Impromp2, The Community Blog

WPBT2's Clifford The Big Red Dog is Grand Marshall of the Junior Orange Bowl Parade

The Junior Orange Bowl Parade is coming to town on Saturday, January 2, 2010, 6:00 p.m. to the streets of downtown Coral Gables. WPBT2’s Clifford the Big Red Dog is this year’s Grand Marshall.  This signature event will have hundreds of children and their families take to the streets of Downtown Coral Gables in celebration of youth and community.  The parade is a 61-year tradition in South Florida created especially for the kids- and perfect for families.  The parade features vivid arrangement of marching bands, colorful floats, community groups and of the Grand Marshall, Clifford The Big Red Dog!  The Junior Orange Bowl Parade is a dazzling spectacle that is not to be missed!  For parade information, please visit www.jrorangebowl.com

Patti Smith: Dream of Life Presents Evocative Portrait of the Legendary Rocker

Shot over 11 years by acclaimed fashion photographer Steven Sebring, Patti Smith: Dream of Life is a remarkable plunge into the life, art, memories and philosophical reflections of the legendary rocker, poet and artist. The two-hour film has its premiere in a P.O.V. special presentation on Wednesday, December 30^th,  9 p.m. on WPBT2.

Sometimes dubbed the “godmother of punk” — a designation justified by clips of her early rage-fueled performances — Smith was much more than that when she broke through with her 1975 debut album, Horses. A poet and visual artist as well as a rocker, she befriended and collaborated with some of the brightest lights of the American counterculture, an often testosterone-driven scene to which she brought a swagger and fierceness all her own.

Patti Smith: Dream of Life, winner of a 2008 Sundance Film Festival Award for Excellence in Cinematography, is a riveting, intimate telling of Smith’s long, strange trip. She may not be the only middle-class Jersey girl to have made the leap to New York City in pursuit of artistic dreams, but she may be the only one to have emerged — and survived — as a multifaceted poet, artist and rock star.

Through performance footage, interviews, poems, paintings, photographs and Smith’s voice-over reminiscences, Dream of Life. reveals a complicated, charismatic personality wrestling with the paradoxes of being an artist in America and of being a woman in a male-dominated music scene. Smith also wrestles with the tragedies — the deaths of her husband and brother — that brought her back to New York and to performing. In telling Smith’s story, Sebring plumbs the history of several important cultural movements. Smith’s collaborations and close friendships with poets William Burroughs, Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and musicians Bob Dylan and Michael Stipe reveal the links that make her a bridge between the Beats, the punk movement and musicians of today. 

 

The colorful moments in “Dream of Life” are plenty: Smith as an angelic street urchin, reciting “A Prayer for New York” in footage from 1975; a jam session with her 1970s collaborator, playwright Sam Shepard; Smith reading an Allen Ginsberg poem at Ginsberg’s funeral; and Smith hanging out on the beach with Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

THIS EMOTIONAL LIFE coming in January

Just in time for the New Year, THIS EMOTIONAL LIFE gives insight into how we relate, cope and become more positive human beings.

Monday-Wednesday, January 4-6, 2010, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET

This three-part series explores ways to improve social relationships, learn to cope with depression and anxiety and become more positive, resilient individuals. The series host, Harvard psychologist and best-selling author of Stumbling on Happiness, Professor Daniel Gilbert, talks with experts about the latest science on what makes us “tick” and how we can find support for the emotional issues we all face. Each episode weaves the compelling personal stories of ordinary people and the latest scientific research, along with revealing comments from celebrities such as Chevy Chase, Larry David, Alanis Morissette, Robert Kennedy Jr. and Richard Gere. 

Watch a preview

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. 

Continue here

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.

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