A Prairie Home Companion: May 28, 2005

Special Guests
Saturday, May 28, 2005

Odetta

She is a 1999 recipient of the National Medal of the Arts & Humanities from President & Mrs. Clinton, the National Visionary Award from the Kennedy Center, the first Duke Ellington Fellowship Award from Yale University, the Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Library of Congress, the International Folk Alliance, the World Folk Music Association, and Presidente d'Honeurs from the Cognac (France) Blues Festival as well as Grammy and W.C. Handy Award nominations in addition to numerous Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from various universities. Odetta was born in Birmingham in 1930. From there, her family moved to Los Angeles, where she began studying classical voice. In 1944 she began a four year association performing at the famed Turnabout Theater in Hollywood, and in 1949 she joined the road touring company of Finians' Rainbow. While the show performed in San Francisco she became exposed to folk music. In 1950, she made her first professional appearance as a folk singer at San Francisco's "Tin Angel." Those present said she seemed destined to become a cultural force. She has since released dozens of recordings in the decades since. As a leading voice of social activism around the world, she participated in the Civil Rights marches in Selma, at the 1963 and 1983 Marches on Washington, and on President Kennedy's Civil Rights TV Special "Dinner With The President." In 1995, she was invited to Beijing, China as an Elder to the International Women's Conference. To this day, she remains a revered voice of social activism around the world.

Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver

He was born in East Tennessee, in 1944; he grew up looking forward to Saturday night and the Grand Ole Opry, and especially to Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys. He taught himself to play the mandolin on a borrowed instrument at age eleven, listening to the radio and singing with his family. He went to Nashville in 1963 to play banjo with Jimmy Martin. In 1966 he joined J.D. Crowe and in 1971 went to work with The Country Gentlemen in Lexington, Kentucky. He started his own band in 1979, using for a framework the four-part harmonies of the gospel quartets. They have released 32 albums in the last 25 years, the most recent titled A School of Bluegrass.

Mari & Håkon Samuelsen

The 19-year-old violinist Mari and her 23-year-old, cello-playing brother, Håkon, have let music play center stage in their lives since they both were toddlers. They have performed as soloists with an impressive and ever-increasing group of acclaimed musicians and orchestras in countries like England, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania , Monaco, Spain, India, France, Sweden and of course The United States. One of the highlights of their career came in November 2003, when they were invited by Sotheby's in London to promote two instruments by Antonio Stradivari. Another highlight came in 1998, when the siblings performed at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo 's City Hall. Mari plays a Lorenzo Storioni violin from 1790, on loan from the Norwegian institution Snefonn. Håkon plays a Francesco Ruggieri cello from 1688, on loan from the Sveaas Foundation in Oslo.

Prudence Johnson

Prudence Johnson's 25-year career in music has taken her from honky-tonks to Carnegie Hall, from the theater stage to the Silver Screen (Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It), from the Midwest to the Middle East. Her ten album releases include Little Dreamer, a collection of international lullabies, Moon Country, which features the music of Hoagy Carmichael, and S'Gershwin, a collaboration with pianist Dan Chouinard. She recently collaborated with four Minnesota composers to create A Girl Named Vincent, a presentation of the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay set to music to be released on CD this year, and is currently writing a play about Elisabeth Hauptmann, an uncredited collaborator of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. Prudence is a 2001 recipient of the McKnight Artists Fellowship for Performing Musicians and enjoys a steady schedule of concert appearances across the country.

Peter Ostroushko

Peter Ostroushko's career in music began in high school when he was asked to compose and play the music for a school play. He agreed and fell in love with music and theater. Ostroushko went on to attend the Children's Theatre School in Minneapolis and taught himself to play the guitar, mandolin and fiddle, although he now focuses mainly on the mandolin and fiddle because he feels he stopped growing on the guitar 30 years ago. Today Ostroushko is one of the most accomplished instrumentalists and composers of his time. He has released nine albums, the most recent being Coming Down from Red Lodge (Red House Records), and has played on, at his guess, about 500 albums for other artists.