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The Beloved "Nutcracker" is a Holiday Special on WPBT2

Kristi Yamaguchi hosts the lavish holiday treat, Great Performances Dance in America: San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker, on Monday, December 21 at 9:00 p.m. on WPBT2.

San Francisco Ballet makes the beloved Nutcracker its own, resetting it during the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exhibition and introducing viewers to the dazzling Maria Kochetkova and Davit Karapetyan. The work is choreographed by artistic director Helgi Tomasson and features sets and costumes by, respectively, Michael Yeargan and Martin Pakledinaz, both repeat Tony Award-winning designers. San Francisco Ballet music director and principal conductor Martin West conducts Tchaikovsky’s sprightly score.  “Striking, elegant and beautiful,” assessed The New York Times.    

 “I have grown up with this wonderful company,” says Yamaguchi. “It was with them that my mom, Carole, took me to my first Nutcracker. Pretty impressive for a little girl, with all that magic and sparkle, thrilling music and those costumes! I think that’s when I fell in love with performing. Next year, I’ll be taking my little girls, five and three, to their first production.”

  The Nutcracker, which was first performed in Russia in 1892, holds a special significance for San Francisco Ballet, America’s oldest professional ballet company. The ballet had its U.S. premiere there in 1944.

Tchaikovsky’s beguiling score is one of the most popular pieces of music ever written. Think “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” and “Waltz of the Snowflakes.” Inspired by E.T.A. Hoffman’s 1816 story, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, it was first proposed to Tchaikovsky by legendary choreographer Marius Petipa as a follow-up to Tchaikovsky’s other successful ballets at Russia’s famed Mariinsky Theatre: Swan Lake (1877) and The Sleeping Beauty (1890). The composer began work on it in 1891.

 

TAVIS SMILEY GOES PRIMETIME

THE TAVIS SMILEY REPORT Premieres January 2010 With Features on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the 5th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

Tavis Smiley and PBS will expand their relationship in 2010 with the January premiere of THE TAVIS SMILEY REPORT, a series of four hour-long primetime specials that will air throughout 2010. Smiley will leave his studio chair in Los Angeles and go on the road to examine some of the country's defining moments through those who have helped to shape history - from going behind the scenes with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the streets of New Orleans with director Jonathan Demme to mark Hurricane Katrina's 5th anniversary.

PBS TO AIR VIDEO GAMES LIVE SPECIAL

Performance to Be Held in New Orleans With the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra

DVD, Blu-ray and Volume Two CD to Follow

LOS ANGELES - DECEMBER 16, 2009 - Video Games Live and PBS are joining forces to create a PBS special based around the highly successful Video Games Live concert series. The breakthrough performance, to be taped February 5, 2010, at the Lakefront Arena in New Orleans with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, is slated to begin airing in June 2010 on PBS stations. Tickets for the performance will go on sale Friday, December 18 at 10 a.m. CST.

 

The New Film Version of Great Performances La Bohème Premieres on WPBT2, December 23 at 9:00 p.m.

 Opera’s Golden Couple, Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón, star in the Puccini favorite, La Bohème on WPBT2, December 23 at 9:00 p.m. The pairing of one of the most beloved operas of all time with a contemporary “dream team” of singers sets the stage for a romantic silver screen   blockbuster.   La Bohème is a doomed love affair between a poet (Rolando Villazón) and a seamstress (Anna Netrebko) in 1830s Paris.  

 

“My principal motivation in filming the opera ‘La Bohème’ is to set a memorial to the singers Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón,” says Austrian director Robert Dornhelm, adding, “I think that this film, this music, this story will beguile not just opera lovers.” Great Performances presents a diverse programming portfolio of classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama and performance documentaries. A stellar review in Opera News raves: “It’s probably fair to say that this La Bohème is one of the best filmic realizations of an opera since Francesco Rosi’s 1984 Carmen.

 Opera’s Golden Couple, Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón, star in the Puccini favorite, La Bohème on WPBT2, December 23 at 9:00 p.m. The pairing of one of the most beloved operas of all time with a contemporary “dream team” of singers sets the stage for a romantic silver screen   blockbuster.   La Bohème is a doomed love affair between a poet (Rolando Villazón) and a seamstress (Anna Netrebko) in 1830s Paris.  

 

“My principal motivation in filming the opera ‘La Bohème’ is to set a memorial to the singers Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón,” says Austrian director Robert Dornhelm, adding, “I think that this film, this music, this story will beguile not just opera lovers.” Great Performances presents a diverse programming portfolio of classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama and performance documentaries. A stellar review in Opera News raves: “It’s probably fair to say that this La Bohème is one of the best filmic realizations of an opera since Francesco Rosi’s 1984 Carmen.

New Production of Puccini's Tosca on WPBT2

A new production of Puccini’s Tosca starring Karita Mattila opens the Great Performances at the Met’s fourth season on WPBT2, Wednesday, December 16, 9:00 p.m. 

Mattila sings the title role of Tosca for the first time outside her native Finland, opposite Marcelo Alvarez as Cavaradossi. George Gagnidze is Scarpia and Paul Plishka is the Sacristan. Joseph Colaneri conducts, and acclaimed director Luc Bondy makes his Met debut with the production, which attracted extraordinary attention when it opened the Met’s current season.

Bondy, among the world’s most renowned directors of opera andtheater, has kept his Tosca in the Napoleonic era. “Directing singers in a realistic and precise way is more important than translating this kind of story to today,” he says. “What I’d like to bring out in my production is that difference between blind passion and cold strategy.” Mattila, who has collaborated with Bondy in the past, says, “Tosca uses her beauty as an asset in a man’s world. But no matter how strong she is, her power has limits because she’s a woman. This fragile side is what makes it interesting – and this is where the real work with the director begins.”

Just one heck of a way to say good-bye

There he is, 'NBR's' Paul Kangas, smiling broadly 

By Toni Fitzgerald 
Dec 11, 2009

For three decades, Paul Kangas has loomed large over the national business scene in a figurative sense, and for 15 minutes last month, he did so literally.

On Nov. 24, a seven-story-tall image of Kangas, the soon-to-retire host of PBS's "Nightly Business Report," appeared on the NASDAQ tower in Times Square.

The bespectacled anchor smiled out over Manhattan.

Below his tie, at the bottom of the sign, in all white letters, were the words: "We wish Paul Kangas the best of goodbyes." Below that were the "NBR" and PBS logos. 

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Meet the New Guy - NBR's Tom Hudson Web Chat

Thursday, December 17, 1:00 pm EST

Nightly Business Report is getting a new look and a new co-host in 2010! Tom Hudson will replace legendary anchor Paul Kangas beginning January 4, joining Susie Gharib as co-anchors of the nation's longest running and most-watched daily business program. You can meet Tom here on December 17 to chat about the economy, the latest financial news, and the exciting changes happening at NBR.

Post a Question

Nightly Business Report Anchor Paul Kangas and Founder Linda O’Bryon Receive Lifetime Achievement Awards

EMMY^® WINNERS ANNOUNCED FOR BUSINESS & FINANCIAL REPORTING AND PROMOTIONAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

 

 

New York - December 7, 2009 - The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) today announced the winners of the 7^th Annual Emmy^® Awards for Business & Financial Reporting in a luncheon ceremony at Fordham University in New York City.  Emmy^® Awards for Business & Financial Reporting were presented in eight categories recognizing outstanding achievement in business & financial reporting telecast or webcast from July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009. Winners of two Emmy^® Award categories for promotional announcements were also announced.

 

In addition, the Lifetime Achievement Award in Business & Financial Reporting was presented to Paul Kangas, Anchor and Financial Commentator for PBS’ Nightly Business Report, and Linda O’Bryon, the founder of the pioneering business news broadcast and now Chief Content Officer of Northern California Public Broadcasting.  Presenting the Lifetime Achievement Award to Kangas and O’Bryon were Rodney Ward Executive Editor of Nightly Business Report and Senior Vice President of NBR Enterprises; Steve Forbes, President and Chief Executive Officer of Forbes and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes magazine; and Paula Kerger, President and Chief Executive Officer of PBS.

 

Also among the speakers were Herb Granath, Chairman of the National Academy of TV Arts & Sciences; and Bill Small, Chairman of the News and Documentary Emmy Awards, who presented the awards on behalf of the Academy.

 

A list of winners for the 7^th Annual Emmy Awards for Business & Financial Reporting is also available on the NATAS website, www.emmyonline.tv.

Calling all Florida Keys Military and War Veterans

The Studios of Key West Invites You to Participate in the Combat Paper Project

Free Workshop in Creative Paper-making

Friday 18 December from 10am to 4pm

Historic Key West Armory, Southard & White Streets

 Army field artillery soldier, Drew Cameron returned from serving in Iraq in 2003. Like many veterans, he had to find ways to deal with the experience of war and the lingering anxieties of post-combat life back home. Following his deployment, and 8 months on the ground in Iraq, Cameron began experiencing anger, feelings of withdrawal from society, and depression. Several years later, he met fellow vet and paper artist Drew Matott in Burlington, Vermont, and found a remedy in a new creative process. He had discovered the beginnings of the Combat Paper Project.

“It was a natural progression from being numb, from feeling isolated, from not wanting to talk about the military experiences that I’d had to facing them – to making art about that,” says Cameron. 

Their project, based in a small collective studio in Vermont, soon began connecting with dozens of other soldiers and war veterans around the country. They ask each participant to donate their government issue uniforms, crushing and breaking them down in a large steel vat, and then learn the process of papermaking from those reduced materials. 

Beautiful things and profound statements began to emerge. Air force dress shirts and desert camouflage became new works of art, and part of the Combat Paper Project's Fibers of Reason exhibition, on view at The Studios of Key West from December 10 to January 10. 

PBS’ Nightly Business Report Announces New Co-Anchor, Tom Hudson

 Nightly Business Report is proud to announce that Tom Hudson, co-anchor of the nationally-syndicated First Business program, will join Susie Gharib to co-anchor the nation’s longest running and most-watched daily business program.  Hudson replaces legendary anchor Paul Kangas, who will be receiving a Business Emmy for Lifetime Achievement on December 7.  Already working with the program, Hudson will make his on-air debut Wednesday, December 2.  Hudson’s first appearance as co-anchor will take place Monday, January 4, 2010.  Hudson will report out of NBR’s headquarters at WPBT in Miami.  

 

At the Chicago-based First Business, Hudson played a leading role in steering the show’s editorial direction both on-air and online.  Prior to First Business, Hudson was an anchor for WebFN.com, a news anchor at WMAQ Radio in Chicago, and news director at the Quad Cities Radio Group in Davenport, IA.  Hudson is also deeply involved in business education, as part of the Journalism Department’s adjunct faculty at Columbia College Chicago and as a guest lecturer at the University of Illinois.  Hudson received a B.A. with honors in journalism from the University of Iowa.