It's 24 hours before performance time out here on the Olympic Peninusula, so while the grounds are getting soaked by sprinklers, I walk into a barn being bathed in Mozart.

A string quartet rehearses -- A pair of violinists, a cellist, a violist - all focused on perfecting music written for an intimate setting.

View the full story

Seattle's iconic Space Needle routinely hosts sightseers, educational tours, even advertising messages. Now, it's also the site of a research project that could help design better ways to fight global warming. Scientists studying climate change typically measure carbon dioxide emissions away from cities. That's so they don't confuse local concentrations of the greenhouse gas with overall global levels. But a project that gauges CO2 from atop the Space Needle seeks to understand urban carbon emissions. Dr. Chris Sabine is with the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle.

A company hoping to build the first commercial wave energy project on the West Coast has cleared a major hurdle. The developer has reached a preemptory settlement with concerned parties and government environmental agencies. KPLU's Tom Banse has details. The master settlement is the product of three years of negotiations between the company Ocean Power Technologies and a dozen different community groups and government agencies. The New Jersey-based marine energy developer wants to moor an array of wave power buoys about two-and-a-half miles offshore of Reedsport.

If you love jazz, then you know it's often a family affair. Here's one example: the Heath Brothers Quartet performed this weekend at Jazz Port Townsend, with Jimmy Heath on tenor saxophone and Tootie Heath on drums. Along with their late brother Percy, the Heaths are just one of the great sibling stories in jazz. In this week's installment of our Artscape series, KPLU's Kirsten Kendrick and Nick Morrison discuss more musical families as part of a list that Nick prepared for NPR.

On April 30th, 1975, the Vietnam War ended. But that was only the beginning for millions of Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians, as they desperately found ways to leave their war torn countries. An account of refugees' struggles and hardships is now on exhibit at Seattle's Wing Luke Museum. This is the story of two refugees who came here to start a new life.

View the full story

For the first time in her theatrical career, Kate Whoriskey can contemplate decorating an office. Because now she actually has one.
"I'm trying to work on posters and I'm hoping to do something with the ceiling. Because it's a little bit barren," she says.
Except for an orchid and a couple of stuffed animals for her 21- month-old son Rory, there isn't much else personalizing her new space. But she's still transitioning - from New York theater freelancer to artistic director at Seattle's Intiman Theatre.
View the full story

The photos stand in a homey, makeshift gallery. On the floor of a garage in Clyde Hill. Owner Cass Walker has moved the cars out of the way to make room for her series of large mostly black- and-white images that tell the story of her older brother Bret.

View the full story, along with images and audio.

Jazz guitarist, Martin Taylor, is one of our favorite guests in the KPLU/Jazz24 studios. Not only is he widely acclaimed as perhaps the finest solo, acoustic jazz guitarist alive, he’s always great company. Whenever his touring schedule brings him to Seattle, we make sure he pays us a visit.