CHILDREN OF HAITI
TUESDAY, JANUARY 11 @ 8:00PM & 11:00PM
Even prior to the January 2010 earthquake, more than 500,000 orphan children wander the streets of Haiti’s cities day and night. Known as the “soulless” and forgotten by their own people, they do what they must to survive each day. Children of Haiti follows three teenage boys as they reflect on their country and their lives, while sharing a common dream of education, government assistance, and social acceptance.
U.S. GRANT: WARRIOR
SATURDAY, JANUARY 15 @ 7:00PM
This biography of Ulysses S. Grant paints a revealing portrait of one of America’s most paradoxical leaders. In 2011 AMERICAN EXPERIENCE will rebroadcast this film as U.S. Grant: Warrior, an abridged 90-minute version of the film, focusing on Grant as a Civil War hero and a brilliant military strategist who rose from obscurity to a rank held previously only by George Washington.
DOWNTON ABBEY
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4 @ 7:30PM & 12:30PM
EPISODE 4
Change is in the air as the politically awakened Sybil rallies for the women’s vote, in direct violation of her father’s rules. But when Sybil is swept up in the violence surrounding the reading of the election results, Matthew wins a heart by defending the girl and bringing her to safety. Meanwhile, back at Downton Abbey, persistent rumors about a family member cause a rift between Cora and Violet. And, a surprise announcement from Cora complicates the larger issue of Downton’s fate.
DON PASQUALE
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM
Anna Netrebko revives her sensational turn in this sophisticated bel canto comedy, opposite Matthew Polenzani, Mariusz Kwiecien, and John Del Carlo in the title role. Met Music Director James Levine conducts. When Otto Schenk’s production premiered in 2006, the New York Times acclaimed it as “brilliant” and “wonderful.”
KILLER SUBS IN PEARL HARBOR
TUESDAY, JANUARY 4 @ 6;00PM & 9:00PM
NOVA dives beneath the waters of Pearl Harbor to trace provocative new clues to one of the most tragic events of World War II—the sinking of the USS Arizona. More than 1,000 crew members perished in the greatest single loss of life in United States naval history. For decades, it has been thought that a bomb dropped by a Japanese aircraft sank the Arizona. But the discovery of a group of Japanese midget subs in and around Pearl Harbor has raised questions about the battleship’s final hours
ROBERT E. LEE
SUNDAY, APRIL 3 @ 8:00PM & 12:30 AM
He is celebrated by handsome equestrian statues in countless cities and towns across the American South, and by two postage stamps issued by the government he fought against during the four bloodiest years in American history. Nearly a century and a half after his death, Robert E. Lee, the leading Confederate general of the American Civil War, remains a source of fascination and, for some, veneration. This two-hour film examines the life and reputation of the Confederacy’s pre-eminent general, whose military successes made him the scourge of the Union and the hero of the Confederacy during the Civil War, and who was elevated to almost god-like status by his admirers after his death.
MY BOY JACK
FRIDAY, JANUARY 7 @ 7:30PM, 10:30PM & 12:30AM
In 1914 England, patriotism is high in the early days of WWI, and writer Rudyard Kipling (David Haig, Four Weddings and a Funeral) is one of its most eloquent and passionate voices. John “Jack,” (Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter films), Kipling’s only son, is underage, hopelessly myopic, and eager to join the war effort. Kipling’s outspoken American wife Carrie (Kim Cattrall, Sex and the City) remains more sanguine on the course of the war, and the fate of her family. My Boy Jack, based on a true story, tells of a nation at war, and offers an intimate portrait of one family’s complex and divided experience in it.
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NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC NEW YEAR’S EVE
WITH LANG LANG
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 31 @ 6:30PM & 11:30PM
Each New Year’s Eve the New York Philharmonic plays a Gala Concert in Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. The musical content is appropriately festive, and the stage is festooned with balloon and floral decorations. Over the years it has been the pleasure of Live From Lincoln Center to bring many of those concerts into your homes; and we shall do so again this year on Friday evening, December 31. The event will mark the second New Year’s Eve Gala conducted by the Philharmonic’s still-new Music Director, Alan Gilbert.
CELEBRACIÓN! GUSTAVO DUDAMEL & THE LA PHIL WITH JUAN DIEGO FLÓREZ
SATURDAY, JANUARY 1 @ 7:30PM
Great Performances spotlights the October 7 opening night concert of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Music Director Gustavo Dudamel featuring renowned Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Actress Eva Mendes hosts the broadcast.
In describing the conductor’s interpretation of Rossini’s “Semiramide” overture, critic Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times enthused, “Dudamel rode Rossini’s crescendos like a surfer on an epic wave, sending nature’s power into to the concert hall. He brought out wonderful instrumental details. The orchestra sparkled.”
GLENN GOULD: GENIUS WITHIN
MONDAY, DECEMBER 27 @ 7:00PM & 10:00PM
A profoundly enigmatic musical poet, there have been many documentaries about Glenn Gould, but they were typically sidetracked by his eccentricities, focusing on the pills and gloves and scarves – missing the man, the magic and the message behind his music.