ARTSEDGE: The Kitchen Sink

In this selection, Schwartz discusses the influences that Leonard Bernstein had on him, beginning with their collaboration in 1971 on the Mass that opened the Kennedy Center.

In this insightful selection, Schwartz takes you through the genesis, adaptations, and final version of this Wicked hit song.

This excerpt from Cai's Tornado: Explosion Project for the Kennedy Center includes both the dancing boats and the tornado itself.

To get a behind the scenes look at the creation of this event visit The Art of the Explosion at http://www.artsedge.kennedy-center.org/fireworks/index.html

In the early 19th century, the fertile delta of northwest Mississippi gave rise to a thriving cotton industry. As White cotton planters turned profits, Blacks toiling in their fields turned to singing and hollering to lighten their load, pass the time, and communicate with each other. Early Mississippi Delta blues songs reflect Southern Blacks' struggle to cope with racial oppression, illiteracy, and poverty.

As worksongs grew in length and complexity, blues music moved from the fields to juke joints. Musicians like Charley Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson accompanied their harsh, raspy vocals (sometimes spoken rather than sung) with powerful, driving rhythms on the guitar or harmonica.

The Delta blues style continues to be characterized by raw vocalizing and rhythmic intensity. In addition, Delta blues musicians often employ slide techniques, meaning they move a glass or metal tube called a slide along a guitar's strings to change the notes.

Stephen explains how he learned of the book, Wicked by Gregory Maguire, his quest to convert it to a musical and collaboration with librettist, Winne Holzman.

Louisiana-based Cajun music has roots in unaccompanied, narrative ballads brought by European settlers. Sung at weddings and funerals as well as informal parties, these ballads told stories of love and death, humor and nostalgia. Cajun songs, traditionally sung in French, fused narrative balladry, Irish and Anglo-American reels and jigs, and Black and Native American folk traditions.

The earliest instrument that typified Cajun music was the fiddle. In dance halls and house parties called fais-do-dos, two fiddlers performed together-the lead playing melody, the other playing back-up. The powerful accordion sound soon joined the twin fiddles along with percussion inspired by Creole music.

In the 1930s and 1940s, steel guitars, mandolins, and banjos entered the scene, bringing a country-western swing to Cajun music. (This strong country influence differentiates Cajun music from the closely aligned zydeco music.) The Cajun bands of today are incorporating electric guitars and amplified instruments, proving that the Cajun sound is continuing to evolve.

This side by side video shows the story of the turtle and the crane as seen by the audience and behind the screen as the puppeteers bring the story to life.

To learn more about the art of shadow puppets, visit Playing with Shadows at http://www.artsedge.kennedy-center.org/shadowpuppets/artsedge.html.

Stephen Schwartz discusses and performs Chanson, from The Baker's Wife.

Follow behind a parade in New Orleans and you'll still be a part of the show. Whether a parade was organized for a celebration or funeral, honorees and others in the main procession would be followed by a "second line" of participants hoping to get closer to the rhythms of the brass bands. The term "second line" would come to be associated with brass band music and the fancy footwork that accompanies it.

New Orleans has a long tradition of brass bands, dating back to the early 20th century. Consisting mostly of brass instruments like trumpets and trombones and percussion, brass bands played a blend of European military band music, African folk music, and jazz.

The brass band tradition experienced a revival in the 1970s and 1980s when bands like the Rebirth Brass Band and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band laced traditional sounds with funk, hip hop, bebop, and R and B.

Collections Manager Christa Deacy-Quinn of the Spurlock Museum at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana explains the steps that must be taken when handling valuable artifacts.

The Terra Cotta Warriors are a collection of 8,000 statues that were buried over 2,000 years ago in the tomb of China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang. Three of the statues - two soldiers and a horse - were sent to the Kennedy Center for display during the Festival of China.

To learn more about the Spurlock Museum visit their web site http://www.spurlock.uiuc.edu/