Bringing The World Home To You

© 2024 WUNC North Carolina Public Radio
120 Friday Center Dr
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
919.445.9150 | 800.962.9862
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The Lessons Music Can Teach Us: Meet Georgiary Bledsoe

A headshot of Georgiary Bledsoe
Courtesy of Georgiary Bledsoe

From an early age, Georgiary Bledsoe aspired to a life beyond what she knew as a child. She is the youngest of 17 siblings and grew up very poor in East Saint Louis, Illinois, a city often considered one of the most dangerous in America.

Despite all of that, Bledsoe excelled in school, got involved in Girl Scouts, ballet lessons, and music, and the adults in her small community often pushed her to take on leadership roles. She played piano to accompany her music class and traveled to fill in for church organists and music directors.

Music quickly became a focal point of her childhood, and it eventually became the core of her life’s mission. Bledsoe is the founder and executive director of BUMP: The Triangle, a nonprofit music education organization that focuses on music of the African diaspora.

She talks to host Frank Stasio about what music taught her as a girl and how she hopes to pass that knowledge on to future generations.

Amanda Magnus is the executive producer of Embodied, a weekly radio show and podcast about sex, relationships and health. She has also worked on other WUNC shows including Tested and CREEP.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.