Minnesota Now Minnesota Public Radio

Minneapolis band Red Thread joined the Minnesota Now arts takeover to celebrate their recent album release. The album is called Immigrantke, which means “female immigrant” in Yiddish. The songs are a mix of originals and traditional, sung in English, Serbian and Yiddish. MPR News Arts Editor Max Sparber reviewed the band’s album and invited them into the studio to perform songs live for the show.

It’s a special episode of Minnesota Now — the MPR News Arts team is taking over with a full hour of arts coverage.

They took a look at the story of a set of theater seats the arts team purchased at the beginning of the year, and the rabbit hole it sent them down to track the seats’ decades-long journey.

Arts Senior Reporter Alex V. Cipolle took a trip down to Winona with her latest installment of Art Friend, as she examined old landscape paintings in a new way.

Minnesota band Red Thread stopped by with some insights into what inspires their performance of folk music and original songs. The band also performed a few of their latest songs.

Celebrity chef Katie Chin, daughter of restaurateur Leeann Chin joined the show to talk about growing up in Minnesota and the play she wrote about her mom.

In this “What’s for Lunch?” segment, MPR News guest host Jacob Aloi talked to celebrity chef and food writer Katie Chin. Her mother is the founder of a favorite Midwest Chinese chain Leeann Chin.

Katie Chin wrote and is performing a one-woman play about the restauranteur Leeann Chin’s life.

Here in Minnesota, we love our local music scene. With the release of Popsikal, we get 11 great local artists in one album: 26 Bats, Ariesfirebomb, Chad Atkin, d.notiv, Jane October, KKthainfamous, Maddie Lives, NatanYael, Scraps, shadingthesun and SYM1.

SYM1 is featured on the album, but she’s also the president of producing label Freeze Pop Records. Popsikal will be its first album when it’s released on May 31. SYM1 joined MPR News guest host Nina Moini to preview the new album that has local music fanatics on the edge of their seats.

Minnesota is home to the largest Karen community in the country. Many are refugees from Burma, now called Myanmar, and cultural differences and language barriers make it exceptionally difficult to navigate the American health care system — which is complicated enough on its own.

To bridge the gap for Karen immigrants and other groups, health care organizations hire professionals who come from the same communities they are helping to find health care and other services. M Health Fairview in the Twin Cities has six of these cultural brokers who represent the Hmong, Karen, African American, Native American and Latine communities.

Lah Tha Pwee recently joined them as an additional cultural broker working with the Karen community. She is an immigrant from Thailand and joined MPR News guest host Nina Moini to talk about her role.

Police reform advocates in Minneapolis have collected more than 9,000 signatures in favor of setting up an all-elected accountability board. The existing board has had a rocky start. MPR News senior reporter Jon Collins joined with the details.

We talked with someone who is guiding members of the growing Karen community through Minnesota’s healthcare system.

The Minneapolis American Indian Center is reopening Wednesday. We spoke with a reporter live from the celebrations.

A local hyperpop artist joined us to share details about an upcoming album that celebrates up-and-coming pop musicians in Minneapolis.

And do you have any superstitions? MPR News senior producer Aleesa Kuznetsov solved the mystery of the Minnesota Twins’ lucky sausage.