On Demand
Music
Need a Visa? No Problem!
Soundcheck's John Schaefer explains how to get a visa in eight easy steps.
1. Download the application form and fill it out. It’s only 20 pages long, and the instructions will tell you which pages you do and don’t need to fill out. Just make sure that before you fill it out, you get some documentation together: contact info, birthdates, passport numbers, past visas granted or rejected, etc., for each of your musicians.
2. Get more documentation, this time showing that your band has achieved “international recognition” in its field.
3. Go to the local musicians union and pay them to write a letter saying they don’t object to you bringing your scurvy un-American musicians into our country.
4. Pay $130.
5. You need it this year? Easy. Pay another $1000.
6. Tell your musicians to travel from whatever dump they call home to their nation’s capital city, for an interview with our Embassy there. They too will be asked to prove their “international recognition.”
7. Pray.
8. Got your visas approved? Good. See? That WAS easy. And you still have a day before the concert. Why not use that day to have your musicians once again leave their homes and day jobs to travel to our friendly Embassy to pick up their visas.
So, why is everyone whining? Isn’t it the USCIS’s job to keep us safe, and couldn’t a musician’s day job easily be filling pipes with ammonium nitrate and fuses? And why should arts presenters have an easier time than everyone else at getting a visa anyway?
New Sounds Live
2009-2010 Concert Season
Guitarist Vernon Reid's multi-media "Artificial Afrika" to the music of avant-pop Dutch composer Jacob TV, songs by Elizabeth and the Catapult, new music to silent films by Yasujiro Ozu, and more.
More
Ear to Ear
Ear to Ear takes innovative musicians off the New York stages and into the studio for relaxed, insightful conversation, as they share their personal recordings with host David Garland.
More
The New Americans
WNYC announces The New Americans, an ongoing station-wide celebration of foreign-born artists now residing in the United States.
More
The Wordless Music Series
WNYC presents four one-hour specials that highlight the ground-breaking '07-'08 season of the Wordless Music Series, hosted by Radio Lab's Jad Abumrad.
More
Concerts from the Frick Collection
For over sixty years, the series Concerts from The Frick Collection has delighted WNYC listeners with the finest in keyboard recitals, chamber groups, and early music ensembles.
More