Jeff Lunden
Jeff Lunden is a freelance arts reporter and producer whose stories have been heard on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition, as well as on other public radio programs.
Lunden contributed several segments to the Peabody Award-winning series The NPR 100, and was producer of the NPR Music series Discoveries at Walt Disney Concert Hall, hosted by Renee Montagne. He has produced more than a dozen documentaries on musical theater and Tin Pan Alley for NPR — most recently A Place for Us: Fifty Years of West Side Story.
Other documentaries have profiled George and Ira Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, Harold Arlen and Jule Styne. Lunden has won several awards, including the Gold Medal from the New York Festival International Radio Broadcasting Awards and a CPB Award.
Lunden is also a theater composer. He wrote the score for the musical adaptation of Arthur Kopit's Wings (book and lyrics by Arthur Perlman), which won the 1994 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical. Other works include Another Midsummer Night, Once on a Summer's Day and adaptations of The Little Prince and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for Theatreworks/USA.
Lunden is currently working with Perlman on an adaptation of Swift as Desire, a novel of magic realism from Like Water for Chocolate author Laura Esquivel. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
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After a round of emergency fundraising failed, New York's "People's Opera" is shutting down. Unfortunately, many — including the company's current director and its musicians — saw this coming.
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The New York City Opera, nicknamed the "people's opera" by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia when it was founded 70 years ago, has always been a low-cost alternative to the more upscale Metropolitan Opera. The company may have to cancel its upcoming season if fundraising falls short.
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There are youth orchestras and summer music camps all over the U.S., but Carnegie Hall may have created the best music camp ever. For the past two weeks, some of the country's best teenage musicians have gathered to create the first National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America.
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Winter Morning Walks, an album featuring jazz composer Maria Schneider and soprano Dawn Upshaw, revolves around meditations on nature and beauty by former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. All three artists have had battles with cancer — when, Schneider says, "everything in life becomes heightened."
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The largest railroad terminal in the world opened its doors for the first time in 1913. And while Grand Central Terminal, in the heart of New York City, no longer serves long-distance trains, it is still a vibrant part of the city's ecosystem.
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For its 25th anniversary, the vocal quartet commissioned a new piece from Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang. Despite the fact that the group is mostly famous for singing very old music, love fail reflects the world we live in — not some distant and remote mythology.
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Peony Pavilion is one of China's most famous operas, but uncut performances of this romantic 16th century work can take more than 22 hours. An adapted version of the dream-like opera will take place at the Metropolitan Museum.