Rowhome Newsletter | Summer 2024
It’s been a while since you’ve heard from us at Rowhome HQ. We have so much to tell you!
Since our last newsletter in January, we’ve worked on a lot of exciting audio projects, many of which have been released into the world for your listening pleasure:
Profiles of legacy business owners along West Philly’s historic 52nd Street. A two-part radio series that accompanied a major art exhibition scrutinizing the concept of “Invasive Species.” An audio documentary project that explores what Philly citizens need to economically thrive. And, of course, numerous podcast projects with a wide range of partners in Philadelphia and beyond.
We also hosted a Philly Podcast Mixer - our semi-regular meet-up for local audio makers - and worked with another amazing Rowhome Fellow (read more about Savannah below!),
We like to slow down a bit during these waning days of summer to rest and reflect before diving fully back into the work in the fall. This year, as always, we’re feeling very fortunate to be immersed in the creation of beautiful and impactful audio work with so many great organizations and individuals.
Alex & John
Co-Founders, Rowhome Productions
Inside Look —
Philadelphia Revealed
We’re honored to be invited to be part of Philadelphia Revealed, an ambitious project that features a public exhibition, a podcast, and additional programming all brought together by a prestigious collection of institutions including Drexel University, PAFA, WHYY, & First Person Arts. The collective effort is all to highlight the Atwater Kent Collection (former Philadelphia History Museum), a collection that’s grown over decades, acquiring Philly’s material culture from individuals, families, institutions, and sometimes literally from the trash.
We led production on the 10 episode podcast series that’s distributed by WHYY. In each episode of the podcast you’ll learn about an object in the Atwater Kent collection and hear a story inspired by it from a First Person Arts storyteller. Some of the featured objects include handcuffs that may have held abolitionist John Brown, a turnstile from Veterans Stadium, and a button-covered jacket created by legendary Philly photographer Neil Benson.
Our lead producer for Philadelphia Revealed is talented audio journalist Jen Kinney. The series also features original scoring music by the Philly trumpet player and composer Paul Giess.
Listen & Subscribe to Philadelphia Revealed!
From the Philadelphia Revealed exhibition: Industrial Philadelphia – The Workshop of the World, oil on canvas by Morris Berd (1914–2007)
Legacy on 52nd Street
Gregorio Pac Colujun Jr. is the President of the Friends of Malcolm X Park. Photo by PJ Agbay
In partnership with The Enterprise Center, we recorded 9 interviews with longtime business owners and stakeholders on 52nd Street in West Philly. We talked about their work, the history of the famous Black business corridor, and their hopes for the future of the neighborhood. Photographer PJ Agbay shot documentary portraits of the business owners to accompany the audio profiles.
The result is a collection of non-narrated audio pieces that can be listened to via QR codes on posters hung around 52nd Street. For those not in the neighborhood, there’s also a webpage on the Enterprise Center’s site.
We celebrated this project at Urban Art Gallery on 52nd Street back in February where community members listened to excerpts from the project and viewed PJ’s portraits. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Nate File also wrote about the project here.
Check out the “Legacy on 52nd Street” stories!
Face-Off: The US vs. China
In late 2023, we were recruited to work on Face-Off, a new podcast about the relationship between the United States and China. It’s hosted by Jane Perlez, a longtime Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent for the New York Times, and also features insights from renowned historian Rana Mitter.
Rowhome handled the sound design, scoring, mixing and mastering for the eight-part podcast series. The series features in-depth conversations with diplomats, spies, and cultural ambassadors about the rivalry and conflict between the two superpowers. Check out episode one which drops you into the cockpit of an American surveillance plane as it collides with a Chinese fighter jet over the South China Sea.
Rowhome’s co-founder Alex Lewis composed an original theme for the show (hire us for more original scoring!). And speaking of music, did we mention that episode 4 of Face-Off features an interview with Yo-Yo Ma?
“Thriving” Audio Documentary
Thriving lead reporter Nichole Currie interviewing Linda Hines for an episode of the 10-part series. Photo by Dominique Nichole
All ten episodes of Technical.ly’s “Thriving” audio documentary series were released earlier this year. We partnered with the news organization to produce a podcast series that part of their year-long storytelling initiative focused on “…centering and collecting the lived experiences of Philadelphia…in order to generate insights about the economic opportunities and obstacles along their journeys to financial security and freedom.”
Veteran audio journalist Nichole Currie hosted and reported the series. Over the course of a year, she spent time with 10 Philadelphians whose paths toward thriving reflect a diversity of economic experiences. You’ll hear intimate portraits of recent immigrants, entrepreneurs, and artists.
You’ll get to know a wide-range of people including Ghulam Danish, a refugee from Afghanistan who relocated to Philadelphia after fleeing Kabul with his family during the height of Taliban’s 2021 insurgency. You’ll hear the story of Quan Fields AKA Quanny the Clown, who is trying to overcome institutional racism to make it big in the circus industry. And you’ll hear from Christa Barfield, a well-known urban farmer who’s quickly expanding her operation. And more!
"Thriving” was recently nominated for a Journalism Impact award by LION: Local Independent Online News Publishers.
Listen to Thriving from Technical.ly
Fragile Juggernaut
We’re producing this 20-episode series In collaboration with Haymarket Books and an illustrious group of labor historians and organizers. Fragile Juggernaut revisits the near-mythical history of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)—and the high water mark of US labor activity in the 1930s and 1940s—in the context of today’s critical juncture in the labor movement.
Listen & Subscribe to Fragile Juggernaut
The Disappearing Spoon
The Science History Institute is a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia that aims to “tell the stories behind the science.” We were recruited to handle the dialogue editing, sound design and mixing for the latest season of their podcast The Disappearing Spoon. It’s hosted by New York Times best-selling author Sam Kean who tells “topsy-turvy tales from our scientific past.” We’ve had a lot of fun building the soundtrack for this show. And we’ve learned a lot through the stories it tells like the solar eclipse that killed a king (sort of), the rocket scientist who also led a sex cult, and the nurse who was suspected of being a serial killer.
Listen & subscribe to The Disappearing Spoon
Invasive Species
We produced a two-episode radio documentary series to accompany Asian Arts Initiative exhibition ”Invasive Species: Eco/Systems Land Based Initiatives”. The radio series, hosted by AAI’s Anne Ishii, features interviews with exhibition contributors including Dr. Ashley Gripper, Sonia Galiber, Eto Otitigbe, Yolanda Wisher, & more. The series premiered on PhillyCAM’s WPPM earlier this year.
Listen to the Invasive Species radio series
The Mighty Writers Podcast named “Podcast of the Year”
In March we attended the 2024 Philly News Awards ceremony at the Pen and Pencil Club. Three podcasts that Rowhome worked on were nominated in the “Podcast of the Year” category: The Statue, Thriving and The Mighty Writers Podcast with Maureen Boland. After thousands of votes were cast, the winner was… The MW Podcast! If you haven’t heard the show yet, recent episodes feature conversations with Dave Raymond, the original Phillie Phanatic and a young Philly school student named Semaj whose everyday life was shaped by gun violence.
Listen to The Mighty Writers Podcast
Rowhome Fellow ‘24 — Savannah Collins
From a very talented pool of over 70 applicants, we selected Savannah Collins to be our 2024 Rowhome Fellow. A ‘22 Temple Grad, Savannah had previous experiences in radio & podcasting as an intern with WNYC’s On The Media, at PhillyCAM, and as an audiobook producer.
Savannah started with us in February and contributed to a wide-range of our projects. She produced an episode of WHYY’s Philadelphia Revealed, contributed a non-narrated piece to Legacy on 52nd Street, and sound designed an episode of The Disappearing Spoon with the Science History Institute.
Savannah wrote this about her experience as our Rowhome Fellow:
“My time as a Rowhome Fellow was truly transformative….I’m leaving with a wide array of experiences and skills that will really benefit my future audio endeavors. I wholeheartedly encourage any emerging audio professional to take the leap and apply for this fellowship!”
We’ll miss working with Savannah as our fellow, but know we’ll be seeing great audio things from her in the years to come!
Coming Soon
New podcasts! A show that introduces audiences to the leading biomedical researchers making groundbreaking discoveries at the Wistar Institute. A series where artists open up about their relationships to money. Audio documentaries about local fish and the way fishing connects us all. And more!