This hour: a visit to one of the most remote islands on earth, a woman who sings with crickets, a return to Zagreb, and more. (more)

Everyone knows the riddle: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? And the answer: Practice, practice, practice. But what if you practice, practice, practice, and still don't get there? (more)

The sounds of Turkish pop star Tarkan melds with possibly the most annoying roommate ever. (more)

It was the closest thing to Muzak in Russia. This is the story of the rise, fall, and sudden resurgence of the music that dominated television and radio airwaves and whose spacey sounds made it the favorite of the USSR's cosmonauts. (more)

American schools teach students that with hard work, they can realize their dreams. But this isn't the case for everyone. (more)

This hour: Jazz and the struggle for civil rights in South Africa and the U.S. (more)

I said this is NUTS, and he agreed. (more)

A musician, a living legend, attracts pilgrims, then gives them trouble. (more)

The grandeur and power of Wagner’s monumental work, The Ring Cycle, has permeated our culture to the point that “Wagnerian” is used as an adjective. (more)

The non-fiction scattered story of Devin Hildebrand's family Christmas '95, when his sister received a real kitten, Jodi, just like she wanted, among other things. (more)

When up and coming pop singer Alison Scott loses the chance to open for Bon Jovi, there’s only one person who can help. (more)

This hour: music, memory, lost love, and John Denver. (more)

Mucho Corazon tells the story of Leon Perlee, who builds and restores antique street organs in Holland’s oldest surviving street organ business, and Milades Sosa, who works at a Cuban organ factory. (more)

Beyond being atmospheric and scene setting, music can play an active role in audio pieces. David Greenberger has worked with a wide range of musicians and composers for his radio monologues, which are adapted from conversations he has with the elderly. (more)

Ben Zimmerman ran The Books' samples through a sequenced Peavey Pro-Fex, created the track in Ableton, mastered it, ran it through several custom dynamic pitch and time-scaling effects (a different program for each submission) and mastered it again. (more)

This hour: the Rockettes, the opera, congress, and other spectacles. (more)

Our Day Will Come explores the impact of R&B on America's civil rights movement, as well as the influence of the movement on popular music. (more)

Composer Mark Applebaum describes the creative process he uses when inventing new instruments. He calls one of them "The Mouse Trap." (more)

This hour: the BBC's groundbreaking Radio Ballads, produced between 1958 and 1964, which wove sounds, voices, and music into dense sonic tapestries that explored everything from the lives of coal miners to the lives of teenagers, focusing mainly on communities that weren't often heard from on the radio. (more)

Antoinette Jacobson, a sculptor from Norwich, VT, demonstrates her "pyrophone" (fire organ) on a chilly October night on the quad at Colby-Sawyer College in New London NH. (more)