New York Fashion Week begins today, as designers and retailers look ahead to the coming season. But, as WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, Fashion Week has a past, too.

+ Brian Lehrer Show: NYC and the Global Fashion Scene

As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, the multiple-Oscar-winning Chayefsky fought to the death for every fierce and furious word he wrote.

In this edition of Fishko Files, WNYC's Sara Fishko looks at the past and present of film criticism, and its variable impact over a couple of generations. To hear some current film critics, visit the 92nd Street Y tonight for the “Pre-Oscar Film Critics Roundtable,” featuring film critics discussing their craft on stage.

Some of the major struggles and victories of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s coincided with a most active period for jazz music.  In honor of Martin Luther King Jr's Birthday, WNYC’s Sara Fishko looks at a few cases where the movement and the music came together.  Here’s the next Fishko Files…

In 1935, Jascha Heifetz made the first recording, ever, of the Sibelius Violin Concerto. In this edition of Fishko Files, WNYC’s Sara Fishko reflects on the power of the recording –and the music.

In the late 1940s Ida Lupino, the British born, actress-director, was a “hyphenate” before the term was even invented. WNYC’S Sara Fishko looks at the work of this Hollywood dynamo in this edition of Fishko Files…

Ethan Iverson and his band The Bad Plus re-interpreted Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring nearly 100 years after its premiere.  We talked to Iverson about the piece for our special program "Culture Shock 1913," and our conversation turned into its own podcast!

Since jazz began, composers have had the impulse to “jazz up” the more traditional symphony orchestra. Has it been a happy partnership between the two styles? Here is the next Fishko Files…

With network television shows in their mid-season breaks, WNYC’s Sara Fishko looks back to a  New Frontier-era television series that dared to confront topics that no other series would touch at that time. Here is the next Fishko Files…

Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf” will be presented several times this weekend in New York. As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, there’s drama in the background of this ever-popular children’s classic.  Here is the next Fishko Files…

"An Hour with Dave Brubeck" is another in Sara Fishko's series of conversations with musical figures. The interview for the program was taped in Brubeck's studio in Connecticut, in 2004. In the program, Brubeck discusses his childhood, musical influences (from jazz pianist Art Tatum to classical composer Darius Milhaud) and development. Music featured includes a very early recording of Brubeck "imitating" Tatum, Teddy Wilson and other pianists he admired; as well as some of the iconic live and studio recordings from his later days.

What a year was 1913! In an exhibition in a New York Armory, Cubism and abstraction were revealed to the American public for the first time. In Vienna, audience members at a concert of atonal music by Schoenberg and others broke out into a near-riot. And in Paris, Stravinsky and Nijinsky’s new ballet The Rite of Spring burst on stage with famously inflammatory results.

From fistfights in bars…to inspiration in cold water flats…the post WWII art scene in New York is legendary.  In this edition of Fishko Files, WNYC’s Sara Fishko hears tales from postwar painters who were in downtown Manhattan just as Abstract Expressionism was taking hold. (Produced in 2010)

This year marks 60 years since the premiere of Leonard Bernstein’s shrewd, short work, Trouble in Tahiti. In this Fishko Files WNYC’s Sara Fishko considers Bernstein’s atypical opera. (Produced in 2010)

In honor of an upcoming Central Park Festival featuring jazz standards (this Saturday, “The Jazz and Colors Festival”), WNYC’s Sara Fishko looks back to one popular tune that became a popular jazz standard – Body and Soul.

Every November, fans honor the romantic tenor Mario Lanza, who made his mark in a career that lasted only around 12 years.  As WNYC’s Sara Fishko tells us, he hit notes both high and low.  Here is the next Fishko Files...

Halloween is coming. It’s the season for unsettling images and dark thoughts.  WNYC’s Sara Fishko has a story about a painting from the 1880s - that fits right in. Here is the next Fishko Files...

Wednesday would’ve been actor Montgomery Clift’s 92^nd birthday. But the handsome, troubled star died young, at the age of 45. WNYC’s Sara Fishko looks at Clift’s short and complicated life in this edition of Fishko Files… (Produced in 2010).