Ian Coss
The WorldIan Coss is an audio producer, composer and sound designer whose work spans the worlds of podcasting and performance.
Ian Coss is an audio producer, composer and sound designer whose work spans the worlds of podcasting and performance. He has produced several critically-acclaimed series with the Radiotopia network — "Ways of Hearing," "The Great God of Depression" and "Over the Road" — and developed new podcasts with television programs, including Antiques Roadshow, Nova and American Experience. This type of work has been recognized with multiple Edward R. Murrow Awards, including "Excellence in Sound," and a nomination for "Podcast of the Year" from the Podcast Academy.
Additionally, Ian has premiered live sound works at the Boston Museum of Science and Harvard Museums of Science and Culture, and collaborated on immersive audio installations for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Richmond ICA and Atlanta Science Festival.
Ian holds a PhD in ethnomusicology from Boston University, where he conducted research on Haitian radio broadcasting and Indonesian shadow-puppetry. He continues this work as musical director for The Brothers Čampur, an international puppetry collaborative that has performed at major festivals in Indonesia and at universities throughout the eastern United States.
Kiki Valera on Son cubano and how he developed a unique musical perspective
At the age of 16, Valera started to salvage radio and TV parts out of discarded electronics to build his own shortwave receiver and transmitter, connecting him to a wider world of musical trends.
‘I can speak the language of rhyme:’ Dakota Camacho on Guam, family and hip-hop
Haitian American artist Momma Nikki sings about a complicated father-child relationship — and reconciliation
Forging new space: The multidimensional Afrofuturism of Sammus
Iranian American composer Sahba Aminikia: Music transforms like raindrops that 'wash this part of humanity'
Iranian American composer Sahba Aminikia, who had to leave his homeland due to religious persecution, says his pain comes out in his music.
Ethiopian American musician Meklit Hadero: 'We use music to talk about the things that are hard to talk about'
As part of "Movement,” an ongoing series from The World about the lives and work of immigrant musicians, Ethiopian American musician Meklit Hadero recounts conversations with fellow musicians in Ethiopia about the unifying role of music and culture amid the conflict in Tigray.
Four musicians grapple with the same question: What is home?
“Movement,” a one-hour special from The World, brings you stories of global migration through music. Together, host Marco Werman and Ethiopian American singer Meklit Hadero blend song and narrative in a meditation on what it means to be American. We follow a once-undocumented singer in San Francisco on a long-awaited trip back to Mexico, reflect on the experience of exile with a Syrian DJ and hear a Sudanese American artist play his first-ever show in Sudan — all guided by Hadero as she reflects on her own American story.
'For My Ayeeyo': Two young women learn Somali poetry from a distance
Somalia is known as a land of poets. But what happens when Somalis are forced to flee their homeland, and settle here in the US — can the poetry live on in their new homes?
Haiti's 'original boy band' called it quits. Here's how they got their start.
This past summer, an iconic Haitian band called it quits. Carimi wasn't just another pop group, though. It was Haiti's original boy band.
For Somali immigrants, the generational divide plays out through music
Memories of their country are sometimes triggered by songs. And the memories they bring up can be bittersweet, or sometimes just bitter.
Jakarta is having a vinyl renaissance
In Indonesia, where record-pressing plants went out of business decades ago, vinyl is enjoying a renaissance. Here’s how a new generation of collectors is finding their treasures.
Jakarta Vinyl
How do you find albums in a country where all the record-pressing machinery was dismantled?
For Haitian radio stations seeking a place on New York’s airwaves — the options are borrow or steal
The Haitian radio scene in New York is booming, but it is forced to operate on the margins, between stations with stronger signals — and FCC licenses.
'Every time I hold a drum...I feel like happiness is going to kill me'
How do you learn an instrument you are not supposed to play? Listen to a 27-year old drummer from rural Kenya who found a way.