Newsmakers

  • Synth, Disco Legend Giorgio Moroder on Daft Punk Collaboration, Dance Music

    By David Wright, Mary-Rose Abraham and Brian Fudge | Newsmakers – Wed, Jun 19, 2013

    When composer Giorgio Moroder played a live set last month in New York City, it was his very first turn as a DJ.

    For the 73-year-old Moroder, the hour-long performance at Deep Space in the Meatpacking District may have come a little later in life, but it was just another milestone in a career that includes three Grammys, three Academy Awards, and a pioneering role in disco and electronic music.

    “The word disco may be dead, but the word dance is not dead,” said Moroder. “DJs are becoming the new stars, so it is great to be back in the dancing world.”

    The new DJ also recently collaborated with other stars in the dance world: the French duo Daft Punk on their recent album, “Random Access Memories.”

    “I went into a studio in Paris and I just started to talk,” said Moroder. “I would just tell them my story and I didn’t have a clue how they would use it.”

    The result is the track, “Giorgio by Moroder,” a fusion of spoken word and music.

    Though Moroder is now firmly entrenched in the dance

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  • LeVar Burton’s Summer Reading Musts and ‘Turning Kids Into Readers for Life’

    By David Wright, Mary-Rose Abraham & Ben Brown | Newsmakers – Mon, Jun 17, 2013

    It was June 6, 1983. School was out and kids were plonked in front of the TV for the summer. A new show premiered, extolling the virtues of shutting off the television and reading a book.

    That was 30 years ago. The episode “Tight Times” debuted as the first episode of public television’s “Reading Rainbow.” And though the program’s 26-year run ended in 2009, its host LeVar Burton continues to champion the joys of reading and the importance of literacy.

    “I spent the last 36 years of my life really trying to change the world,” said Burton.

    And he found that the medium best suited to doing that was television, whether hosting “Reading Rainbow;” as Geordi La Forge on “Star Trek: The Next Generation;” or as the young Kunta Kinte on the groundbreaking miniseries “Roots.”

    Though “Reading Rainbow” started out with “meager budgets” and little support, Burton said after a few years, teachers started noticing that kids were coming back in the Fall with improved reading and comprehension skills,

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