Nick R Spitzer, Ph.D

Nicholas R. Spitzer is professor of Cultural Conservation at UNO's Planning and Urban Studies department and host/producer of American Routes, the two-hour weekly music show airing on Public Radio International (www.amroutes.org). He holds a B.A. in anthropology from University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and a Ph.D. in anthropology and folklore from University of Texas in Austin. He is a folklorist, professor, artistic director, and radio producer based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Dr. Spitzer is known for his work in documentary media, cultural creolization, ethnomusicology and the relationships between community cultures and economic development.
Through his anthropology work and serving as the first Louisiana State Folklorist, he has long worked with communities and their musics and ethnic identities. An advocate of using media documents to represent the cultural expressions of oral tradition-centered communities, he directed the film Zydeco (1986)-shown on PBS, Discovery Channel and throughout the Francophone world by the U.S.I.A. Spitzer also served as a commentator and consultant on Rainin' in My Heart: Baton Rouge Blues (1986), Smithsonian World (1988), and Great Performances: "Songs of Six Families" (1994)-all seen on PBS. He has produced or annotated over a dozen CDs of roots music from Louisiana and beyond.
He has been involved in the production of numerous concerts (Folk Masters, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting award-winning series of concerts of traditional American music he created at Carnegie Hall and Wolf Trap, Annual American Roots 4th of July from the National Mall), documentaries, festivals (Baton Rouge Blues Festival, Festival of American Folklife), cultural exhibits (The Creole State, Raised to the Trade: Creole Building Arts of New Orleans), etc. He is author, editor, or contributor to many publications involving culture, music and folklore (Public Folklore (Smithsonian, 1996), Louisiana: A Land Apart (1985/1991).
Spitzer has served as senior folklife specialist for the Smithsonian's Office of Folklife Programs. He has served on the Delta Regional Preservation Commission of the National Park Service in New Orleans and on the NEA's Folk Arts Panel. Spitzer is a trustee of the Fund for Folk Culture in Santa Fe and on the executive board of the American Folklore Society and the National Council for the Traditional Arts. He is heard as a commentator on folk cultures for National Public Radio's All Things Considered.
As host/producer of American Routes, Spitzer covers vast musical and cultural ground. The weekly radio show, produced in New Orleans, includes blues and jazz, roots rock and soul, Cajun and country, zydeco and Tejano, as well as stories and conversations with musicians and everyday people, known and unknown.