Chopin Meets The Beatles

WUNC | By Phoebe Judge,

Anita Rao

Published September 8, 2015 at 12:09 PM EDT

Guest host Phoebe Judge talks to Pamela Howland about her continued attempt to expand and diversify classical music

Pianist Pamela Howland has had a long love affair with legendary Polish composer and pianist Frédéric Chopin. She wrote a one-woman show about his life and documented his roots in a film.

She returns to Poland regularly to play his music in a wide range of venues. A few years ago she was performing his music on a potato cart as it was pulled through the Warsaw streets, and she had an encounter that changed the direction of her career.

She saw another of her lifelong music heroes: Paul McCartney. This encounter inspired a new collection of piano arrangements that blends the aesthetic of Chopin with the sounds of The Beatles.

Guest host Phoebe Judge talks to Pamela Howland about her continued attempt to expand and diversify classical music. She will perform from her new collection at Durham's Alley Twenty Six on Sunday, September 20 at 5 p.m.

See Pam's chance encounter with Paul McCartney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94sz9Y82gkg

Cover image of Howland's album 'Pamela Howland Meets The Beatles'

Phoebe Judge

Phoebe Judge is an award-winning journalist whose work has been featured on a numerous national radio programs. She regularly conducts interviews and anchors WUNC's broadcast of Here & Now. Previously, Phoebe served as producer, reporter and guest host for the nationally distributed public radio program The Story. Earlier in her career, Phoebe reported from the gulf coast of Mississippi. She covered the BP oil spill and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for Mississippi Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio. Phoebe's work has won multiple Edward R.Murrowand Associated Press awards. Phoebe was born and raised in Chicago and is graduate ofBennington Collegeand theSalt Institute for Documentary Studies.

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Anita Rao

Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.

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