Art Crush: WNYC's "The Must Have Festival," with Host Katherine Lanpher

From my good friend, colleague and frequent partner-in-crime, Katherine:

"What’s the music you have to have – must have – to live your life? That's the question at the center of WNYC's Must Have Festival.

To help you get thinking about your own answer to that question, we’re turning to artists and activists who are transforming the city and the culture we live in – asking them about the music that has transformed them.

The line-up ranges from environmental activist Majora Carter to Gerard Mortier, the incoming director of the New York City Opera, from celebrated choreographer John Jasperse to Stew, the performance artist who is opening a show in Broadway early next year.

We kick off the week on Monday with Majora, the irrepressible Queen of Green who won a genius grant for her work in the South Bronx. Be prepared for an hour that ranges from Bach to Kina’s “Girl in the Gutter’’ and a life that encompasses her grandfather’s history as a slave and the city’s future as a green space for all people, rich and poor.

All Must Have shows start at 7 p.m. on the Evening Music program at WNYC, 93.9 FM and wnyc.org.

AND make sure you tune in Tuesday night when we’ll do a live show with Alex Ross, a music critic at the New Yorker whose book “The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century’’ was just named as one of the 10 best books of the year by the New York Times Book Review and has been described as the biggest cultural boost classical music could receive. If you don't understand the connection between a 15th century lamentation and Bob Dylan - tune in! 

Hope you get a chance to listen in either real time or on-demand. The stories that unfold with the musical choices are riveting – you’ll be hard pressed not to make some additions to your own music library - and that's the idea."