Keren Ann was born in Israel, spent her early years in the Netherlands, and later moved to France. The daughter of a Russian-Jewish father and a Dutch-Javanese mother, she grew up multilingual and deeply aware that identity, language, and place are always in motion.

She began writing songs as a teenager and, by her mid-twenties, was already making her living as a professional songwriter — thanks in part to an unexpected collaboration with the legendary French singer Henri Salvador, for whom she co-wrote several late-career songs, including the hit "Jardin d'hiver."

From her debut album La Biographie de Luka Philipsen, Keren Ann established herself as a distinctive writer, singer, and producer. Over the next two decades, she moved fluidly between French and English, between Europe and New York, releasing a body of work shaped by solitude, curiosity, and an openness to change. Along the way, her songs have been recorded by artists including Iggy Pop and Jane Birkin, and she has collaborated with musicians such as David Byrne, Questlove, and Barði Jóhannsson.

In 2025, she released Paris Amour, an album inspired by and written from Paris, but not a record about Paris. Composed from her apartment in Montmartre, overlooking the city, the songs reflect a creative process rooted less in place than in solitude. Paris Amour is shaped by stillness and interior life. It's a record that acknowledges its surroundings while turning inward.

In this conversation, recorded in Paris, Keren Ann reflects on creativity, solitude, and the shift from inspiration to discipline, and on why, after twenty-five years, the process still matters.

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Dan Pashman is one of those increasingly rare people who always wanted to be in radio. His career began at the turn of the millennium as a producer and reporter for NPR, Air America, and SiriusXM. But after six layoffs in under a decade—and an industry in steady contraction—Pashman found himself at a crossroads just as podcasting was beginning to emerge.

In 2010, he created The Sporkful, a show he describes as being "for eaters, not foodies." With a young family in front of him and a decade of false starts behind him, Pashman saw the podcast as his last real shot at the career he'd imagined. Long obsessed with food, he finally had a platform to explore something he cared about deeply.

Built on curiosity, humor, and an almost comical level of rigor, The Sporkful began with hyper-specific food debates—ice cubes, grilled cheese, cereal milk—and evolved into a broader exploration of culture, identity, business, and human connection. That evolution reached a turning point when Pashman embarked on a multi-year experiment inventing a new pasta shape, cascatelli, which became an award-winning narrative series and a real product on grocery store shelves.

In this conversation, Pashman talks about creative obsession, building a sustainable podcast business, audio versus video, integrating ads without losing trust, and what he sees as a key to his success: "Never underestimate the power of desperation." It's a candid look at how a modern creative career gets built—one forkful at a time.

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www.leosidran.substack.com
www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story

Kurt Elling returns for a wide-ranging conversation about vocation, gratitude, and what it means to be in service of the music.

Elling first appeared on The Third Story nearly ten years ago, already one of the most celebrated singers of his generation and still deeply focused on what he calls "the work I haven't done yet." Since then, he has moved from New York back to his native Chicago, launched major projects like SuperBlue with Charlie Hunter and members of Butcher Brown, recorded intimate small-group albums in the Wildflowers series of recordings, started his Big Shoulders record label, and continued his "poetic practice" of adding new lyrics to instrumental works by artists such as Wayne Shorter and Jaco Pastorius.

The immediate occasion for this reunion, however, is something entirely new: Elling is currently appearing on Broadway in Hadestown, playing the role of Hermes.

Recorded in an apartment on the Upper West Side during his Broadway run, the conversation moves fluidly between jazz clubs and civic life. Elling speaks candidly about depression, aging, discipline, politics, and the moral responsibility of artists in unsettled times. Throughout, he returns to a central idea: the artist's job is not ego or display, but manifestation — to channel the song so something healing can happen in the room.

www.third-story.com
www.leosidran.substack.com
www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story