• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About WXXI
  • Topics
  • Events
  • Contact Us
WXXI Passport Donate
WXXI

WXXI

Go Public

  • Watch
    • Schedule
    • Watch Live
    • Watch On-Demand
    • Original Productions
    • All Channels
  • Listen
    • WXXI News
    • WRUR The Route
    • WITH The Route
    • WXXI Classical
    • WEOS Finger Lakes
    • All Stations
  • Ways to Give
    • Donate Online
    • Membership
    • Update Payment Info
    • Leadership Circle
    • Legacy Giving
    • Other Ways to Give
    • Corporate Sponsorship
  • News
  • Classical
  • The Route
  • CITY
  • The Little
  • Education
  • About WXXI
  • Topics
  • Events
  • Contact Us
WXXI Passport Donate

American Masters – The Disappearance of Miss Scott • WXXI-TV

Hazel Scott was one of the most revered stars of the early 20th century.

American Masters – The Disappearance of Miss Scott, premieres Friday, February 21, 2025 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streaming on the WXXI app.

Not only was Scott a beloved musical sensation, but she also channeled her talents into Hollywood stardom, becoming the first Black American to host their own television show. Discover her storied life, from her childhood as a musical prodigy in Trinidad to her prolific career on stage and the silver screen in this new documentary.

Featuring archival footage and stills, performance clips, animation, and interviews, The Disappearance of Miss Scott is the first known documentary centering on the jazz virtuoso’s life, detailing her awe-inspiring talents on the piano, how she used her star power to be an influential voice of the nascent Civil Rights Movement, and her life in Paris after being blacklisted from Hollywood during the 1950s Red Scare. Her career in the US ultimately ended after she defended herself and her colleagues in front of the House Un-American Committee, and her story has been mostly silenced until this film. Excerpts of Scott’s unpublished autobiography are voiced by Emmy Award-winning actress Sheryl Lee Ralph, revealing Scott as a woman who would not compromise on her beliefs, and are complemented by interviews with country star Mickey Guyton, actresses Amanda Seales and Tracie Thoms, jazz musicians Camille Thurman and Jason Moran, and Adam Clayton Powell III, Hazel Scott’s only son.

Photo: Hazel Scott/ Credit: Everett

Chautauqua at 150: Winton Marsalis’ All Rise • WXXI-TV

This film tells the institution’s story through the voices of its current patrons and partners, including those who have spoken and performed from Chautauqua’s iconic stages over the past several years.

Chautauqua at 150: Winton Marsalis’ All Rise airs Tuesday, February 11 at 10 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streams live on the WXXI app.

Chautauqua Institution, founded in the late 19th century as a place for Americans to make purposeful use of leisure time, has dedicated itself to using arts and education to elevate the discussions that have transformed our nation throughout its history. Through musical performances, original filming, archival footage, photos, and interviews, Chautauqua at 150: Winton Marsalis’ All Rise will artistically explore the impact that the Chautauqua Institution has had in providing a critical platform for some of the most thought-provoking, challenging, and often uplifting conversations in America and beyond. 

The documentary is centered around a new production of “All Rise,” written by award-winning trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis. Originally premiered in 1999, this jazz symphony will be performed by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (JLCO) with Wynton Marsalis as well as Chautauqua’s Music School Festival Orchestra, and the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus.

Known best for its nine-week Summer Assembly, Chautauqua Institution serves more than 100,000 patrons annually with programs and services designed to inspire a love for learning across a lifetime and generations, both during the summer months and year-round.  

The historic community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state was described by then President Theodore Roosevelt as, “typical of America at its best.

Photo: Title card/Credit: Provided

Protect My Public Media/ Protect WXXI

Public media is more at risk now than ever before. The House has passed a rescissions package that would take back $1.1 billion in public media funding already approved by law. If enacted, the impact on local stations would be swift and severe. The Senate could take up the package as early as the week of July 7, but they still have time to change it. Now is the moment to urge them to remove the harmful proposal targeting public media.

Want to help keep WXXI strong in our community? Here are four ways you can get involved:

1. Call your Senators

Go to Protect My Public Media and contact your Senator urging them to protect and sustain the essential funding that keeps public media strong and accessible for all. For just about $1.60 per person annually, federal funding supports more than 1,500+ public media stations’ local services.

Call your Senator
An illustration of the Capitol building

2. Pledge your support

Help us sustain our work here in this region by making a contribution in support of our journalism, our arts and culture coverage, our educational outreach, and our ability to serve every household, regardless of zip code or income level.

Donate now
A "Donate button" with a hand clicking on it

3. Share your story

We’re collecting stories from our neighbors to help illustrate how WXXI Public Media plays a vital role in our community. Share what WXXI means to you on your social media accounts (and be sure to tag us and use #ProtectWXXI). Or, click the “Tell Your Story” button to submit your testimonial using our Google doc form.

Tell your story
Illustration of a hand holding a mega phone

4. Engage with us

Share a story that moved you, go to a movie at The Little Theatre, join us for an Indie Lens Pop-Up screening, attend a Live from Hochstein performance, or pick up CITY Magazine. Public Media works best when the public is truly part of it!

See events
Two hands high fiving

Helpful Resources

• FAQ Sheet

WXXI in the community

Gateways NY
Mon and daughter standing in front of the PBS KIDS table playing an activity.
two white men singing into microphones. The man on the left is strumming an acoustic guitar
Children playing with toys
Chocolatier taping

Urge the New Congress: Safeguard Public Media

Federal funding ensures that your local public radio and TV stations can continue to give you access to essential educational, local, and cultural programming; trustworthy, in-depth news; and emergency and community-based services.

Get updates and take action on efforts to cut federal funding for public media by signing up at protectmypublicmedia.org. Your voice matters.

GET INVOLVED >>

Super Drama Sunday • WXXI-TV

For those who don’t enjoy watching the big game, WXXI-TV offers a dramatic alternative – a marathon of PBS’s best dramas.

Super Drama Sunday kicks off Sunday, February 9 at 12:30 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

Beginning at 12:30 p.m. binge on all three episodes of Sherlock on Masterpiece. an exhilarating union of whip-smart writing and star-making performances from a cast including Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Andrew Scott, and Mark Gatiss among others.

The stellar line-up continues with: Call the Midwife at 5 p.m.. and then your regular Sunday line-up that includes Miss Scarlet at 8 p.m., All Creatures Great and Small at 9 p.m., Funny Woman at 10 p.m. and Death in Paradise at 11 p.m.

Photo: Provided by PBS

The Lincoln School Story • WXXI-TV

Examines the little-known fight for school desegregation led by a handful of Ohio mothers and their children in 1954. 

The Lincoln School Story airs Friday, February 7 at 10:30 p.m. WXXI-TV

In the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, school districts nationwide were mandated to integrate. But when African American mothers in Hillsboro, Ohio, tried to enroll their children in the local, historically white schools, the school board refused to comply. Five mothers and their children took the school board to court and eventually their children became the first Black students to attend a high-quality local elementary school. Their judicial victory in the Midwest inspired Black parents in communities across the country.

Photo: (L-R) Zella Mae Cumberland, Gertrude Clemons and Minnie Speach. Photo credit: Press Gazette

American Justice on Trial • WXXI-TV

The untold story behind the murder trial of Black Panther leader Huey Newton.

American Justice on Trial airs Monday, February 3 at 9 p.m. WXXI-TV

This film tells the story of the death penalty case that put racism on trial in a U.S. courtroom in the fall of 1968. Huey P. Newton, Black Panther Party co-founder, was accused of killing a white policeman and wounding another after a pre-dawn car stop in Oakland. Newton himself suffered a near-fatal wound. As the trial neared its end, J. Edgar Hoover branded the Black Panthers the greatest internal threat to American security. Earlier that year, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy rocked a nation already bitterly divided over the Vietnam War. As the jury deliberated Newton’s fate, America was a tinderbox waiting to explode.

At his trial, Newton and his maverick defense team led by Charles Garry and his then rare female co-counsel Fay Stender, defended the Panthers as a response to 400 years of racism and accused the policemen of racial profiling, insisting Newton had only acted in self-defense. Their unprecedented challenges to structural racism in the jury selection process were revolutionary and risky. If the Newton jury came back with the widely expected first degree murder verdict against the charismatic black militant, Newton would have faced the death penalty and national riots were anticipated. But Newton’s defense team redefined a “jury of one’s peers,” and a groundbreaking diverse jury headed by pioneering Black foreman David Harper delivered a shocking verdict that still reverberates today.

Photo: Huey Newton and his defense team Charles Garry & Fay Stender hold a press conference after the verdict/Credit: Ilka Hartmann

Great Performances “Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony” • WXXI-TV

Performed from Highland Park’s Ravinia Festival, Great Performances presents legendary composer Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish symphony featuring the talent of Uniting Voices (formerly Chicago Children’s Choir), Chicago Symphony Chorus and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Great Performances “Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony” airs Sunday, February 2 at 2 p.m. WXXI-TV

Led by famed conductor and Bernstein protégé Marin Alsop, the work includes music and spoken narrative segments voiced by narrator Jaye Ladymore (“Chicago Med”) and sung by soprano soloist Janai Brugger (Great Performances at the Met: Medea). Recorded July 2022, the symphony examines questions of humanity and faith, exploring the complicated nature of a higher power who governs mortality.

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 21
  • Go to page 22
  • Go to page 23
  • Go to page 24
  • Go to page 25
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 123
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar





Quality Content is made possible by viewers like you. Thank you.

Support Us

sidebar-alt

Keep informed about what’s happening in your community and WXXI by signing up for our newsletters.

Sign Up
The official WXXI logo.
Open facebook in a new window Open twitter in a new window Open instagram in a new window Open youtube in a new window Open linkedin in a new window
In affliation with:
The official PBS logo.The official NPR logo.

WXXI Public Media

280 State Street

Rochester, NY 14614

585-258-0200
wxxi@wxxi.org
  • About WXXI
  • Boards & Management
  • Careers
  • Corporate Sponsorship
  • Our Services
  • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Statement
  • Pressroom
  • Broadcast Coverage
  • Financials & Reports
  • Troubleshooting
Watch
Support
Listen
Contact Us
© 2025 WXXI Public Broadcasting Council FCC Public Files: WXXI-TV, WXXI-FM, WXXI-AM , WXXY-FM, WXXO-FM
  • Closed Captioning
  • Public Files
  • Privacy Policy
  • Copyright Policy
  • Land Acknowledgement