Pamela Smart is fascinated by how art works on us, on the totality of our selves. That means she is interested in aesthetics, anthropology, and art history. All of these come together in her studies of the Rothko Chapel, a space that has had a visceral effect on countless visitors seeking stillness.
Read MoreDr Hernandez, Mescalero and Warm Springs Apache, is involved in establishing and preserving community archives, as well consulting with museums and community nonprofits. Her experience, in her life, faith, and work, yields profound and rare insights.
Read MoreBissera Pentcheva is one of the rare art historians who reaches across disciplines: visual art, architecture, sound. This allows her to speak all the more meaningfully about art as it is actually experienced, by human beings in the totality of the sensory world. We talk about her award-winning work with the vocal ensemble Cappella Romana, as well as her recent projects that study sculpture within the play of flickering candlelight.
Read MoreLaurie Anderson is a living legend in the world of the arts. Her career, spanning from the late 1970’s right up to the present day, has resulted in a vast oeuvre of meaningful and impactful art across a wide array of media. Fascinating, brilliant, and ever attuned to the spiritual (she has been increasingly involving her Buddhism in her work) she represents the essence of what we hope for with the Luminous series: substantive but free conversation around the arts and the sacred.
Read MoreAdrienne Williams Boyarin writes on religious material in medieval poetry, but she’s also been at the forefront of the important conversation on bringing religion back into the study of the humanities. Her expertise in literature and her commitment to exploring Jewish Christian relationships within it, her interest in the written lives of the saints and in the relationship between religion and academia – make for Luminous conversation.
Read MoreMark Shapiro is a major figure in the New York classical music scene, as music director of Cantori New York as well as several other award-winning ensembles — all of which extend his impact to the national and global scale. Apart from the precision of his work, he is known for his thoughtful and trailblazing programs, his repertoire drawing on sometimes hidden gems of great beauty. Add to this his fluency in a wide diversity of topics and interests.
Read MoreJamey and Lee Bozeman formed the indie band Luxury decades before they became Fr. James and Fr. David, Orthodox Christian priests. The band’s journey is told in a must-see documentary, but this conversation teases out some of its implied themes of art and the sacred: how they navigate life in the studio and the concert venue—and at the altar.
Read MoreTõnu Kõrvits has for some decades been a rising star among Estonian composers—one can now say that the star is decisively risen, and shines with the ethereal light of his lush and compelling work. Another episode recorded in the field - this time in the heart of Tallinn, Estonia.
Read MoreKaupo Kikkas is one of the most compelling photographers working today. Centering on portrait as well as fine art photography, with predilections for the American Southwest, the Amazon rain forest, and Lapland, as well as for musicians and their instruments. He is deeply reflective, and highly articulate about his craft and his vision.
Read MoreDavid Bentley Hart began his storied career as theologian and public intellectual with a book called The Beauty of the Infinite, a game-changing and definitive foray into theological aesthetics. His most recent little masterpiece is Roland in Moonlight, a reverie about his philosophical mentor, who also happens to be his dog Roland. We have a lot to talk about.
Read MoreWhen a Nobel Prize-winning physicist begins to speak of the universe as “a work of art,” don’t we want to ask him whether the universe itself could be numbered among the Sacred Arts? And whether he thinks there might be an Artist? Frank Wilczek is brilliant and engaging, with a talent (and commitment) to making complex concepts understandable for the rest of us.
Read MoreSusan Ashbrook Harvey is one of the foremost scholars in her field of Late Antiquity (with a focus on Syriac Christianity). Two of her particular areas of interest and expertise make her an especially fascinating guest on Luminous. One is her study of fragrance (her book Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination is a classic) and the other is women’s voices in Syriac liturgical singing.
Read MoreFr. Ivan Moody is a world renowned composer, conductor, scholar, author. His music often draws on ancient chant traditions and then takes off into new directions, at once consonant with the past and building on it into timelessness. Listen to this conversation among deeply informed friends.
Read MoreTobi Kahn is a painter and sculptor whose work is defined by a persistent commitment to the redemptive possibilities of art. In paint, stone, and bronze, he has explored the correspondence between the intimate and monumental. He is bursting with life and love. Tune in to this wonderful conversation.
Read MoreDn Haig Utidjian is one of the foremost figures in the world of Armenian musicology, as well as in several other fields including Czech composers. A gifted and much-sought-after conductor, an educator, a scholar/author, he is a delight to talk with on many aspects of sacred arts.
Read MorePaul Barnes is a force of nature. His music, and his insights about music, pour out of him, with beauty. His longtime collaboration with Phillip Glass has left an indelible mark on both of them. Our conversation on Luminous is full of that ebullient energy.
Read MoreHaving taught at both Oxford and Cambridge, and having served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 2002-2012, and authoring some 36 books, Rowan Williams is one of the most significant and insightful theologians of our time. In this episode we talk about his writing on the arts, as well as on his own poetry.
Read MoreRob Saler, an exciting and highly attuned theologian and culture maven, talks with Peter about the ways in which culture and theology learn from each other. Inevitably they focus on his favorite band—Radiohead—on whom Saler has authored a recent book, All Things Into Position.
Read MoreChristina Maranci is one of the world’ foremost scholars of Armenian sacred art. She has played an inestimable role in the display and understanding of the arts of the Armenian church — which dates back to the fourth century. She and Peter discuss the sacred arts, how these can properly be displayed in a museum, how churches become consecrated, and a host of other great things.
Read MoreGavin Bryars is one of the leading experimental composers of his generation. Among his diverse and prodigious repertoire, his best known work remains the process compositiion Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet, a stirring work of cumulative power. We talk about this and all his work, and whether the word “spiritual” may be applicable.
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