Recurring series of programs on Prisms

For quite a while, many themed programs on Prisms were explicitly organized into series of programs with some category relationship to one another. Some series were of limited run, designed to last for only a certain number of programs; others were ongoing. All were organized into fairly strict scheduling patterns (every second Thursday, every fourth Thursday of every odd month, etc.).

I decided to stop using the series concept, because of a general rethinking of the Prisms format that culminated while the program was on hiatus in August and September 2002. Essentially, I wanted to retain the eclecticism of the Prisms format while making it more flexible -- and even though incorporating scheduled series of programs helped enforce the eclecticism, consistently holding open specific dates increasingly seemed to be working against other goals, such as the ability to schedule guests on short notice, whip together programs in response to current events, or decide that the program on tap for this week (by virtue of What The Schedule Dictated) could use another week's work before putting it on the air. So -- with a fair amount of reluctance -- I decided to let all of the series go.

Of course, there will still be programs that would have been suitable for one or more of the series; they just won't be scheduled according to a strict pattern anymore. (I might still schedule an occasional limited-run series, but it is unlikely any will last as long as the Harnessings of the Sacred limited-run series.) Instead, the Upcoming programs page will list three layers of information: programs that have definitely been scheduled, programs that will definitely air at some later point (but that haven't been definitely scheduled), and ideas for programs that I'm currently considering. The page that lists installments of Prisms by theme will still group together similar types of programs as it did during the days of series.

The following ongoing and limited-run series ran on Prisms at some point up through the end of July 2002. All series active at that time were wrapped up after the hiatus.

• The 20th-century Theatre Pieces series started at the beginning of 2001, and (with occasional exceptions) ran every second Thursday morning of the month.

• Although it took a little while for the original few relevant programs to coalesce into a coherent grouping, the Featured composers series eventually became an ongoing series, and (with occasional exceptions) ran every fourth Thursday morning of every odd-numbered month.

• The Northwest composers series began most recently -- in January 2002 -- and in short order traded places with the Asian voices/Dialogues with Asia series to run every fourth Thursday morning of every even-numbered month.

• The Asian voices/Dialogues with Asia series, of slightly older vintage, began by running every fourth Thursday morning of every even-numbered month, and as of May 2002 ran whenever there was a fifth Thursday morning in the month.

• The limited-run Harnessings of the Sacred series overlapped with specific installments of the series listed above, as well as containing stand-alone segments. It began running in June and July 2002, then concluded after the hiatus in November and December.

• The Speculative fiction/experimental music series, which ran in 2000 just after Prisms' inception, was essentially a more specifically focused version of the Theatre Pieces series.

• The Big hits of the twentieth century series ran whenever there was a fifth Thursday, from late 2000 up until the end of 2001. It represented an attempt to group together well-known and/or accessible pieces from the 20th century oeuvre.