Radio host and producer Ira Glass kicks off this fall’s Sun Valley Center for the Arts Lecture Series with his unique brand of laid back storytelling on Saturday evening, September 25 at the Community Campus in Hailey.
With his nasal voice and quirky point of view, Glass upends the traditional image of an all-knowing baritone radio broadcaster (it comes as no surprise that Glass was an early supporter of comedian David Sedaris, with whom he shares a certain vocal quality and sense of irony). Each week on his amazingly successful radio show, This American Life, Glass presents mostly true stories of everyday people centered around a different theme each time. Popular episodes have examined summer camp, babies who were switched at birth, what it’s like to attend America’s top party school and two days in the life of a rest stop on the New York State Thruway.
“The stories Glass chooses remind me how important, curious and funny daily life can be,” says Britt Udesen, The Center’s Director of Education & Humanities. “The show has also taught me a great deal about important national events and crises by making them human and comprehensible. While he is best known for presenting quirky shows, the most memorable shows for me have been about Katrina, the economy and the war in Iraq.”
Glass started in public radio in 1978 as an intern at National Public Radio’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Over the next 17 years, he worked on nearly every NPR news show and did nearly every production job: tape-cutter, desk assistant, newscast writer, editor, producer, reporter and substitute host.
In 1995, Glass premiered This American Life on station WBEZ in Chicago. The program was quickly picked up for national distribution by Public Radio International and today is heard on 500 radio stations by about 1.7 million listeners each week. It is often the most popular podcast in America (www.thisamericanlife.org/podcast), with more than half a million people downloading each episode. Under Glass’s direction, the show has won the highest honors of broadcasting and journalistic excellence, including several Peabody and duPont-Columbia awards.
“Glass and crew have won our loyalty via a certain alchemy of subject, point of view and tone that can turn the mundane into the magnetic,” James Rainey wrote in the Los Angeles Times when Ira Glass appeared on stage there earlier this year. In person, Glass is every bit as witty and warm as he is as a disembodied radio voice, as he details the process of putting together a radio program, plays clips and tells the stories behind the stories (including some that can’t be told on air).
Glass’s appearance is the first in the Sun Valley Center for the Arts 2010–2011 Lecture Series, which brings provocative and important speakers to the Wood River Valley. The rest of the lectures in the series are: water advocate Maude Barlow on Nov. 4; Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium, on Nov. 17; award-winning investigative journalist Eric Schlosser on Feb. 24; and Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for President George W. Bush, on Mar. 10.
Series tickets are $120 for Sun Valley Center for the Arts members and $170 for non-members. The Center is also offering a special Editor’s Series Ticket for $500, which helps defray the cost of the series and includes preferred seating for all five lectures, plus an invitation to a private reception with Ira Glass and more.
Individual tickets for the Ira Glass lecture are $25 for Sun Valley Center for the Arts members and $35 for nonmembers. The talk will be held on Saturday, September 25, at 6:30 pm (note all lectures this season will start at this time in response to community preference) in the Community Campus auditorium in Hailey.
Tickets are on sale now to members and will be available to non-members on September 15. To purchase series or individual tickets for Ira Glass or any other lecture, visit www.sunvalleycenter.org, call 208.726.9491 ex 10 or stop by The Center in Ketchum.
If you aren’t a member of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, please consider joining now. In addition to the opportunity to buy tickets at a discount, you’ll support year-round arts programs for everyone in our community.
The Center lecture series is sponsored in part by the Castellano-Wood family. Media sponsor for Ira Glass is Boise State Public Radio.
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