News

"The Heavens Laugh, the Earth Rejoices"  is the title of a Bach cantata and of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony's concert of Easter-related Bach, which you can hear on IPR Sunday at noon or Monday at 7 PM. The Brandenburg Concerto no. 1 is preceded by sinfonias from several cantatas (including "The Earth Laughs," BWV 31) and the Easter Oratorio, and by the entirety of the beautiful Cantata 104, "Hear, O Shepherd of Israel" (with the University of Northern Iowa Cantorei and soloists Jeffrey Brich and John Hines). Music Director Jason Weinberger conducts.

Mid-American Energy is planning to invest $1.9 billion in Iowa to add up to about one gigawatt of wind generation, which could power 300-thousand homes. That means more than 600 new wind turbines are expected to be built in Iowa by 2016.  Host Ben Kieffer gets details on the project, and he gets a broader look at wind energy in Iowa with both large- and small-scale turbines. We also talk with an ISU professor a grad student working on designing a different wind turbine tower—one made out of concrete.

Thanks to the drought and various blights and diseases, the term evergreen doesn’t seem very appropriate in Iowa right now.  Today on Talk of Iowa, it’s Horticulture Day.  Host Charity Nebbe sits down with forester Mark Vitosh about the state of evergreens in Iowa. Horticulturist Richard Jauron also joins the conversation to answer your questions.

Ever know someone who talks to plants?

Maybe it was your offbeat neighbor cooing at his gardenias; maybe your grandmother analyzed baseball with her cucumbers. It seems a bit silly, but researchers say farmers should maybe take notice.

In 1982, when Bruce Holbert was a young man, he accidentally shot and killed a friend. Today on River to River, University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate, Bruce Holbert will recount that accidental shooting and how he coped afterward. Holbert’s new novel Lonesome Animals is a western detective story in the vein of True Grit, and he connects it to America's fascination with the gun myth.

Tune in today at 12 noon for the season's first broadcast from the Lyric Opera of Chicago, featuring Verdi's Simon Boccanegra -  "essentially a heartwarming story about a compassionate political leader... who is reunited with his lost daughter...and makes peace with two political enemies" (as the New York Times summarizes the plot). The renowned American baritone Thomas Hampson heads the stellar cast.

How does a new craft brewer stand apart from the pack? A few have hitched their brewery onto the local food bandwagon, sourcing the ingredients that form beer’s DNA straight from the fields around them.

Last year, more than 400 breweries opened nationwide. It shouldn’t surprise that the craft beer industry is growing at a tremendous rate. In some states, like Colorado, there are so many craft breweries they’re starting to blend together.

FABulous songs that I haven't played recently on The Medley

It's the annual recap of the Blues Music Awards given out by The Blues Foundation in Memphis on May 9. We will hear music from the winners in 20 BMA categories including Song of the Year, Band of the Year, and BB King Entertainer of the Year.

Long promised, finally delivered! NO WORDS ALOUD! It's an all instrumental show from the twangy guitar of Duane Eddy, to 60s soul grooves, the Hippie jams and early electronica. Great music, NO words!

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is under fire for a wide-ranging subpoena of phone records at the Associated Press, as part of investigating a national security leak. That, along with continuing investigations of the IRS and the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, has sucked all the air out of Washington for several days. Host Ben Kieffer talks with political analysts Wayne Moyer from Grinnell College and Donna Hoffman from University of Northern Iowa about the scandals and how they're impacting President Obama's second-term agenda.

In the summer of 2000, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright attended a summit with Bill Clinton and Russian president Vladmir Putin. At the time, Russia had invaded Chechnya, amid reports of human rights abuses and violations of international law.

Albright, who had become known for her decorative pins that carried symbolic messages in diplomatic meetings, wore a pin of three monkeys representing the proverb, “See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.”

She says President Clinton was skeptical.

Tune in Thursday at 7 PM as Masaaki Suzuki - one of the world's most renowned Bach interpreters - kicks off the New York Philharmonic's month-long Bach Festival.  The Japanese keyboardist/conductor, one of the few recipients of the Royal College of Music's "Bach Prize," has been recording the complete sacred vocal works, keyboard works, and orchestral works for the prestigious BIS label, to great acclaim. Hear him conduct Bach's Magnificat and motet "Sing to the Lord a New Song" (as well as Felix Mendelssohn's Magnificat and Christus).

Host Ben Kieffer talks with Christopher Merrill, Director of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program.  Merrill has just returned from a month-long trip on behalf of the program that took him to Baghdad and the Kurdish region of Iraq, Abu Dhabi, and Turkey.  He is about to leave for Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan as part of a cultural diplomacy mission for the State Department.

In this show, Kieffer also gets a weather update from the Des Moines National Weather Service about temperature swings and the lack of an Iowa tornadoes for nearly a year.

They excel at swimming, holding their breath and have coats that humans envy. Today on Talk of Iowa, host Charity Nebbe sits down with Iowa State wildlife biologist, Jim Pease, to discuss the mammals of Iowa's wetlands. They talk about river otters, muskrats, beaver and mink, and share some tips on how to spy some of these fascinating swimmers.

A landmark $240 million verdict against a Texas company who employed mentally disabled workers at an Iowa turkey processing plant will be reduced to about $1.6 million because of a law capping their damages. The 32 men faced decades of verbal and physical abuse at work and at home.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Henry's Turkey Service have agreed in legal briefs that each plaintiff can recover $50,000 - compared to the $7.5 million a jury awarded them on May 1st.

Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony – Bach at Easter

Jason Weinberger, music director
UNI Cantorei & John Len Wiles
WCFSO soloists

Join Barney Sherman Tuesday afternoon to hear a strong candidate for "most-inspired recording ever of Schubert's last symphony." Also on the show is a major new recording of Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata and a Trio Sonata by .... it's complicated, but you can hear it at 1 PM.

On Friday, May 17th at 2 PM at Iowa City's downtown Java House, IPR Studio One's Ben Kieffer will host a special hour of "Java Blend" with The Beggarmen.

Lawmakers at the Statehouse have received their final payments, pages and interns have left for summer, but the legislative session continues into May. It’s legislative day today on River to River.

Host Clay Masters discusses two bills still up for discussion: a state online sales tax bill and a bill requiring DNA testing for certain convictions. Masters also takes a look at the day-to-day in the capitol, by talking with statehouse employees that work alongside Iowa’s representatives.

Women have worked in agriculture since agriculture began, but for many years they were limited to supporting roles. Talk of Iowa seeks out women's voices in agriculture, through history and today.  Jenny Barker-Devine, author of "On Behalf of the Family Farm: Iowa Farm Women's Activism since 1945" discusses how the roles of farm women changed during the 20th century.

The University of Iowa will soon begin demolishing its flood-damaged Hancher Auditorium. UI has shut-down the climate control that has been heating and cooling the building during the past five years.

Songwriter, singer and guitarist Jim Dwyer has been active on the San Francisco indie scene since the late 1990's.  For the last half dozen or so years, he has led a band that has gone through many different styles (including lo-fi, experimental and psychedelic) and variations of the name Thee Oh Sees.  Floating Coffin is the 12th release from this very prolific band, which includes Brigid Dawson (vocals, tambourine), Petey Dammit (bass) and Mike Shoun (drums) along with Dwyer.  The new record can best be described as straight-ahead garage rock.

Join us Sunday at noon or Monday at 7 PM as the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra, led by music director Joseph Giunta, performs Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony. Before the performance is a presentation from the "Beyond the Score" series (co-sponsored with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra) taking us into the rich sources of this masterpiece, from Beethoven to ballet to Russian folk song.