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Carrie Newcomer and Parker Palmer on stage. Image courtesy Newcomer and Palmer.
Bridges Made of Music
May 07, 2020
How can music bring out our better selves? How can music forge connections between people in the same room -- and across worlds? Originally aired on July 18, 2019.
Carrie Newcomer and Parker Palmer on stage. Image courtesy Newcomer and Palmer.
The Growing Edge May 07, 2020
Folksinger Carrie Newcomer and best-selling author Parker Palmer explain why they founded “The Growing Edge,” a project that aims to help people become their better selves and to work toward the common good. With their music, books, poetry, online conversations, and in-person gatherings, Newcomer and Palmer invite audiences to live out their ideals concretely. Music, they say, is one of the most powerful tools we have to challenge ourselves and connect with others. Folk songs can help gird us for this tough work, Carrie says. And she explains why “kumbaya” is a serious idea and piece of music too often dismissed as naively optimistic.
 
Carrie Newcomer is a folk singer and recently a new album, Point of Arrival
 
Parker Palmer is a writer and teacher whose newest book is On The Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity & Getting Old
 
Newcomer and Palmer together founded The Growing Edge.
Riyaaz Qawwali. Image courtesy Riyaaz Qawwali.
Qawwali: An Islamic Musical Tradition Reaches New Audiences May 07, 2020
Sonny, who leads a Texas-based qawwali group, prefers to use his first name only because he wants audiences to focus on the music, not his religious affiliation. He explains that qawwali began in South Asia more than 700 years ago and is rooted in the poetry of Sufism, a mystical approach to Islam. Sonny’s band, however, Riyaaz Qawwali, draws on many South Asian traditions and languages in its lyrics and rhythms. The band’s fan base is growing increasingly diverse, with many saying they don’t need to understand the words to appreciate what Sonny calls “South Asian gospel music.”
 
Sonny, artistic director of Riyaaz Qawwali