Mormon Arts Center's Studio Podcast

The publication of Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader is a landmark event, the first comprehensive critical examination of Mormon Art. In this interview, co-editors Mason Kamana Allred and Amanda Beardsley introduce the chapters with insights into the reasons why each is indispensable. Then, the authors of this 664-page book from Oxford University Press submitted questions for the podcast about the making of the book and what lies ahead in art and objects by LDS people. Part 2 of 2 historic interviews.Support the show

The publication of Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader is a landmark event, the first comprehensive critical examination of Mormon Art. In this interview, co-editors Mason Kamana Allred and Amanda Beardsley introduce the chapters with insights into the reasons why each is indispensable. Then, the authors of this 664-page book from Oxford University Press submitted questions for the podcast about the making of the book and what lies ahead in art and objects by LDS people. Part 1 of 2 historic interviews.Support the show

The young nonprofit organization, Inspired Arts League, is the focus of this interview with its founder Brittany Scott and executive producer Ellen Wheeler. It’s a fascinating model: invite global artists who are already accomplished to be members and give them as a group, through workshops and collaboration, tools to more effectively tell stories and inspire hope in the world through art. Scott and Wheeler announce their inaugural exhibition October 14-25, 2024 at the venerable Salmagundi Club in New York City.Support the show

In this interview with Rachel Helps, Wikipedian-in-Residence at the BYU Library, researcher and author Helps explains her work refining, creating, correcting, and researching Wikipedia pages that relate to the unrivaled collection of Mormon Studies volumes at the Harold B Lee Library at Brigham Young University. The conversation includes interesting finds and experiences covering eight years of work and hundreds of articles. Helps also mentions her interactive fiction projects.Support the show

Brett Peterson is Director, Exhibition Media and Interactives at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, which is at the forefront of engaging audiences and making exhibitions memorable by the creation of accompanying original, responsive digital media. In this episode Peterson describes the shifting expectation of visitors regarding technology. He tries  to find new ways to evoke emotions and heighten works on display, including magical digital and physical pairings. He asks, "How can I add meaningfully to what people already love about museums?" and "How can you make the visitor feel like it is for them?" The interview ends with Peterson's predictions how fine art museums and other related public institutions will embrace interactivity for richer and more personalized experiences. Support the show

Artist Collin Bradford makes video, sound, photography, sculpture, and other media. In this interview, the incoming art department chair at Brigham Young University discusses his work, how art speaks directly to the brain through the senses, and his work as a reflection of concerns about the future. His video installation, A Burning Hope (2021) is part of the museum exhibition, Materializing Mormonism: Trajectories in Contemporary Latter-day Saint Art, organized by the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, which is at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, and the artist describes the making of the video and potential interpretations of it.  Finally, Bradford discusses the future and how students embody a new sensibility of sincerity and intensity in their art making.Support the show

This episode with composer S. Andrew Lloyd celebrates the world premiere of his song cycle, Amaranthine, which was written for and performed by international opera star Rachel Willis-Sørensen at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, April 9, 2024. The composer discusses how he came to write the prize-winning work and his emotional response to hearing it for the first time. Amaranthine is the first composition to appear from The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, a prize Lloyd won in 2022.Musical excerpt performed by S. Andrew LloydSupport the show

The winner of the 2024 Prize of The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts is Mia Black. In this interview, Black introduces herself and her winning project, which will be a collection of American Folk Music aimed at elementary school-age classrooms. The breakthrough idea here is Black's plan to organize the collection using waves of immigrants and their songs to tell the story of what people brought with them, including their music, to their new homes in the United States.Music for this episode is "Old Joe Clark," from the Library of Congress, American Jukebox, recorded at the Reed family home, Glen Lyn, Giles County, Virginia, August 27, 1966.Support the show

Brad Pelo, President and Executive Producer of The Chosen discusses the series' global ambition to provide all episodes in 600 languages. The vast challenges of dubbing and subtitling the series about Jesus while maintaining the writer's unique contemporary dialogue and tone are discussed in this interview alongside the powerful experiences Pelo has witnessed riding the wave of this one-of-a-kind tv series.Music for this episode: Ave Maria (Bach-Gounod) sung by Jamie PetersonSupport the show

Many arts audiences go to performances and exhibitions without thinking much about the institutional leadership that makes these events possible. In this episode, Richard Bushman, chairman of the board of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts and Mykal Urbina, the Center's executive director, announce a chairman-elect, Stanley Hainsworth. The trio talk about their favorite art forms and programs of the Center they love, and they invite people to become friends by participating in its activities.Support the show

In preparation for the 2024 Prize of The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts that will sponsor a new music program, singer and music education Jamie Peterson and intellectual property attorney Patrick Perkins discuss with passion the urgency for more music education in public schools. With the deadline for submissions fast approaching for submissions of new music ideas for the classroom (January 15, 2024), the pair talk about their own experiences with music in school and highlight extraordinary programs of music education in the U.S. today.Music for this episode, "Rejoice Greatly," sung by Jamie PetersonSupport the show

This show-and-tell episode features Erin Eastmond and Glen Nelson discussing holiday gift ideas by LDS creatives that are featured in the Center's Christmas Gift Guide. They include children's books, music, art, religious books, scholarly works, food, poetry, family activities, and a few items offered as benefit art works for the Center. Erin and Glen read excepts from the books and talk about how these items might be the perfect packages under your Christmas tree.Support the show

In this episode, the Center celebrates with composer Steven L. Ricks the upcoming premiere of his multimedia chamber opera, Baucis and Philemon (BAH-sis and Phi-LEE-mon), which was commissioned by the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts in 2019. The story comes from Ovid's Metamorphosis. It is a fable about a couple who ask the gods to be turned into trees at the bank of a lake after their death. Ricks discusses how the opera came to be written and the team behind it all.Musical rehearsal excerpts are by Steven L. Ricks (music) and Stephen Tuttle (libretto).Support the show

Robert Raleigh and Andrew Hall, the two editors of the book, The Path and the Gate: Mormon Short Fiction, gather to talk about the process of creating a new collection of fiction in this panel discussion that also includes Jennifer Quist, one of the book's authors and the fiction editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. The chat includes observations about the evolution of the Mormon literary landscape, the role of editors as gatekeepers, and readings of three excerpts. The collection of 23 stories is to be published by Signature Books October 16, 2023. Music for the episode is by Robert Cundick, Recessional.Support the show

Three authors from the new collection, The Path and the Gate: Mormon Short Fiction, gather to talk about their stories, lives, and works in this lively panel discussion. The authors are Todd Robert Peterson, Ryan McIlvain, and Heidi Naylor. All three authors are also university teachers, and a question about responses to each other's stories turns into an impromptu literary critics' circle--full of admiration, insight, and reactions to reading each other's works. The collection of 23 stories is to be published by Signature Books October 16, 2023. Finally, the trio talk about the value of many voices representing a community.Music for the episode is by Robert Cundick, Recessional.Support the show

Emerging painter Madeline Rupard discusses her paintings of the American landscape that include truck stops, gas stations, fast food, and stores that connect the suburban and the sublime. In atmospheric works that recall the stylistic approach of the Ashcan painters Henri, Sloan, Glackens, and Shinn of the turn of the 20th century, Rupard finds kinship with them and additional resonance of paintings inside Latter-day Saint church buildings, particularly the mix of religious paintings amid mundane decor. Support the show

Historian and author Claudia Lauper Bushman discusses in this episode the writing of her autobiography in progress, I, Claudia, and the value of keeping records. In her frequent letters to family, Wellesley College newsletters, and her own daily journaling, she celebrates written communications, the foundation of civilization. She is joined in the discussion about undertaking projects grand and modest by guest co-host Frances LaBianca, a student of Communications and Public Relations at the University of Arizona, who is also Claudia's granddaughter.Music for the episode is sung by Claudia Lauper Bushman.Support the show

The Dominican Jazz Project is a group of elite Caribbean musical artists whose band leader is Stephen Anderson, Professor of Composition and Jazz Studies at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. In this interview, Anderson reminisces about his tender relationship with the musicians of the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, their much decorated recordings and performances, and the joy in creating an interplay of traditional rhythms and modern jazz. Musical excerpts for the interview are from The Dominican Jazz Project's latest CD, Desde Lejos (2021), used with permission.Support the show

It was a dark and stormy night.... Barrett Burgin discusses his first feature film, Cryo, and then makes compelling connections between LDS lore, history, and belief within the context of the genre of horror films and fiction. Mormon Horror is a trending thing--LDS artists are increasingly drawn to explore elements of horror in their work. Support the show

Pianist, BYU associate professor, scholar, and social advocate Jihea Hong-Park speaks about her experience as a Korean American female pianist of faith and how anti-racism efforts extend into the world of classical music. Music for the episode is by Steven Ricks, including an excerpt from the premiere performance of Overlapping Voices with Jihea Hong Park at the piano.Support the show