas Gardener  Backyard Citrus And Small Fruits at noon and 4 pm Saturday.

Victory Garden presents Vertical: Think Up! at 4:30 pm. Find the best climbing plants with garden correspondent Paul Epsom and create a vertical element in the garden.

Austin City Limits presents Florence + The Machine and Lykke Li at 7 pm Saturday. Bluesy singer Florence showcases her LP Lungs, while Swedish chanteuse Li highlights her LP Wounded Rhymes.

Codebreakers: Bletchley Park’s Lost Heroes at 9 pm Saturday tells the extraordinary story of a British engineer, Tommy Flowers, and a talented British mathematician, Bill Tutte.

 

What role does race play in college admissions?

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A new documentary produced by KLRU and journalist Lynn Boswell will explore questions of fairness, equality and what those words mean in university admissions nationwide.

To help fund production of this film, we are asking you to support our Indiegogo campaign. The goal of $25,000 will help with costs associated with travel, fact checking, research and use of archival materials. Funds raised through this campaign will directly support the production of this documentary.

There are great perks to thank you for your donation including an advance screening, panel & reception, as well as a private dinner. Supporting this effort shows you support quality journalism and public media.

Share, like and tweet about this project! More information can be found on our Indiegogo page.

KLRU Collective: Texas Photo Roundup

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This week, KLRU Collective focuses on photography in this week’s piece.

Turning your love of photography into more than a hobby is not an easy task. With the rise in popularity of apps like Instagram, everyone has the ability to be a photographer, but it takes more than just having the right equipment. We’ve got some tips from Austin professionals at the Texas Photo Roundup on how to develop your photography.

In the Studio: Dan Balz and Sebastian Junger tape Overheard 4/9

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Overheard taping announcement

Please join KLRU’s Overheard with Evan Smith for interviews with Dan Balz and Sebastian Junger on April 9 in KLRU’s Studio 6A. The tapings are free but RSVP is required.  One RSVP will work for both tapings. RSVP now

Dan Balz Dan Balz
Time: 9:15 am
(Doors open at 8:45 am)
RSVP now
Dan Balz is Chief Correspondent at the Washington Post, covering national politics. He previously served as National Editor at The Post, and as White House correspondent. Balz has also written two books, including the New York Times bestseller, “The Battle for America 2008.” He is a regular analyst on PBS’ “Washington Week” as well as other public affairs shows, including NBC’s “Meet the Press” and CBS’ “Face the Nation.” He is in Austin for the 2013 William Randolph Hearst Fellows Award Lecture at the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Communication.

Sebastian JungerSebastian Junger
Time: 10:15 am
(Doors will open as soon as Dan Balz taping is completed)
RSVP now
Sebastian Junger is an award-winning journalist and author. His book The Perfect Storm spent three years on the New York Times best-seller list and was later made into a major motion picture. His 2010 book WAR, about a U.S. Army platoon in Afghanistan, was also a best-seller. Junger is also a documentary filmmaker, his 2011 film Restrepo was nominated for an Oscar, and his newest film Which Way is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington will air on HBO in April. It was recently screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Junger is in Austin for a screening of the film at the LBJ Library.

We hope you’ll be there as Overheard with Evan Smith continues its third season of great conversation with fascinating people, always on the news and always with a sense of humor. The show features in-depth interviews with a mix of guests from politics, the arts, literature, journalism, business, sports and more, and reaches PBS viewers from California to Florida. We’d love to see you in the studio for the interview, and for a chance to join the audience Q&A after the interview. Be sure to watch past episodes and complete Q&A at klru.org/overheard

Masterpiece Presents Mr. Selfridge starting 3/31

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Masterpiece Mr. Selfridge airs Sundays, March 31 through May 19, at 8 pm on KLRU.

At the unfashionable end of Oxford Street in 1909 London, an American retail tycoon arrives to London and opens the biggest and finest department store the world has ever seen: Selfridges. With Jeremy Piven (Entourage) in the title role, this mini-series is a dramatization of the real-life story of Harry Gordon Selfridge, the flamboyant and visionary American founder of the famous London department store that revolutionized the modern shopping experience.

Creator and writer Andrew Davies, conjures the excitement of Selfridges and the story of its founder, a man of exuberant, outsized, and potentially dangerous, appetite. Behind Selfridges’ lavish shop windows, gleaming counters, and majestic doors, appetite intersects with ambition and desire not just for Harry, but for his staff, his family, and the various women drawn to the store and the man.

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PBS Online Film Fest: The Longest Sun

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Austin has three locally-made films in the 2nd Annual PBS Online Film Festival. You can vote for the audience award until March 22. Vote at pbs.org/filmfestival

The Longest Sun is a narrative short film inspired by the mythology of the Tewa peoples of northern New Mexico, and is told entirely in the endangered language of Tewa (less than 500 native speakers remain). A blend of fantasy, mystery, and historical fiction, The Longest Sun is a quest story that follows Tahn Pi, a young Tewa boy who sets out on a mythical journey to stop the sun from setting.

As the first film told entirely in the Tewa language, The Longest Sun is the culmination of nearly three years of collaboration with the San Juan, San Idelfonso, Santa Clara, Nambe, and Pojoaque pueblo communities and local governments. From conception to translation, the filmmaker and various Tewa community leaders worked together to document and preserve the oral traditions and language of the Tewa people through the medium of film. Peppered with colorful characters and rich in oral tradition, The Longest Sun explores universal perceptions of time, maturation, and death through a modern adaptation of an ancient Tewa origin story.

About the Filmmaker: Patrick William Smith (MFA in Film Production, UT Austin) works as a director and cinematographer between Austin, TX and Seattle, WA. He has directed a number of award-winning fiction and nonfiction films, web-series, and commercials. His documentary, Shades of The Border, toured at over two dozen film festivals worldwide (including SXSW, Media That Matters), garnering a number of awards and DVD distribution.  Patrick went on to direct a reality web-series for internet mogul, Penny Arcade, and later developed a comedy web-series funded through a successful, front-page crowdsourcing campaign on Kickstarter (Kris and Scott’s, Scott and Kris Show), which drew national media attention. Patrick’s most recent endeavor, a narrative quest film told entirely in the endangered Tewa language, is currently touring festivals worldwide. Looking ahead, Patrick has begun development on his first feature. 

PBS Online Film Fest: Mijo (My Son)

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Austin has three locally-made films in the 2nd Annual PBS Online Film Festival. You can vote for the audience award until March 22. Vote at pbs.org/filmfestival

Mijo is an immensely personal documentary about the relationship between a young mother who is a professional dancer and her 6-year old son, as she undergoes treatment for breast cancer. The film is a delicate balance between the son’s innocence, the mother’s medical journey and its depiction through dance. Ultimately, the film is an affirmation of love and the purpose of life.

About the Filmmaker: Chithra Jeyaram is an emerging documentary filmmaker and educator with an MFA in Film Production from University of Texas at Austin. Her first exposure to filmmaking began in 2004 with a failed attempt to fund a film about an explosive water-sharing dispute between two southern states in India. Deeply affected by that experience, she quit a decade-long career as Physical Therapist and enrolled in film school.

A diseased human body is a chaotic system and as a filmmaker she is interested in telling stories of the disruptive consequences of illness from unique perspectives. Approximately 30% of women diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States have young dependent children living with them. In Mijo, she highlights some of the difficulties experienced by cancer survivors with young children.

Besides making non-fiction films, she loves to illustrate, animate, take spontaneous trips, cook exotic recipes and work as a physical therapist.

PBS Online Film Fest: Noc na Tanečku (Night at the Dance)

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Austin has three locally-made films in the 2nd Annual PBS Online Film Festival. You can vote for the audience award until March 22. Vote at pbs.org/filmfestival

In the late 1800’s, tens of thousands of Czech immigrants settled farmland in Central Texas. They brought with them the tradition of the community dance hall, building over 1,000 halls in little towns from Temple to Anhalt. Fewer than half remain open today. Noc na Tanečku (Night at the Dance) profiles Sefcik Hall, in Seaton, one of the last true Czech dance halls in Texas, and the elderly folk that still come there each Sunday to wax the floor and dance the polka, even as they struggle with old age, illness, and in some cases, death.

About the Filmmaker: Annie Silverstein is an Austin based filmmaker and media educator. She directed the feature documentary March Point (Independent Lens 2008), in collaboration with three teenagers from the Swinomish Tribe and is Co-Founder of Longhouse Media, an indigenous media arts & education organization based in Seattle, WA. Annie has worked internationally as a Producer, Director, Cinematographer, and Editor on films ranging in theme from land access issues in Ethiopia to the experiences of LGBTI refugees living in South Africa. Most recently she produced/directed Noc na Tanečku (Night at the Dance), which screened at festivals internationally, and wrote/directed her first fiction film Spark, which screened at Slamdance and SXSW, where it won a Jury Award for Best Texas Short (2012). Annie is currently earning her MFA at University of Texas-Austin.

It’s Time to Amplify Austin & KLRU!

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AmplifyAustin

Join us TODAY in becoming a part of Austin’s history by giving a gift to KLRU in Austin’s FIRST ever community-wide day of online philanthropy, Amplify Austin! We’re encouraging all Central Texans, those of us who love this community most, to help us raise $1 million in just 24 hours and show the rest of the world just how charitable this city can be. Want to help? Here’s how: visit our KLRU Amplify Austin donation page to make your gift today; spread the word to friends and family about your support of KLRU and Amplify Austin; and join the #AmplifyATX social media conversation on Twitter and Facebook. We have just 24 hours to make a huge difference in our community and in the lives of all Central Texans, so let’s crank up the giving and Amplify Austin!

Science Night 3/6

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Nature “Animal Odd Couples” at 7 pm
Love apparently knows no boundaries in the animal kingdom. Despite the odds, there are countless stories of the most unlikely cross-species relationships imaginable. Instincts gone awry? Nature investigates why animals form these special bonds and what these relationships suggest about the nature of animal emotions. Support KLRU today and get the Animal Odd Couples DVD, The Emotional Lives of Animals book, or the Kate & Pippin: An Unlikely Love Story book.