London Olympics 2012
Celebrate with some olympic music! Music enveloped the entire 2012 London Olympics event, showcasing, highlighting, and, of course, advertising the musical talent of Great Britain. Spectators and viewers from around the world heard everything from the London Philharmonic, to the Spice Girls, Paul McCartney, Mr. Bean (?!) and much more.
As customary, controversies accompanied the music of the Olympics, from paying the musicians, to the choice of artists and songs, to the decibel level of music during the events. All aspects of the music for the Olympics were fair “game.” (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) For a listing of the music for the 2012 London Olympics see the official olympic site, or this article from the Huffington Post.
Want to read more about the music at the London 2012 Olympics? Here are a few articles. NPR’s “Know-It-All’s Guide to Olympic Music” crowns the list for a general overview. Articles from the National Post and the Hollywood Reporter cover the opening ceremonies nicely, and articles in the BBC, the Telegraph, and Rolling Stone wrapped up the event.
Music from the Olympics will soon be available for purchase, but why wait? You can listen to Olympian music free*** from Temple University Libraries’ Naxos Music Library. Happy Listening!
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Audio Drama: L.A. Theatre Works
Audio Drama: L.A. Theatre Works is an outstanding collection of performances of nearly 300 streaming audio plays created specifically for listening from the archives of L.A. Theatre Works, the premier audio theater company in America. The plays range from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries and include well-known as well as emerging playwrights. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, plays are chosen that specifically address important issues in the humanities, arts, social sciences, medicine, hard sciences, law, and other fields. A new and exciting feature, indexing at the track level, allows one to search for subjects, topics, disciplines, any keywords, and find dramatic scenes that dramatically address these issues. Audio Drama: L.A. Theatre Works also contains scholarly commentary on issues and topics. Performances are by top artists such as Alan Alda, Keith Carradine, Stephen Colbert, John de Lancie, Richard Dreyfuss, Denise Du Maurier, Valerie Harper, James Earl Jones, and many more.
Examples of plays included are: