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Exclusive: BSO President Chad Smith defends decision to oust Andris Nelsons
In his first broadcast interview, Smith told GBH’s The Culture Show that the decision to part ways with Nelsons stems from "a need for alignment."
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October 30, 2026 - Jay-Z's Super Bowl Halftime Show, Patrick Stewart, and Houdini
On this edition of The Culture Show, Co-host Callie Crossley and contributors Lisa Simmons, and James Sullivan go over the week’s top arts and culture headlines. Lisa Simmons is the Artistic and Executive Director of the Roxbury International Film Festival and program manager at Mass Cultural Council. James Sullivan is a journalist and author specializing in popular culture and Americana. He’s also on the Emerson faculty. After seven years helping select Super Bowl halftime performers, Jay-Z is taking the stage himself in 2027. What changed for the rapper and Roc Nation founder? Sarah J. Maas has sent romantasy fans into a frenzy with her latest novel, A Court of Splintered Harmony. Midnight parties, elaborate costumes and missed workdays mark the release. Star Trek has lost two stars: Patrick Stewart, who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and Walter Koenig, the original series' Pavel Chekov. We remember their contributions to the enduring science-fiction franchise. Three-time Emmy winner Eric Bauza, the voice of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, has died at 46. We remember the actor who carried on the Looney Tunes legacy. A century after his Halloween death, Harry Houdini returns to the spotlight at Salem's Peabody Essex Museum. A special installation revisits his 1906 visit and a controversy involving a pair of antique handcuffs. -
October 29, 2026 - Sarah Longwell, Gish Jen, and Kiernan Schmitt on Boston's Hidden Halloween Haunts
Political strategist Sarah Longwell, CEO and publisher of The Bulwarkand host of The Focus Group podcast, joins Jared to discuss How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time, drawing on years of focus groups to examine persuasion, voters and political change. BONUS: If you want even more Sarah Longwell, earlier this year she was in Cambridge at First Parish Church in conversation with Bill Kristol as part of a Harvard Book Store event. It's a great discussion, which you can watch on the GBH Forum Network's Youtube channel.Author Gish Jen discusses her novel, “Bad Bad Girl.” In this witty and deeply personal work, Jen blends fiction and autobiography to imagine her mother’s life and explore the distance between them — uncovering how storytelling can bridge what family history leaves unsaid. “Bad Bad Girl” is now out in paperback.Finally travel writer Kiernan Schmitt takes us on a Halloween-inspired journey through the hidden and haunting corners of the city. His book “Secret Boston: An Unusual Guide”uncovers the eerie and unexpected — from ghostly convents to abandoned zoos and the bizarre sculpture garden known as Ponyhenge. Schmitt, who co-hosts the travel podcast “Out of Office,” returns to the show to reveal the stories and curiosities hiding in plain sight. -
October 28, 2026 - Wednesday Watch Party: Hocus Pocus
For this month’s Wednesday Watch Party, Jared Bowen, Callie Crossley and Joyce Kulhawik revisit Disney’s 1993 comedy Hocus Pocus. Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy conjure up a wicked brew of sorcery and high camp. It was a box-office flop that rose from the grave to become a Halloween hit. We’re dusting off the broomsticks (and vacuum) and asking: Thirty-three years later, is Hocus Pocus still a Halloween treat, or is nostalgia playing tricks on us? Callie Crossley is a Culture Show co-host and host of Under the Radar with Callie Crossley; Joyce Kulhawik is a Culture Show Contributor, an Emmy Award-winning arts and entertainment critic, president of the Boston Theatre Critics Association, and you can find her reviews at joyceschoices.com. -
October 27, 2026 - Aaron Tang on Breaking the Deadlock, Everett McCorvey, and Halloween decor
Can artificial intelligence transform society without putting our jobs, privacy, and safety at risk? Aaron Tang, constitutional law professor at UC Davis and moderator of PBS's Breaking the Deadlock, joins us to discuss the latest episode, AI: Who's in Control?, premiering October 27.Operatic tenor, conductor, and founder of the American Spiritual Ensemble, Everett McCorvey has dedicated his career to preserving and celebrating America's musical heritage. As Music Worcester's artist-in-residence, he'll lead concerts celebrating Gershwin and Ellington on November 1 and featuring Margaret Bonds and Beethoven on November 6.Halloween transforms Greater Boston's neighborhoods into an open-air exhibition of public art. Multidisciplinary artist, award-winning photographer, and Culture Show contributor Julia Swanson, creator of The Art Walk Project, explores the creativity behind the season's spooky spectacles and how this could be the most democratic expression of public art. -
October 26, 2026 - Matthew Aucoin on Music for New Bodies, Donna Ferrato, and Amy Hwang on Women Laughing
Matthew Aucoin, the MacArthur Fellow and composer, explores mortality, technology and a planet in distress in his vocal symphony Music for New Bodies. Its first studio recording arrives October 30, ahead of a November 6 Boston Modern Orchestra Project concert featuring his music.Donna Ferrato, the pioneering photographer, has spent five decades documenting women's lives, from domestic violence to sexual freedom. Her work is on view in Donna Ferrato: “Living with the Enemy” and the Power of Women at the MFA through February 28, 2027.Amy Hwang, an award-winning New Yorker cartoonist, discusses Women Laughing, a documentary exploring the women who transformed the magazine's humor. The film screens tonight at MassArt, followed by a conversation with Hwang and filmmaker Liza Donnelly.
