The King of the “Thingiverse” gave opening remarks today at SXSW Interactive.

• Listen to Bre Pettis, co-founder of Makerbot, speaking at SXSW 2013:

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He’s been referred to as Mr. Rogers, Mr. Wizard and Bill Nye The Science Guy rolled into one. Bre Pettis — co-founder of Makerbot — is really a tinkerer at heart who’s built an empire in the world of 3D printing.

Pettis introduced the Makerbot Replicator — an open-source 3D printer that’s been modified to become the standard desktop 3D printer.

Pettis says there we’re witnessing a revolution in 3d printing. “It’s never been easier to make and share actual designs,” he says, “in the same way Dreamweaver 2004 unlocked websites for a lot of people, Makerbot is unlocking the ability to make physical things.”

A few interesting points from Pettis’ talk:

• Makerbot’s biggest customer is NASA, followed closely by GE.
• Makerbots are made in Brooklyn.
• 7 of the top 10 architecture firms in the US use Makerbot
• People use Makerbots to create everything from prosthesis to garden gnomes, to shot glasses.

Want to make stuff in DFW? Check out the following spots:

• Dallas Makerspace
• Ft. Worth Makerspace

Art&Seek presents This Week in Texas Music History. Every week, we’ll spotlight a different moment and the musician who made it. This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll remember an influential accordion player who never recorded a note.

You can also hear This Week in Texas Music History on Sunday at precisely 6:04 p.m. on KERA radio. But subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss an episode. And our thanks to KUT public radio in Austin for helping us bring this segment to you. And if you’re a music lover, be sure to check out Track by Track, the bi-weekly podcast from Paul Slavens, host of KXT’s The Paul Slavens Show, heard Sunday night’s at 8.

• Click the player to listen to the podcast:

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• Expanded online version:

Camilo Cantú was born on March 4, 1907, in Nuevo León, Mexico. He moved to Texas as a boy and began performing accordion in the Austin area around 1930. Originally, he played with friends simply as a way to relax after a long day of working in the cotton fields. However, by the 1940s, Cantú was the premier conjunto accordionist in Austin nightclubs. As a contemporary of conjunto pioneers Narciso Martínez and Santiago Jiménez, Sr., Cantú earned the nickname “El Azote de Austin,” or “the Scourge of Austin.” Although he never recorded, Cantú influenced several Tejano musicians, most notably Johnny Degollado.

Camilo Cantú retired from playing clubs in the 1960s and operated an accordion repair shop in his home. He was inducted into the Conjunto Hall of Fame in 1987 and died in Austin in 1998.

Next time on This Week in Texas Music History, we’ll meet a trumpet player whose career included some real twists and turns.

In the Saturday Spotlight, we’re celebrating all things Irish at the Bit O’Blarney Bash at Unitarian Universalist Church of Oak Cliff.  Let local musicians entertain you with Irish fiddling, singing and harp playing as well as Irish storytelling. After the music and some socializing, feast on a traditional Irish dinner.

• Read and listen to Lauren’s KERA FM report on new Latino media and taco journalism.

There are over fifty million Hispanic Americans — nine million in the state of Texas alone. And research shows Hispanic Americans are more likely to use smartphones, try new apps, and visit video sharing sites than their non-Hispanic counterparts. Yet this fast-growing, digital media hungry audience has only recently caught the attention of big-name brands and TV Networks.

At this year’s SXSW Interactive festival in Austin, Latino entrepreneurs are talking about real ways to create content that speaks to the Hispanic audience. Beatriz Acevedo says telenovelas and game shows are fine, but the aren’t what she wants to watch. Acevedo is the founder and president of MiTu. It’s a Latino lifestyle network on Youtube with over three million subscribers.

Acevedo says she created MiTú in 2012 because she saw a need for “something that was culturally relevant both in English and Spanish for Latinos around the world.”

Here’s a few videos to check out from MiTú:

• “Recetas De Pollo – JC’s 3 Ways”

• Back to School with Karo Care – “How to Raise a Bilingual Child”

• Redecorate Your Home – “Casa Linda”

Afternoon Delight is a daily diversion for when you’re just back from lunch, but not quite ready to get down to work. Check back weekdays at 1 p.m. for another one.
In Dallas, we’ve gone through a fair amount of talk about how hip / attractive / garish or outright cheesy it is, sticking LED lights all over our downtown high-rises and turning them into blinding, nighttime beacons. In San Francisco, though, the plan was to gussy up the Bay Bridge to let it outshine its Golden Grate cousin for once. But they treated the whole deal as a monumental,  commissioned, public art project, one of the biggest ever. It’s turning the bridge into a shimmering curtain, a slow wave of Northern lights — but only for two years.

Hmm. No cracks made about ‘hooker lights’ or pop-up ads or the “Lite-Brite-ing of San Francisco.”

Photo from Shutterstock

The Dallas Symphony leaves today on its first European tour in a decade. The trip is also something of a show-off homecoming. Music director Jaap van Zweden is bringing his new orchestra back to where he used to play. Van Zweden was the concertmaster, or lead violinist, of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam for 16 years. And Tuesday, the DSO will be playing in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam’s legendary music hall.  In fact,  that performance will be live-streamed. Cool.

After playing there, the DSO’s 110 musicians will perform in Vienna, Munich, Frankfurt and Hamburg before returning March 22.

Stay tuned: KERA will continue to cover the DSO in Europe through the voices of people on the tour.

The full release and itinerary:

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There are over fifty million Hispanic Americans — nine million in the state of Texas alone. Yet this fast-growing, digital media hungry audience has only recently caught the attention of big-name brands and TV Networks. At this year’s South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Latino entrepreneurs are talking about real ways to create content that speaks to the Hispanic audience.

• Listen to the KERA FM radio report:

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You don’t have to turn the dial back to the 1960s to find stereotypical representations of Latinos that don’t resonate with the younger generation. Yashoda Sampath, a researcher at Huge Digital Ad Agency, says just look at Sofia Vergara’s character on ABC’s “Modern Family.”

That might work with the older generation, but research shows it does not work with young Latinos. And since young Latinos are more likely than the general population to be online, to visit video sharing sites and to try new technologies, what they like matters.

So what does works? Sampath says more nuanced messages of bi-culturalism. One new video site is hitting the target. It’s called MiTú, and it is is a Latino lifestyle network on YouTube  Barely a year old, the site already has three million subscribers.

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MARKING 40 - The Kathy Burks Theatre of Puppetry Arts (formerly Kathy Burks Marionettes) turns 40 this year — with an audio-digitalized upgrade of a classic, Rumpelstiltskin — running at the Dallas Children’s Theatre, where the Burks have been part of the regular season since 1996. Kathy Burks, 76, tells Nancy Churnin in the DMN (pay wall): “I’m the luckiest person I know because I’m still doing what I love to do with the people I love to do it with. I got into it because of my children, and it was a surprise that it took over our lives. It’s been lots of hard work, but I’ve enjoyed every minute.”

RAPPELEZ VOUS JEAN PAUL? Bien sur, of course you remember the Jean Paul Gaultier haute couture show that was at the DMA in late 2011. Hard to forget the punk kilts and the elaborate boudoir lingerie that seemed to cling to yet drip off the talking mannequins. Well, the s continues its international blockbuster runway walk, currently running in Rotterdam and opening next year at London’s Barbican Centre.

REMEMBERING ANN – Ann, the one-woman play about Ann Richards, that opened last night on Broadway, was researched, written by and stars the talented Holland Taylor (best known, unfortunately, as Charlie Sheen’s mom from Two and a Half Men).  But does it do the former governor justice? (One local note: An offstage secretary is voiced by Austin’s own Julie White.) Charles Isherwood writes in the New York Times: ‘To put it as the plain-talking Richards might, this one-dynamo show — Ms. Taylor is the lone cast member — is neither a shapely work of drama nor a deeply probing character study. But admirers of Richards probably won’t give a darn. She was a brightly shining political star and an inspiring figure during the years of her renown, and Ms. Taylor is essentially just giving this beloved dame one more chance to bask in the spotlight.” On the other hand, here’s USA Today: ‘Richards is treated, in other words, much like a sitcom character. Her notable achievements are alluded to — revitalizing the local economy, reforming the prison system, championing civil and reproductive rights — but in ways that are both simplistic and pedantic.”

This week, Art&Seek’s Stephen Becker and Dallas Morning News movie critic Chris Vognar argue the merits of Oz: The Great and Powerful (not everyone’s on board with this one). And we run through the films and experiences we’re looking forward to in Austin. Be sure to subscribe to The Big Screen podcast on iTunes. Stream this week’s podcast below or download it.
 

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For a shortened version of our Oz: The Great and Powerful review:
 

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The Fort Worth Symphony announced its new season today. The high point will be cello superstar Yo-Yo Ma making his debut with the orchestra in 2014′s Gala. KERA’s Jerome Weeks has this report.

KERA radio report:
 

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Expanded online report:

Fort Worth Symphony music director Miguel Harth-Bedoya says he and Yo-Yo Ma are old colleagues. Getting together at last in Fort Worth has just been a problem with their schedules.

“We have performed with the Chicago Symphony,” Harth-Bedoya recalls. “We have performed with the Boston Symphony – Atlanta Symphony. We have recorded with the Chicago Symphony as well. You know, so like finally, it took so long to make our dates coordinate.”

The Grammy Award-winning Yo-Yo Ma will perform Dvorak’s Cello Concerto, which he has recorded with the New York Philharmonic.

Other season highlights include the Great Performances Festival, which will open the season in August. This will be the first time the three finalists of the Van Cliburn Competition will play in it. Previously, the Cliburn medalists have made their debut with the symphony very soon after the competition had finished. But that meant they performed outdoors in the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens. This fall, they’ll be in Bass Hall. Those plans had been in the works for awhile, but with Van Cliburn’s death last month, Harth-Bedoya decided to honor the legendary pianist. Cliburn had performed at the conductor’s own debut with the Fort Worth Symphony in 2000. He stepped in at the last minute when pianist Andre Watts was forced to cancel And so this year’s Great Performances Festival will play nothing but Cliburn’s favorite Russian composers — including  Rachmaninoff’s first three piano concertos.

“When we knew of his illness,” Harth-Bedoya recalled, “I said, we have to do something for Van. And so choosing Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff together, now of course, this festival will be dedicated to Van in its true meaning. ”

This season, the symphony will also be shifting its Friday and Saturday start times to 7:30 p.m. But the Gala concert will be start, as always, at 7 p.m.

The full release:

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