October 20, 2018

MICHELLE PUETZ

Chicago Film Archives

Michelle Puetz is an arts administrator, curator, art historian, and educator focused on the intersections of global modern and contemporary art, sound, performance, and technology. She is currently the Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Chicago Film Archives where she is developing a series of public programs titled Designed to be Seen as part of the Terra Foundation for American Art’s Art Design Chicago initiative.

BRUCE IGLAUER

Alligator Records Owner

Bruce Iglauer is the president and founder of Alligator Records, the largest contemporary blues label in the world. Iglauer founded the independent, Chicago-based label in 1971, at the age of 23, operating it by himself from a one-room apartment. Now Alligator has grown to 15 people, and its catalog contains over 280 CDs, over 120 produced or co-produced by Iglauer. His productions include albums by Hound Dog Taylor, Albert Collins, Koko Taylor, Lonnie Brooks, Shemekia Copeland, and more.

ALLISON McCOURTY & Bernard MacMahon

Directors of American Epic

In the 1920s, as radio took over the pop music business, record companies were forced to leave their studios in major cities in search of new styles and markets. Ranging the mountains, prairies, rural villages, and urban ghettos of America, they discovered a wealth of unexpected talent. The recordings they made of all the ethnic groups of America democratized the nation and gave a voice to everyone. Country singers in the Appalachians, Blues guitarists in the Mississippi Delta, Gospel preachers…