Fishko Files

This Monday, the Guggenheim Museum celebrates 60 years since the opening of its arresting Frank Lloyd Wright building on Fifth Avenue. As WNYC's Sara Fishko tells us, the building and New York had much to offer each other.

On October 21 and throughout the rest of the month, the Guggenheim features music, tours, and conversations to commemorate the anniversary.

For decades, Dodsworth has been one of William Wyler's underappreciated films, despite Walter Huston's Oscar-winning performance and the familiarity of the material; it began as a Sinclair Lewis novel and had a life as a Broadway play as well. However - underappreciated no longer!

Dodsworth will be shown at the New York Film Festival tonight, Thursday, October 10, in a "gorgeous" (NYFF's word) restoration screening. Sara Fishko extols the film's many virtues in this Fishko Files. (Originally produced in 2002, revised in 2017).

Filmmaker Shirley Clarke was born October 2, 1919. Her groundbreaking, atmospheric films - "Portrait of Jason," "The Cool World," and "The Connection," among others from the 1950s and '60s - are being shown digitally on the Criterion Channel, and theatrically at Film Forum all this month. (Produced in 2013)

The legendary jazz musician Chet Baker, born in 1929, has long been a subject of fascination for filmmakers, biographers, and musicians. In this archival Fishko Files, WNYC's Sara Fishko considers the mystique around horn players - and Baker in particular.

We're coming up on the birth anniversary of the brilliant Canadian pianist Glenn Gould (1932-1982). It was Gould's strikingly original take on the music of Bach that brought him great acclaim. In this archival piece made for Studio 360, Sara Fishko asked then-current Bach pianists about Gould's influence. (Produced in 2002)

The death on Monday of the photographer Robert Frank sent us back to this short Fishko Files, made from an interview taped at Frank’s Bleecker Street studio in 2009. Called “pivotal” by The New York Times this week's obituary, Frank is widely credited with having changed the direction of photography with his book The Americans, which liberated documentary photographs from a formal and formulaic style. Here, Frank talks about freelancing in New York in the years leading up to his celebrated book. (Produced in 2009)

Soon after the events of September 11, a long-awaited book of jazz photography by the late Roy DeCarava was published and received by a changed world. WNYC's Sara Fishko talked to DeCarava, who died 10 years ago this fall, about the joys and sorrows of the human condition. (Produced for Studio 360 in 2001)

Photographs from DeCarava's book The Sound I Saw are on display at David Zwirner in two exhibitions opening tomorrow, September 5.

Charles Boyer, the movie star from Hollywood's golden age and beyond, was born August 28, 1899. His romantic accent, continental style, and clever use of his own "French-ness" kept him working in American films for decades. More from Sara Fishko in this archival Fishko Files. (Produced in 2008)

In the last gasp of summer, there's still time to catch some outdoor music. In this Fishko Files, a taste of live jazz captured on tape in Germany after WWII, featuring some great American artists - and available on CD, to listen to indoors or out. (Produced in 2013)

This weekend, American composer Philip Glass travels east to perform two programs at East Hampton’s Guild Hall. As WNYC's Sara Fishko tells us in this Fishko Files, Glass’s travel overseas – much further east, to Paris in the ‘60s – was central to his music, as he encountered a pair of powerful influences. (Produced in 2017)

Listen to "An Hour with Philip Glass" here. (Produced in 2006)

Philip Glass: Works for Piano, Programs A and B runs at Guild Hall this Saturday, August 17 and Sunday, August 18. Visit their website for tickets and more information.