photo by constantine  abatzidis

Hearing Voices from NPR®:
016 Bugs and Birds— For Summer Solstice
Host— Jeff Rice of Western Soundscape Archive
Airdates— 6/18/2008 - 6/25/2008

Jeff Rice of the Western Soundscape Archive hosts an hour of sounds for the start of Summer: an extinct woodpecker revives an Arkansas town, car alarms made from bird calls, breeding moths for their music, a morning walk with poet Jim Harrison, dancing with gnats, the seismic underground sounds of spiders, and the perspective of a pest controller. Stories by Long Haul Productions, M’Iou Zahner Ollswang, host Jeff Rice, and Scott Carrier; and recordings by Nina Katchadourian, Lang Elliot, and Dr. Rex Cocroft.

Produced with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Bugs and Birds (53:00 mp3):

Here’s a description:

Hearing Voices from NPR® is now a new weekly hour radio series, a sixty-minute stream of “driveway moments” all connected by a theme. One week we’re with Rock Fans, another in Retirement Homes; one hour wags some Dog Tales, the next we’re telling Desert Stories.

Each week a Guest Host steers the show home. With fine-tuning by a Peabody Award-winning production pit crew, Hearing Voices takes listeners for wild weekly radio rides; a weekly one-hour program of contemporary and classic storytelling by established and emerging public radio producers.

Hearing Voices hosts and producers listen to broadcasts and podcasts, dig through audio archives, and wade thru the web to bring you the best stories, sound-portraits, slam poets, docs, radio dramas, features, and found-sound. The Hearing Voices production staff includes veteran producers Barrett Golding, Ann Hepperman, Scott Carrier, Kara Oehler, and Larry Massett. Among our past hosts: Sarah Vowell, Andrei Codrescu, Katie Davis, and Jay Allison.

In 1968, the United States seemed on the verge of a nervous breakdown — assassinations, riots, protests and war were tearing at the fabric of our society. It was a year that would shape the course of a nation for decades to come. This series uses 1968 as a lens through which to view our own era. By looking back, we see how far we’ve come and also where we’ve fallen short.

Hear the stories by visiting Weekend America.

Photo by Yuni Rere

The Berlin Philharmonic is made up of virtuoso players from around the world; in this segment of Berlin Without Walls, we hear from the instrumentalists themselves, as they describe their experiences from the initial audition to performing with one of the world’s great orchestras.

Photo by Yuni Rere

In describing the rich sonic color of the Berlin Philharmonic, conductor Simon Rattle says that it “comes from the center of the Earth.” We deconstruct the orchestra section by section, and then put it all back together again to hear just how they make that incredible sound.

We view the Berlin Philharmonic within the context of Nazi Germany, through the story of Jewish violinist Hellmut Stern. Stern, who fled Germany at the start of the war, returned to his homeland afterwards to join the Philharmonic — under former Nazi party member Herbert von Karajan.

Photo by Evan Chakroff

Furtwängler; von Karajan; Celibidache; Abbado — and the list goes on. These are just some of the forceful personalities that have led the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra during its long and storied history. We examine how each maestro brought his own particular style to bear on the ensemble, and how the Philharmonic always managed to maintain its own separate identity in spite of the man on the podium.

To the world, he’s known as Sir Simon Rattle. To the Berlin public, he’s considered a real “Mench.” If you ask the conductor himself, he’d prefer to be known as “just Simon.” We go behind the scenes with the Berlin Philharmonic’s music director, and hear from his friends and colleagues just what makes this particular maestro so well-respected and loved.

As of a month ago, a few more than 1,100 Iraqis had resettled in the United States since last year. The government hoped to have that number at 7,000, but blames the shortfall on an archaic bureaucratic process. The Augustin family are refugees from Iraq and feel lucky that they were among the chosen few. They had to flee Iraq because of their religious beliefs, and now they live in Detroit, Mich. As part of the Weekend America series “One Thing,” producers Ann Heppermann and Kara Oehler talk with the Augustins about the one thing they managed to hold on to as they fled Iraq: their home movies.

This year, the United States re-settled nearly 7,000 refugees from Somalia, the most of any African nation. Like many minority Somali Bantu, Omar Abdirahaman and his family fled to Kenya after being targeted by militia groups in Somalia. Omar, his wife and children spent 15 years in the refugee camp, and finally made it abroad in 2004. Like most Somali Bantus in Portland, Ore., Omar works at a fish factory in town. But on weekends, especially in the morning, he sings and plays traditional guitar and drums. That’s the one thing Omar brought with him, his music.

Abdiasis Mohamed: My name is Abdiasis Mohamed , I am one of the Somali Bantu community.

Women: Morning! Morning to you! Morning!

Abdiasis Mohamed: What we gonna show you today is mainly what is the Somali Bantu culture and what it’s based on. We usually sing together and come up with songs. Most of the Bantu songs, they come under situations. These kind of situations were like, when the civil war started in Somali, from 1991-92, when the civil war broke out in Somali. That’s when the song started.

Omar Abdirahaman: In 1992, the war break down in the Somali country. That war affected all the country, but especially, our community — Somali Bantu. In Somalia, there is a group called Somalia who are holding the power, and there is other small-small group like me. I am Somali Bantu. We are just people who are farming, people they go to farm in the morning and they come home in the evening. Just do some guitar, some song, drumming, play music.

Abdiasis Mohamed: The Bantus are the major farmer that grow all the stuff for the government. So the government will come use force - take whatever you grow by force and you can’t say anything.

Omar Abdirahaman: Our people the Somali Bantu was discriminated. So that’s why when the war break down, we doesn’t have any minister, any political person. So the whole system of our community was break down. My father was killed in front of me. Someone come to our home with a gun and shoot our dad. The next morning one of my neighbors, he was shot and killed. We walked 12 days. I didn’t bring anything because I couldn’t carry anything. Everything I have, I just left it.

Abdiasis Mohamed: These kind of songs are mainly based on the running away from home to the refugee camps. So you’re just running from Somali to Kenya for refugee. you’re running away. you’re escaping for your life. It’s kind of running and singing. You don’t know where to go. That’s how the song came over.

Omar Abdirahaman: We spent there almost 15 years in the refugee camp. Even in Kenya, there is no full peace. In the refugee camp, in Kenya even, one day what happened is, my wife goes some places to look for food. There is people who have a gun, they are walking around in the evening. One day my wife go out from the refugee camp, she has been raped and then beaten. The left side was broken and up to now, she’s not feeling well, that left side. In the refugee camp, we have a big board, with the name of the refugee families printed out. And every single week, they put on the board the names of the refugee and then what’s the plan. So I saw my name and all my family. It said that Abdirahaman, your case has been approved by the United States and you will be resettled in the United States. That is the day I start breathing even.

Abdiasis Mohamed: Actually we have a wedding party for two community members from our Somali Bantu Community. They’re gonna celebrate. Eat food, dance. Music, drum, and everything. We are here now, people go to school. Kiddies go to school.

Girls: I’m from Somalia. I’m from Somalia, too. We’re the same. We’re sisters. We have, like same grandma and grandpa.

Abdiasis Mohamed: It’s kind of a dream come true. And we’ve been waiting for a long here.

Omar Abdirahaman: Now I am in the United States and my life already changed, my kiddies changes, I get a job and the kiddies go to school, they already speaking English. But I don’t want them to forget the American culture or our culture too, so when I have the time, I just volunteer myself to call some of the kiddies to show them how to play guitar and our cultural dances and then drums. We are still thinking people that we left behind in the Africa refugee camp. The people are still there.

Woman: My name is Gedi Abdi. Mainly, I am alone here, my kiddies — one is in Nairobi and one is Somalia back home, and there’s no chances for me to bring them over here.

Abdiasis Mohamed: We sing this song for the struggle of freedom. May God give us our freedom. So we not going to leave any kiddies behind, ladies men women, youth, elderly people even. We’re not going to leave anyone behind until we all die or get our we get our freedom back. Anywhere you go, show that this is our culture and it can be known so that we are people that are known that we are here.