NPR Broadcaster and Renowned Musician Visits Hawken

NPR journalist and renowned old time musician Paul Brown visited Hawken Upper School on Monday, February 22, 2010 to present music and stories at a morning assembly. Joining him was Paul Kovac, renowned blue grass musician, with a special clogging performance by Laura Lewis Kovac, Hawken`s Director of Communication. Brown spent the remainder of the day working with writers in Hawken`s student-run Writing Center. Paul Brown connects music of the southern mountains to big themes of American history and shares personal stories of musical encounters with mentors and family. Some of Paul`s songs came from his mother, who learned them from older musicians in rural central Virginia. Others come from the old fiddle, banjo and guitar players he met in his travels through the rural south and while working at a radio station in North Carolina. He started playing banjo at age ten. Later, he took up fiddle and guitar and spent years learning music from some of the last fiddle, banjo, and guitar players to emerge before the age of radio and recordings. He`s produced numerous acclaimed recordings of senior and younger traditional musicians and his own recordings have received rave reviews. He has performed and presented at festivals nationwide. Brown is also a respected national-level journalist and is a newscaster and reporter for NPR in Washington, DC. Duties at NPR include anchoring newscasts, reporting breaking news, directing live newscasts and producing in-depth stories on the arts. Brown has also written and produced dozens of pieces on traditional artists and musicians. His music documentary Breaking Up Christmas: A Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday won a Silver Reel Award from the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. During his years at NPR, Brown has worked as executive producer for weekend programming, acting senior producer for NPR`s Talk of the Nation, and acting senior producer for Morning Edition`s, "Honky Tonks, Hymns & the Blues." Brown shared his vast journalism experience with Hawken students at the Writing Center during his stay, visiting a Creative Non-Fiction class and working with students on audio production and podcasting. Previous guests at Hawken`s Writing Center have included Plain Dealer writer Sam Fulwood and 1983 Hawken graduate Evan Wright, author of the best selling book Generation Kill. To learn more about Paul Brown and to listen to his interview from February 22 with WCPN, click here.