Passover Dreams (11:05)

We subtitled this program “The Seder at the End of the Universe”, and you’ll get a clue why from this excerpt – the first eleven minutes of Passover Dreams. What a treat to work with Theo Bikel, who’s records I used to listen to as a kid. Listen for the voice of academy award winner Melissa Leo playing Aunt Sonya.

The sounds of the opening banter are real – a rare recording of the Metzner clan in Pesach mode, minus such questions as “Why is this microphone in the horseradish?”

Passover Dreams Promo (1:00)

Here’s a sixty second promo for Passover Dreams which aired on PRI, Public Radio International.

Click here to find out more about Passover Dreams.

Poppa (14:25)

Poppa was broadcast on All Things Considered on Father’s Day, 1988. It’s a portrait of my grandfather, Isodore Silverman, who lived with my family when I was growing up. Right out of high school, I interviewed Poppa on my tape recorder – a hand-me-down reel-to-reel Sony. Those tapes languished in a cigar box almost twenty years, until I used them to create this portrait, mixed together with interviews from my family. The end of the program is a song about Poppa that features a haunting violin solo by Scarlet Rivera – the violinist heard on Bob Dylan’s song “Hurricane.” Poppa generated a great deal of listener mail – “driveway moments”, and received several broadcasting honors.