It's graduation season across the country, and students are deciding what they want to do with their lives.
Seventy-one-year-old Ernie Caviani is a piano tuner and technician. He says following your passion is key.
Michigan Radio producer Mercedes Mejia has this audio postcard.
Ernie Caviani: This A is vibrating at 220 beats per second. This A is supposed to vibrate, if it matches it at 440, it’s just twice as much.
In my lifetime I’ve tuned a little over 30,000 pianos.
And you can hear the beats going yayayayaya…And I want the same beat rate going from this A, F to A, to this F and this A, and that means that both the A’s are the same.
What do experimental composer John Cage and Ann Arbor have in common, you ask? Morels. Story goes that John Cage was something of an amateur mushroom hunter, and he used to hunt for morels in the woods around Ann Arbor.
And since Spring means morel hunting season in Michigan, and many mushroom-enthusiasts are out foraging for the delicacy, a group in Ann Arbor is putting a musical twist on the annual spring hunt.
"I thought, as an homage to Cage, let’s create this performance where we tell stories, which Cage really liked to do, while hunting for edible mushrooms in the woods," explains Gurevich.
If you like gospel music you might want to check out the 20th Annual Gospelfest in Ann Arbor.
The idea behind the event is to celebrate the diversity of music among different communities and faiths in southeast Michigan. Participants seek to bridge cultural, racial, and religious gaps between different churches, and develop friendships.
Jean Wilson is the co-founder of Gospelfest, and choir director at St. Paul United Church of Christ in Saline. She sat down with Michigan Radio’s Jennifer White to talk about the event’s 20-year history.
Wilson says the event offers a variety of music, from traditional black gospel to contemporary Christian, pop-rock, and more. And she says the event is about diversity and unity.
“Although we are so diverse in our different ways of worship, we are all headed in the same direction; we are all children of the same creator. Although we have so many differences, we do have that thing at the core of our very being that really says that we are all related and are one, and we get to celebrate it.”
On Saturday March 10, choirs from Ann Arbor and Detroit will come together for the 20th Annual Gospelfest at Bethlehem United Church of Christ in Ann Arbor.
The gospel choir of New Prospect Baptist Missionary Church in Detroit will also participate in this year's event. Here's a video of the choir during a Saturday morning practice.
Michigan natives Seth Bernard and May Erlewine have a new album inspired by their journey across Ethiopia.
Last year they were invited to join the project “Run Across Ethiopia," of the Michigan-based non-profit On the Ground. A group of eight eventually ran 240 miles across southern Ethiopia and raised over $200,000 to build schools in the coffee growing region of that country.
The album New Flower is based on that experience.
Michigan Radio's Jennifer White interviewed Seth & May. You can see them perform in Michigan Radio's Studio East.
Produced by Mercedes Mejia and Cade Sperlich. Our audio engineer is Bob Skon.
"Soul Train" creator Don Cornelius was found dead at his Sherman Oaks home Wednesday morning.
Law enforcement sources said police arrived at Cornelius' home around 4 a.m. He apparently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing.
The sources said there was no sign of foul play, but the Los Angeles Police Department was investigating.
Soul Train was a springboard for new Motown artists in the 1970s.
NPR's Michele Norris tweets, "Soul Train showed us what to listen to, what to wear, how to dance, how to VIBE, how to be unapologetically fabulous. RIP Don Cornelius."
Cornelius hosted the show from 1971-1993 and coined the show's famous introduction:
Newsletters and Daily Email
Podcasts
Mobile
RSS
