– Country Music Star Trisha Yearwood Hosts Annual Holiday Favorite at Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville –

Three-time Grammy Award winner and Belmont University alumna Trisha Yearwood hosts CHRISTMAS AT BELMONT (2009), taped at Schermerhorn Symphony Center in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The program, produced by Nashville Public Television (NPT), airs Wednesday, December 23, 2009, 7:00-8:00 p.m. CT on on NPT and PBS stations nationwide (check local listings). NPT will also rebroadcast the show on Christmas Eve, Thursday, December 24 at 9:00 p.m. CT.

For Immediate Release 

*** Fourth Installment in NPT’s Original Documentary Series Explores Nashville’s Emerging Bhutanese population; Premieres Thursday, November 19 at 8:00 p.m. ***

 NASHVILLE, Tennessee – November 12, 2009 – Each year, new refugees with different backgrounds flee a variety of struggles to arrive in cities such as Nashville. They face an utterly new environment and a demanding sacrifice of their history, culture, friends and family.  Every refugee community resettled to Nashville brings a changing combination of assets and challenges, but they are unified by a common aspiration.  They all seek a better life, a permanent solution and a new home.    

The Bhutanese are Nashville’s newest refugee community, and Nashville Public Television offers viewers a chance to see the city through this new community’s eyes with NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS: BHUTANESE premiering on Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. on NPT-Channel 8. The documentary is the fourth installment in NPT’s four-part NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS series, a recipient of a 2009 My Source Community Impact for Engagement Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

“The ideals of refugee resettlement are sometimes at odds with reality,” says series writer, director and producer Will Pedigo. “The isolation and new environment can be harsher than imagined and the resettlement process can deliver less than expected. For new arrivals, every day is a race against time. After eight months the federal funding ends and the health insurance disappears.  In Nashville and across the US, newly arrived refugees often go unnoticed, until they emerge as contributing residents and eventually Americans.”

In January 2007, the U.S. Department of State announced it would host the resettlement of 60,000 Bhutanese over the next several years to cities across the U.S.  The first reached Nashville in July 2008, but most arrived in the middle of 2009.  After their first year in Nashville, almost all of the Bhutanese lived in one southeast Nashville apartment complex.

When refugees first arrive in the U.S. they come with less than fifty pounds of baggage and an airplane ticket they have to repay within three years. Acceptance into the country is secured by the U.S. Department of State, but the local resettlement process is provided through volunteer agencies like. In Nashville, that includes Catholic Charities and World Relief.  Placing new refugees in a tight geographical location like a single apartment complex has shown to speed up the resettlement process.     

***Latest installment in Beautiful Tennessee series visits caves, sacred Native-American sites, battlefield parks, hiking trails and more.***

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – November 12, 2009 – BEAUTIFUL TENNESSEE: PARKS & PRESERVATION, the third installment in Nashville Public Television's Beautiful Tennessee series, explores the majesty of Tennessee's parks, from sacred sites revered by ancient cultures for their beauty and mystery; to battlefields sanctified by those who fell fighting for their beliefs; to more recent additions facing the challenges of preservation in the new millennium. The documentary, written, directed and produced by NPT's Ed Jones (Tennessee Crossroads), premieres on Sunday, November 29 at 7:00 p.m. on NPT-Channel 8.

"Tennessee is a remarkable state," says former state naturalist Mack Pritchard to open the documentary. "We have such an incredible diversity of natural beauty, but we also have a great cultural asset as well."

The documentary transports the viewer across a wide spectrum of the state’s natural and historical shrines, starting with the subterranean treasures that are Dunbar Cave and Devil Step Hollow Cave, the latter of which Bobby Fulcher, Cumberland Trail manager, says is "one of the most, if not the most, important subterranean ceremonial sites in North America."

A visit to Pinson Mounds State Archaeological Park introduces viewers to the many ceremonial mounds built by Native Americans. At Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Park in Manchester, we explore a popular Native American gathering place dating back five centuries flush with plunge pools, waterfalls and in-turned mounds that point directly at the summer solstice sunrise. At Fort Loudon, built in 1756 to solidify relations between the British and Cherokee during the French and Indian War, we step foot on one of the earliest English fortifications of what was then the western frontier.

"Preserving Tennessee's historic sites provides a rare and tangible glimpse of our heritage," says narrator Ed Bruce in the documentary. "Walking in the footsteps of these ordinary people gives us a deeper understanding, and appreciation of the extraordinary hardships and sacrifices they endured. None sacrificed more than young men in blue and gray during the Civil War. The military parks, created to protect the hallowed ground where these men fought and died, marked the birth of federal land preservation."

In This Issue

Austin City Limits Celebrates 35 years with Willie and the Wheel, Pearl Jam and more

Fogerty Goes Live By Request

November Music Schedule

Your Chance to Win Tickets to See John Fogerty at the Ryman Auditorium

It was 35 years ago when a self-described "rag tag bunch of long-haired hippie public television types" caught Willie Nelson on video camera and produced the very first episode of Austin City Limits. To celebrate the show's anniversary and his new record, Nelson returns with Ray Benson and Asleep at the Wheel for a very special "Willie and the Wheel" episode on Saturday, November 14 at 11:00 p.m. It's just one of several special episodes this month, highlighted by a complete hour with Pearl Jam. It's been 18 years since the band's seminal debut, Ten, and in a sign that it may be a strong as ever, the band's latest, Backspacer, just hit number one. Catch the show that Billboard describes as, "Vedder and the band...riffing with the crowd as if everyone was mingling at a party rather than at the taping of a legendary TV music series," on Saturday, November 21 at 11:00 p.m.

Got a request for John Fogerty? Here's your chance to make it. Saturday, November 7 at 8:00 p.m. NPT offers a very special broadcast of John Fogerty - Live By Request. Just like it sounds, Fogerty will be performing live and taking requests from you and other PBS viewers around the nation who call into the special toll-free number. If you want to experience Fogerty even more live, scroll down for a chance to win tickets to his performance at the Ryman on November 22.

American Masters profiles Woody Guthrie. Independent Lens shares the emotional roller coaster ride of Roque Wave drummer Pat Spurgeon as he awaits a kidney transplant, and for those who missed it when it was pre-empted earlier this year, Great Performances offers an encore broadcast of Harlem in Montmartre.

It's another great month of music programming on NPT.