Wood

Mike Dangeli’s Chilliwack home is a gallery of First Nations art. Every wall and shelf showcases tribal regalia carved, painted, and/or woven by Dangeli himself, one of his sons, or another Pacific Northwest artist he admires. His own output is enormous; at one point Dangeli was producing 40 to 60 major pieces a month. “There…

From the early 1880s until the middle of the 20th century, while many Indigenous children were taken from their tribes and imprisoned in residential schools, another First Nations population—totem poles themselves—were locked up in museums. One impressive collection is held at the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology, where Karen Duffek serves as Curator…

In the premiere episode of our new audio series, “The Secrets of Mastery,” Gary Rogowski reflects on some of the lessons of his craft.

Since the communist revolution of 1959, Cuba has been on an economic rollercoaster. The country has lurched from dependency to self-sufficiency, in a bubble of isolation where technological time stopped. Our correspondent, who in 2016 visited the artists and self-taught engineers who have kept Cuba running throughout its bizarre ride, updates us on Cuba’s declining fortunes in the years since.

In many of our favorite gathering places—schools, churches, concert halls, jazz clubs—pianos still take center stage. Some of these instruments are still going strong more than a century after their birth. Come enjoy a remarkable documentary that follows one shop of technicians that keeps these beloved, complicated beasts alive. The best of these shops can also improve a piano, even when it’s well into its elderly years.

A good conductor can lead an orchestra with almost anything — even a chopstick. Leonard Bernstein was known to conduct a full symphony with just his eyebrows. Why, then, in this age of cheap manufacturing, are handmade, customized batons still in demand? Written by JEFF GREENWALD Introduction by PAULINE BARTOLONE Narrated by JEFF GREENWALD Produced…

When a promising rock musician tired of the road and the pressure, he gave up music and got a job at a hardware store. Then one day, he had a revelation.

Of all the wind instrument players in an orchestra, oboists are among the few who have to spend more time making their reeds than playing their music. As the comic monologist Josh Kornbluth has painfully learned, just one of the myriad micro-adjustments that reed makers create will make a world of difference in their music.

Josh Kornbluth, perhaps best known as a comic monologist, is also an accomplished oboist. Here, Josh plays his oboe and talks about the challenges of reed-making for his instrument.