"O Little Town of East New York" by Shelley Hirsch is featured today. An autobiographical docu-musical about growing up in East New York. The artist describes, creates and inhabits remembered environments, situations and persons. Musical fragments, characterizations, accents, and sound images evoke the ethnically diverse neighborhood from the 1960s to the present: Hirsch's Russian schoolmate's living room; the home of her own working class Jewish family; synagogue; high school; rallies against the Vietnam War; drugs. O Little Town of East New York was the winner of the prestigious 1993 Prix Futura Berlin, in the Ake Blomstrom competition for new, promising documentary talent. Music co-composed and performed with David Weinstein. Commissioned by New American Radio.

In ten years as a weekly national series, 1987-1998, New American Radio (NAR) commissioned and distributed over 300 original works: conceptual new drama, associational documentary, language explorations, sonic meditations, environmental compositions, musical explorations and works that pioneer new dimensions in acoustic space. Wave Farm is thrilled to be partnering with New American Radio to ensure these works remain available to listeners today and into the future through this streaming online radio channel, a weekly radio show on Wave Farm's WGXC 90.7-FM, and an online archive at https://wavefarm.org/radio/nar/.

New American Radio was organized by Helen Thorington, Executive Producer and Regine Beyer, Associate Producer. A special thanks to both Helen Thorington and Jo-Anne Green for their generous support and collaboration of this partnership, and their contribution to the field at large!