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AT&T Performing Arts Center & KERA Presents Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad

The nonprofit AT&T Performing Arts Center, in association with KERA, announced today that tickets for Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad talks “gut churn” with special guest Zoë Keating are on sale now. Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad and Zoë Keating will perform two shows at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Friday, May 15th at Dallas City Performance Hall in the Dallas Arts District and is part of the 2015 inaugural #thinkspeak season.

MacArthur Fellow and host of the Peabody Award-winning Radiolab Jad Abumrad is the host and creator of Radiolab (radiolab.org), a public radio program broadcast on 524 stations across the nation and downloaded more than nine million times a month as a podcast. Most days, Radiolab is the 2nd most popular podcast, just behind This American Life.

Zoë Keating is a one-woman orchestra. She uses a cello and a foot-controlled laptop to record layer upon layer of cello, creating intricate, haunting and compelling music. Zoë is known for both her use of technology – which she uses to sample her cello onstage – and for her DIY approach, releasing her music online without the help of a record label.

Center Members get access to the best available tickets. Call Membership Services at 214-978-2888 or go to www.attpac.org/support to join. Center Membership presale began on February 6 at 10 a.m.

Ticket prices for Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad talks “gut churn” with Zoë Keating range from $45 to $25 and can be purchased online at www.attpac.org, by phone at 214-880-0202 or in person at the AT&T Performing Arts Center Information Center at 2353 Flora Street (Monday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.; Tuesday thru Saturday 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.; Sunday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.).

Jad Abumrad did most of his growing up in Tennessee, before studying creative writing and music composition at Ober¬lin College in Ohio. Following graduation, Abumrad wrote music for films, and reported and produced documentaries for a variety of local and national public radio programs.

In 2002, Abumrad began tinkering with an idea for a new kind of radio program, an open-ended radio “laboratory.” Radiolab has since evolved into one of public radio’s most popular programs. Abumrad hosts the program with Robert Krulwich and also serves as its lead producer, composer and managing editor. Abumrad employs his dual backgrounds as composer and journalist to create what’s been called “a new aesthetic” in broadcast journalism. He orchestrates dialogue, music, interviews and sound effects into compelling documentaries that draw listeners into investigations of otherwise intimidating topics, such as the nature of numbers, the evolution of altruism, or the legal foundation for the war on terror.

In 2011, Radiolab was awarded the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award and Abumrad was honored as a MacArthur Fellow (also known as the Genius Grant). The MacArthur Foundation website says: “Abumrad is inspiring boundless curiosity within a new generation of listeners and experimenting with sound to find ever more effective and entertaining ways to explain ideas and tell a story.”

Alongside his radio work, Abumrad continues to work as a composer and remixer. His music is currently being performed across the country.

(http://www.newmusicensemble.org/projects/nationalparks/index.html).

Zoë Keating, born in Canada and a cellist since the age of eight, obtained a liberal arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College and spent her 20’s working at a software startup while moonlighting as a cellist in rock bands. She eventually combined the cello and the computer, developing her signature style of live-layered music while improvising for late night crowds at her Francisco warehouse.

Zoë ‘s grassroots, label-less approach has garnered her much public attention and press. She was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and serves on the boards of the Magik Magik Orchestra and CASH Music, a nonprofit organization that builds open source digital tools for musicians and labels. As a cellist, Zoë has played with a wide range of artists, including Imogen Heap, Amanda Palmer, Tears for Fears, DJ Shadow, Dan Hicks, Thomas Dolby, John Vanderslice, Rasputina, Pomplamoose and Paolo Nutini. She has collaborated with WNYC’s Radiolab and lends her music regularly to film, TV, dance productions and commercials. In August 2014 she started composing for the A&E drama “The Returned”, which aired on March 9th, 2015.

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James McDonald

Originally from Dublin, Ireland, James is a Movie Critic with 40 years of experience in the film industry as an Award-Winning Filmmaker. He is also a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association.