WUMB Partnership Brings New Programming to Commonwealth Journal

By Melissa Fassel

WUMB 91.9 FM continues to provide top programming to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts through a new partnership with the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC). In August, the MCC's Folk Arts and Heritage Program Manager, Maggie Holtzberg, began producing a monthly segment on WUMB's Commonwealth Journal. The series, "Cultural Treasures," will feature a folkloric perspective on topics of particular interest to Massachusetts' listeners, including local culture, history, politics, art and science.

As a part of her MCC job, Holtzberg travels across Massachusetts, documenting artisans and workers who carry on the craft, performance, or labor cultural traditions handed down from previous generations. The first episode featured a discussion of "sandhogs," Big Dig hard-rock tunnel workers who employ age-old work traditions such as rituals, pranks, and unspoken rules seldom known outside the trade.

The next episode will be airing Sunday, October 5, at 7:30 a.m., with an encore at 7:00 p.m. Holtzberg will be interviewing William Cumpiano, a half-Bostonian, half-Puerto Rican maker of Latin American fretted string instruments, specializing in the cuatro.

The companion segment features Deborah Pacini-Hernandez, associate professor of Anthropology at Tufts University, and Ariana Flores, her former student and assistant. Deborah teaches a course called "Urban Borderlands: The Cambridge Latino Oral History Project" in which students conduct research and taped interviews with Latino residents in Cambridge on their history and cultures, as well as special issues relating to the Latino community in Cambridge.

The new partnership with the Massachusetts Cultural Council is not Commonwealth Journal's only recent accomplishment"sole sponsor Blue Cross Blue Shield just renewed its annual sponsorship of the award-winning program, increasing its donation from $25,000 to $30,000.

"Without their generous support, the program couldn't run," said Pat Monteith, WUMB's general manager. "We are extremely grateful and excited for another year of informative, Massachusetts'-tailored programming."

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