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Fresh Air Weekend: Jon Batiste; Artist Mickalene Thomas

Jon Batiste
Netflix
Jon Batiste

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, as well as new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and it often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

Jon Batiste finds the Blues in Beethoven: Batiste re-imagines Beethoven compositions in his new album. It's "not that the original wasn't great and transcendent..." he says. "But there's also a lot of things since then that have happened."

Maureen Corrigan picks her favorite books from an 'unprecedented' 2024: This year, our Fresh Air book critic highlights alternative history, suspense, satire — and some of the most extraordinary letters ever written. Here are Maureen Corrigan's 10 best books of 2024.

Mickalene Thomas makes art that 'gives Black women their flowers': Thomas' work puts Black women front and center. "We've been supportive characters for far too long," she says. "I would describe my art as radically shifting notions of beauty by reclaiming space."

You can listen to the original interviews here:

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.