In part two of our interview, Cornelia Laemmli Orth, Music Director and Conductor of Symphony of the Mountains, discusses how musical selections are chosen and how the symphony reaches out to involve the region in its offerings.

Our guest is Cornelia Laemmli Orth. A native of Switzerland, she is Music Director and Conductor of Symphony of the Mountains, headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee.

We rebroadcast our 2024 interview with Autumn Lockwood. On February 9, 2025, she became the first African American woman to coach on the winning side in the Super Bowl, as the Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22. Autumn is Associate Performance Coach for the Eagles.

Our guest is Renee Montagne, who has co-hosted “All Things Considered” and “Morning Edition” on NPR, in addition to reporting from all over the world. She is retiring after 40 years in the business. We talk with her about her career and about one story in particular that touched her deeply.

We explore the music and culture of the nomadic group known as the Scottish Travellers through a new CD released by East Tennessee State University. The CD features field recordings made in the 1990s by Dr. Thomas G. Burton, ETSU Professor Emeritus of English.

On the fourth anniversary of her passing, we rebroadcast our interview with Colleen Trenwith, about her career as a bluegrass fiddle player and teacher in her home country of New Zealand and in the United States, on the campus of East Tennessee State University.

We look at the religious life of the late President Jimmy Carter, through the recollections of his close friend Jan Williams. When President Carter taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, it was Jan Williams who coordinated all the logistics. She had been the fourth-grade teacher of Amy Carter, the youngest child of President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn.

Missy Jones has a new cookbook out, published in late 2024. This is a rebroadcast of our earlier interview with her about the foodways of Eastern Kentucky, where she was raised.

We visit with World War II historian Dr. Colin Baxter, Professor Emeritus of History at East Tennessee State University. He talks about the explosive RDX and its production in Kingsport, Tennessee, and Hawkins County, Tennessee, in the 1940s.

In this special Kwanzaa edition of “Vital Voices,” Helen and Paul Okpokowuruk, originally from Nigeria, talk about their entrepreneurial activities in East Tennessee. Their company produces Royal Red Stew at the Mountain Harvest Kitchen in Unicoi, Tennessee.