258. Shain Shapiro with Greg Scruggs: How Music Builds Cities
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Release Date: 05/22/2024
261. Becky Selengut with Bethany Jean Clement: Misunderstood Vegetables
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Go from “what the heck is this” to “how does it taste so good” in a celebration of misfit vegetables. Maybe you just discovered celery root (a lumpy, softball-sized bulb), at the grocery store. Or perhaps you received watermelon radishes in a CSA package. Did a parsnip catch your eye at the farmers’ market? Even vegetables you think you know, like cabbage or brussels sprouts, will reveal next-level flavor with the right recipe. Becky Selengut has made it her mission to take less popular — or even outright scorned vegetables like beets and okra — and cook them into irresistible...
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260. Scratch Night 2024 with Maia Brown and Brivele
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Town Hall's 2024 Scratch Night featuring the work-in-progress of our Artist-in-Residence Maia Brown In collaboration with bandmate, Stefanie Brendler, Maia crafts an intimate evening that dives deep into the Yiddish archives of anti-fascist poetry and song, offering a glimpse into their creative process. Maia Brown, a visual artist, Yiddish musician, and educator, brings a rich background in oral history and fine art to this exploration, alongside Stefanie Brendler, a multi-talented Seattle-based artist, composer, and member of the klezmer brass band Shpilkis. This evening comprises a...
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259. Lifecycle of Seattle Artists: A Panel Discussion with Local Artists
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Explore the life cycle of Seattle artists in a dynamic round table discussion hosted by Sarah Traver, director of Traver Gallery. Join the conversation on transforming artistic practice into a flourishing and creative career within the vibrant artistic landscape of Seattle. Esteemed artists Esther Ervin, Henry Jackson-Spieker, Steve Jensen, Pohlman Knowles, and Jeanne Marie Ferraro all connected with Pratt Fine Arts Center, will share their experiences in developing their practices across diverse disciplines, including glass, installation, jewelry, metal, printmaking, public art,...
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258. Shain Shapiro with Greg Scruggs: How Music Builds Cities
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Looking back through history, it is obvious that the presence of music has had a profound impact on the daily lives of humans, our cultural rituals, and the evolution of civilization as a whole. Yet in public discourse, we still tend to separate conversations about music from those about civics or politics. We frame music as a product for entertainment when in reality the practice of music is deeply tied to the way our communities are structured and function. Shain Shapiro is the director of the global nonprofit Center for Music Ecosystems, and author of This Must Be The Place: How...
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257. Benjamin Wurgaft and Merry White with Peter Miller: Epicurean Odyssey
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
What do we learn when an anthropologist and a historian talk about food? Across endless eras, landscapes, and civilizations, humanity’s relationship with food has played the part of one of the landmark features of culture and community. We feel this on both the micro and macro scale — from learning a recipe passed down through generations of one’s own family to the excitement of exploring an unfamiliar local market in a city far from home. Culinary curiosity invites us all to the table, and through their new book, Ways of Eating, authors and storytellers Benjamin Wurgaft and Merry...
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256. Tricia Romano with Dan Savage and Jane Levine: Voices of the Village
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
The Village Voice aimed to show readers something that mainstream publications wouldn’t: live theater productions climbing through the scaffolding of off-Broadway venues; moments in music from hip-hop to jazz to punk; New York City civil issues, like corrupt landlords; and global issues, like the AIDS crisis. Through decades of independent reporting and first-hand accounts within the myriad subcultures of New York, the Village Voice built a journalistic legacy of lived experience, bold critique, and political activism. One can’t help but wonder, what it must have...
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255. Sasha LaPointe with Dawn Barron: Poignant Reflections on Indigenous America
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
What does it mean to be a proudly queer Indigenous woman in the United States today? Sasha LaPointe, winner of the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award for her memoir, Red Paint, shares a new collection of essays that navigate the complexities of indigenous identity, challenge stereotypes, and address cultural displacement and environmental concerns. Thunder Song draws inspiration from her family’s rich archive and the work of her late great-grandmother and weaves together stories that demonstrate the profound intersections of community, commitment, and conscientious honesty....
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254. Tessa Hulls with Putsata Reang: Exploring Generational Echoes
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
If you’re a part of the Seattle arts scene, chances are you’ve come across Tessa Hulls. She has a hand in many local creative communities, including Seattle Arts & Lectures (where you might have spotted her illustrations on the 2021 Summer Book Bingo Card!), the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, and the Henry Art Museum. She’s also the lead artist in the Wing Luke Museum exhibit which explores the impacts of how the I-5 construction ran right through the Chinatown International District in the 1960s. It’s no surprise then that Hulls is passionate about mixing art and...
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253. Sloane Crosley with Ben Gibbard: Grief Is for People
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
Have you ever lost something or someone dear to you? Though it ranges in severity and impact, loss is a shared human experience – an inevitable, inescapable part of life. Praised for her humor and sharp wit, essayist and novelist Sloane Crosley delivers her first memoir Grief is for People, exploring how loss can take many forms. After the pain and confusion of losing her closest friend Russell to suicide – which occurred only a month after also losing prized possessions and her sense of safety following a burglary – Crosley looks for answers, even where they may be elusive....
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252. Eric Klinenberg with Margaret O’Mara: A Year Which Will Live in Infamy
Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series
You’d be hard-pressed to find a person whose life went unchanged in 2020, arguably one of the most consequential years in human history. It marked an unprecedented time, left indelible memories in our minds, and set off ripple effects we still feel even today. Disruption of normal life was nearly universal; however, the ways in which we experienced disruption were varied. Acclaimed sociologist and bestselling author Eric Klinenberg’s latest work 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed offers an account of a single year in modern history told through the...
info_outlineLooking back through history, it is obvious that the presence of music has had a profound impact on the daily lives of humans, our cultural rituals, and the evolution of civilization as a whole. Yet in public discourse, we still tend to separate conversations about music from those about civics or politics. We frame music as a product for entertainment when in reality the practice of music is deeply tied to the way our communities are structured and function.
Shain Shapiro is the director of the global nonprofit Center for Music Ecosystems, and author of This Must Be The Place: How Music Can Make Your City Better. In his book, Shapiro examines the way music affects the building, managing, and governing of a city.
Told through personal stories from cities around the world — including London, Melbourne, Nashville, Austin, and Zurich — This Must Be the Place demonstrates how integral music is to everyday life, yet how consistently music is ignored in public policy. Specifically, Shapiro references the transformative role that artists and musicians played in revitalizing elements of our post-pandemic world.
In addition to spotlighting the connection between music and building cities, This Must be the Place serves as a guide and toolkit for music enthusiasts, artists, and activists who seek to utilize music as a tool for reinventing their community.
Join Shain Shapiro at Town Hall, for an examination of the way music informs the building of a city, and how we can use music to strengthen our communities going forward.
Shain Shapiro, Ph.D. is one of the world’s leading music and cultural policy thinkers. He is the founder and chairman of economics consultancy Sound Diplomacy, founder and director of the global nonprofit Center for Music Ecosystems and author of This Must Be The Place: How Music Can Make Your City Better. Shain has pioneered the work of music cities and music ecosystem policy, where music is written into how cities and places plan and invest in their future.
Gregory Scruggs is a Seattle-based journalist. He is a correspondent for leading international cultural magazine Monocle and also works on the features desk at The Seattle Times. His reporting on how public policy impacts music scenes have been published in outlets such as The New York Times, Bloomberg CityLab, VICE, Next City, Seattle Weekly, and The Stranger.
