2007: Peter Leonhard Braun

Peter Leonhard Braun is a widely esteemed radio producer, writer, teacher and mentor who developed the European "radio feature" as a distinct form, and by doing so influenced generations of radio producers around the globe. His groundbreaking work “Bells in Europe” has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Before Braun’s legendary productions, audio documentaries were trapped within the confines of the studio, with a narrator telling listeners about an event.  In the mid-1960’s Braun took radiomaking out of the studio and into the world. In 2004, he reminisced about those days: “My God what a liberation! We no longer wrote about a subject, we recorded the subject itself.  We were acoustic cameras, shooting our sound material in the wild.”

From 1974 through 1994, Braun lead in the Sender Freies Berlin (SFB) the largest documentary department in Germany. Producers around the world traveled there to learn from him, and he traveled far and wide to teach them. In 1974 Braun organized the International Features Conference which still convenes annually. He has been deeply involved with the international media competitions Prix Futura Berlin and the Prix Europa, and is currently treasurer and head of the radio division of the Prix Europa.

2006: Piers Plowright

Piers Plowright is an internationally respected producer who created radio dramas, documentaries and features for the BBC from 1967-1997. His work reinvented British radio by opening its doors to impressionistic, poetic and heartfelt styles of storytelling. His productions have won many prestigious radio awards including three Prix Italias and several Sony awards. Now almost seventy, Plowright continues to teach his craft and to produce work independently.

Plowright’s lasting contribution to radio was best described by BBC documentary editor Robert Ketteridge, who said, “In film, the British have Mike Leigh, Ken Loach and Peter Greenaway. In literature and drama, Salman Rushdie and Harold Pinter. And in radio, we have Piers Plowright.” He’s also been called the “Joseph Campbell of radio” and a “realist-magician” by Matt Thompson, a colleague from the BBC.

Hear and excerpt from one of Plowright's most acclaimed productions, and an interview from 2003:

2005: Norman Corwin

Lauded as the “poet laureate of radio,” Norman Corwin is widely credited with creating some of the most important radio programs of the mid-twentieth century.  Some of Corwin’s most recognized works include We Hold These Truths (1941), marking the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights, and On A Note of Triumph (1945), celebrating the conclusion of World War II in Europe, a program Carl Sandberg called “one of the all-time great American poems.”

Describing Corwin’s influence, Ray Bradbury writes, “he taught us then not only how to open our mouths but how to insert bright pebbles beneath our tongues so that eventually we might fire forth a sentence not only worth listening to but thinking about. ” 

Corwin has garnered every major American award for his work and in 1993 was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. He’s also the author of 17 books, five stage plays, and numerous movie and TV works. Just as importantly, he has been a role model and an inspiration to many generations of radio reporters and producers.  Independent producer Marybeth Kirchner, a young colleague and friend of Corwins’, calls him “a brilliant, engaging personality, the rule by which the rest of us measure our work.”

Read more about and listen to famous works by Norman Corwin at his site.

Among his other achievements, Steve Wadhams is one of the original producers of CBC Sunday Morning and a co-founder of Radio's EAR (Experimental Audio Room) located in the CBC’s Toronto Broadcasting Centre. Wadhams has earned worldwide respect as an innovative thinker, continually interested in expanding the boundaries of storytelling. CBC producer Neil Sandell writes, “One of the hallmarks of Steve’s career is his willingness to take risks and reinvent himself... and a desire to push the creative envelope.” 

Wadhams’ career has been highlighted not only by the radio he has produced, but also by his significant role as a teacher and mentor. Colleague Havoc Franklin writes “what makes Wadhams’ contributions to radio so special is not only his long list of award winning productions, but his commitment and generosity of sharing those skills and passing them on.” 

Wadhams iscurrently a senior producer with the CBC's award-winning program Outfront, a daily forum that gives Canadians the opportunity to tell their stories in a variety of styles, from dramatic monologue to experimental documentary.