A Night at the Third Coast International Audio Festival

In the classy Ballroom of the School Art Institute of Chicago, a straight-A student from Elkhart, Indiana lamented that he couldn’t go to the college of his choice because he was an undocumented immigrant. A woman from Mississippi sought to find the truth about her grandfather, Willie McGee, a black man who was convicted and sentenced to death for raping a white woman. And nine groups of producers from all over the world grew misty-eyed and sentimental as they accepted beautifully varnished awards that double as working radios.

Welcome to the Third Coast International Audio Festival. An annual audio awards ceremony honoring the year’s best feature and documentary stories.

Since its inception ten years ago, Third Coast International Audio Festival finds and curates audio documentaries from around the country and abroad, and shares them with as many people as will listen.

On this particular evening, radio producers from all over the world were recognized for their accomplishments in audio storytelling through Third Coast. I felt so very grateful to have a unique insight into this prestigious ceremony by having the opportunity to visually document the event. The night was hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich of Radiolab, my absolute favorite radio show, and their banter and witticisms truly elevated an already beautiful evening.

As the night continued and emotions intensified from the deeply moving stories that were presented, I couldn’t help but think of the past, present and future of radio. I had spent the last year listening to many of the award winners’ stories on Chicago Public Radio while driving to assignments in Northwest Indiana. To see Ira Glass, host of This America Life, as one of the speakers, in PERSON, was enough to leave me absolutely star-struck and inaudible.

While Mr. Glass may be famous to me, I have friends who (I daresay) have never heard of him and his fabulous show. I’ve come to terms with the fact that shows such as This American Life and Resound may be tiny niches of public radio, and that public radio is actually a smaller subculture of audio.

With the digitization of audio, these documentary projects available virtually anytime and anywhere. They have the potential to reach an even broader group of people, and the stories produced are well worth the download time. These compelling stories can be found in the archives at: http://www.thirdcoastfestival.org/

You also may view more photographs from the awards ceremony, and the whole weekend’s annual audio festival, here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thirdcoastfestival/