Crystal Sarakas

6 days ago | wskg.org | Crystal Sarakas

What do a 10-year-old writer, a college composer, and a professional opera singer have in common? At Tri-Cities Opera, they’re all part of a singular creative process known as the Pocket Opera Project - a collaboration that transforms young writers’ stories into fully staged operas. John Rozzoni is the Executive Director of Tri-Cities Opera. He said the project is designed to make opera more digestible and engaging.

1 month ago | wskg.org | Crystal Sarakas

A new statue of abolitionist and activist Harriet Tubman was unveiled Friday in downtown Binghamton. The statue is part of the Downtown Binghamton Freedom Trail, a public trail that marks stops along the Underground Railroad, as well as other anti-slavery and civil rights sites. Professor Anne Bailey is the director of the Harriet Tubman Center at Binghamton University. The statue is the result of four years of work by the center.

2 months ago | wskg.org | Crystal Sarakas

There’s an image that many of us have of the Underground Railroad: enslaved people fleeing at night, being hunted by slave catchers, heading northward through a series of tunnels and hidden rooms. And while those moments did exist, they have somewhat overshadowed what the Underground Railroad was really about: the people. Filmmaker Brian Frey’s new documentary, North to Freedom, tells the more complicated and human story of the Underground Railroad.

Sep 27, 2024 | wskg.org | Crystal Sarakas

American folk standards like "Shenandoah" and "Wayfaring Stranger" have been covered a thousand different ways. But American Patchwork Quartet has managed to make these cherished but familiar songs sound new again. Falu Shah is a classically trained Hindustani vocalist. It was during a conversation with Clay Ross, now a fellow member of American Patchwork Quartet, that the idea of fusing traditional American folk songs with the sound of Indian classical music first happened.

Dec 12, 2023 | wskg.org | Crystal Sarakas

Jake Bittle has a different word for climate migration. He calls it climate displacement. "Migration seems to imply a coordinated movement of people from one place to another. And it's usually voluntary, people want to get to a specific place. And what I was encountering was that people left for short amounts of time, they never really thought that they were going to leave permanently, but then they ended up leaving their home or they left multiple times.