Cut & Paste

Jane Birdsall-Lander talks about her "Dictionary Poem Project."

As a pediatrician who is also an accomplished cabaret artist, Ken Haller says he may play several roles over the course of a day: teacher, doctor, friend, singer. He says those roles are all different aspects of his chief pursuit: being a healer. He explores the link between arts and healing in an improvisational acting course he leads at St. Louis University School of Medicine and in his latest cabaret show, “The Medicine Show,” which he’ll perform at Blue Strawberry in St. Louis on March 14. It’s also the subject of a five-year effort recently launched by the Arts & Education Council with help from an $825,000 grant from the Missouri Foundation for Health, called the Arts and Healing Initiative.

Examining the legacy of the late, great St. Louis multi-purpose venue Foam.

When some music lovers cue up the oldies, they go way back —sometimes 1,000 years or so. Definitions vary as to what exactly counts as early music, but the wide-ranging category goes back at least to the beginning of European music notation, around the 10th century. Early music ensembles may perform music from the medieval era, the Renaissance, the Baroque period and even some music written as late as the 19th century. In this episode of Cut & Paste, we talk with two early-music experts who help keep early music alive in and around St. Louis.

The Black Tulip Chorale is notable as an "all-identity" choir, in an artistic world where people presenting as male are often sent to one creative corner and people presenting as female are sent to another.