Radio Producer to Serve as Landen Professional in Residence

The producer of the award- winning radio series Jazz from Lincoln Center will serve as the second Skip Landen professional in residence at Ithaca College. Steve Rathe ’71 will give a public presentation as well as meet formally and informally with students and faculty in the Roy H. Park School of Communications during his residency on campus, February 15–18.

On Tuesday, February 16, Rathe will give a multimedia presentation titled "Most Things Don’t Happen . . . but Sometimes They Do: Composing the Radio, Producing a Life" at 7:30 p.m. in Park Hall Auditorium. It is free and open to the public. His presentation will feature highlights of numerous broadcast, compact disc, and live event productions. It will likely include selections from Jazz from Lincoln Center with Ed Bradley, Making the Music with Wynton Marsalis, The Territory of Art with Eric Bogosian and Whoopi Goldberg, One People, Many Voices with Theodore Bikel, and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. It will be followed by a question-and-answer session.

Rathe’s radio career began with broadcasts from his basement to an unwary suburban neighborhood. He graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in television-radio in 1971, and after a flirtation with television sports (holding cue cards for New York Mets broadcasts from Shea Stadium) he began working as a freelance producer. He joined National Public Radio to produce live events and the Folk Festival, USA series, which he also hosted. During its eight-year run, the series presented national audiences with a variety of "firsts," including the introduction of Cajun music to a widespread audience and the premier national broadcast of Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion.

By 1977 Rathe had created NPR’s contemporary music/events unit to develop and produce Jazz Alive! and other distinctive programs. In 1981 he returned to his native New York to begin Murray Street Enterprise, an audio production, marketing, and distribution company. Murray Street has developed programming with partners ranging from the Museum of Contemporary Art/Los Angeles to the National Park Service/Ellis Island Consortium to VPRO Radio, Holland.

Three programs produced by Rathe for NPR have won George Foster Peabody Awards for excellence in broadcasting: Jazz Alive! in 1977, Heat with John Hockenberry in 1990, and Jazz from Lincoln Center in 1998. The Peabody committee commended Jazz from Lincoln Center, which is hosted by CBS News correspondent Ed Bradley, for being "a celebration of the most American musical art form marked by spectacular studio sound technique and informative interviews."

"We are delighted and honored to have Steve Rathe as our second Skip Landen professional in residence," said Thomas Bohn, dean of the Roy H. Park School of Communications. "His week here represents a rich mixture of insight and application into the world of professional sound recording. Through master classes, public lectures, and individual critiques, Steve provides a unique learning experience for our students, faculty, and staff as well as for the general public."

Major support for the Landen residency is provided by the James B. Pendleton endowment in the Park School. The series is named for Gustav "Skip" Landen, the former faculty member who chaired the College’s Department of Cinema and Photography for more than 15 years.