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The Thistle & Shamrock: In Flight

American composer and multi-instrumentalist Tim Cummings is featured in this week's episode.
Courtesy of the artist
American composer and multi-instrumentalist Tim Cummings is featured in this week's episode.

The way songs and tunes travel to new places and back again is reminiscent of the migration of birds. In this episode Fiona Ritchie picks up on this notion, exploring the movement of music with The Birds' Flight from Tim Cummings, Pete Sutherland and Brad Kolodner, who explore tunes that have taken wing to explore new territories. Also featured are Julee Glaub Weems, Jean Redpath, and Laurie Lewis.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Fiona Ritchie strolls along the main street of a small village in rural Scotland and steps through the plain doorway of an 18th century stone building. Passers-by would find it difficult to imagine what this simple gesture initiates: a weekly connection with devoted public radio listeners throughout the United States. In over two decades of broadcasts, Ritchie's radio program The Thistle & Shamrock has become one of NPR's most widely heard and best-loved music programs. She has entered the lives of millions of Americans by way of an inconspicuous studio door, thousands of miles away in Scotland.