January 28, 2003
Contact: Susan Gwynne
(805) 893-2098
e-mail: gwynne-s@sa.ucsb.edu

Terry Gross, the Peabody Award-winning host of public radio’s Fresh Air, gives a revealing presentation at UCSB Campbell Hall

Summary Facts:

• Terry Gross
• Host of public radio’s Fresh Air, syndicated to over 280 stations
• Acclaimed for her interviewing skills
• Friday, March 7 / 8 pm
• UCSB Campbell Hall
• General: $25/$20, UCSB students: $15/$13
• Tickets/information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at 893-3535

Terry Gross, host of public radio’s Fresh Air, has an interviewing gift that illuminates every subject she covers. On Friday, March 7 at 8 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall, Gross will give a presentation that peeks behind the scenes at what makes this Peabody Award winner tick. She will discuss her incisive interviewing technique that has helped make celebrities, from Nancy Reagan to Paul McCartney, more understandable and more human. Gross has said what she strives for with her guests is “to explore their inner life, their imagination and the sense of the person.” Her talents have led the San Francisco Chronicle to state she “is one of the best radio interviewers—one of the best interviewers, period—in the country.” Time magazine concurs, claiming, “Fresh Air is the most insightful and entertaining interview program on radio.”

Fresh Air began in 1975 when Terry Gross joined the staff of WHYY-FM in Philadelphia. In 1985 National Public Radio began to distribute a weekly half-hour edition of the show, and since 1987 Fresh Air has aired hour-long programs daily. Currently over 280 public radio affiliates present the Peabody Award-winning program on which Gross has conducted over 5000 interviews with many of the most prominent figures of our time, from politicians to performers, actors to authors. Her guests have ranged far and wide, including Spalding Gray, Lauren Bacall, Sonny Rollins, Elvis Costello, President Jimmy Carter, Alice Walker, Larry Flynt, and Monica Lewinsky (who walked out of the interview, feeling the questions were too personal).

the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. It was in Buffalo that she got her start in radio in 1973 on a show called Women Power. She moved to Philadelphia for Fresh Air in 1975. The show has received numerous awards including the prestigious Peabody Award in 1994 for its “probing questions, revelatory interviews and fresh insight.” Fresh Air has also received the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Award for “Best Live Radio Program.” In 1999 American Women in Radio and Television gave Terry Gross a Gracie Award, which recognizes an individual who “fosters the development of accurate and realistic portrayals of women in radio.”

“Ms. Gross is characteristically eager, but not naïve. You hear enthusiasm in her voice, but also experience and skepticism,” noted critic Greil Marcus wrote in The New York Times, summing up Terry Gross’s talent. “She knows how to let people talk; she’s not afraid of silences, or above a noisy ‘Blech!’ when she’s repulsed by a creepy story. She’s dogged; she can give the impression that she will wait around all day if that’s what it will take to get someone to stop faking.”

In Arts & Lectures’ on-going effort to make our events accessible to all who wish to enjoy them, Terry Gross’s presentation will be signed. Sign language interpretation is made possible by the California Arts Council in collaboration with the National Arts and Disability Center and by the Santa Barbara Foundation’s Access Theatre Endowment Fund.

Terry Gross is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures. This event is supported by funds from KCBX Public Radio and the Hester & Cedric Crowell Endowment, UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center. Tickets are $25 and $20 for the general public and $15 and $13 for UCSB students.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
Susan Gwynne at (805) 893-2098.