Long-running host of ‘Arts Scene’ dies
For more than three decades, Ann Nicholson hosted a show on Little Rock public radio stations, featuring perceptive interviews with actors, authors, artists, musicians and scholars and updates on what was going on in the arts around the area.
With her cultured British accent and impeccable interviewing technique, Nicholson turned “The Art s Scene,” which aired weekly on news and information station KUAR-FM, 89.1, and classical music station KLRE-FM, 90.5, into one of the foremost sources of cultural coverage.
Nicholson, 88, died in her sleep Sunday morning, according to her daughter, Dr. Dido Green. The cause of death was not immediately available.
Nicholson produced more than 1,000 “Arts Scene” programs between 1985 and her retirement in October 2019. KUAR reporter-anchor Daniel Breen, who had been assisting Nicholson in producing the program for several years, took over the show at that time.
“I want our listeners to gain a new experience from each program,” Nicholson said in a profile for KUAR’s website. “I look for persons in the arts that I think will not only indulge my interests, but also those in the audience. I try to give them a little bit of extra personal background that they wouldn’t get anywhere else.”
Nathan Vandiver, general manager of KUAR and KLRE, noted that Nicholson, a noted technophobe, learned to handle tough tasks involved in the editing of the radio show. Initially, when it was recorded on reel-to-reel, she had to learn how to cut tape, and later how to edit on the computer.
“Technical skills were not her forte,” Vandiver said. Her forte was, he added, her persistence as a researcher into the people she would interview.
Little Rock artist and gallery owner Garbo Hearne called Nicholson “a very good friend,” who frequently interviewed artists and authors Hearne would feature. Hearne called Nicholson “the ultimate arts advocate” and praised “the way she conquered many disciplines to be able to do her job.
“She went all-in on everything she did,” Hearne said. “She made the people she interviewed feel comfortable, and many of them told me afterward, ‘She asked me questions I have never even asked of myself.’”
Nicholson made her KLRE debut in 1984, conceiving, writing and narrating a 10-part series of 30-minute programs titled “The Forgotten Oscar,” based on the stories and poems of Oscar Wilde. “The Arts Scene” debuted the following year. She received two national awards from American Women in Radio and Television and the 2003 Aha! Cultural Spirit Award from the city of Little Rock.
Nicholson was also an arts patron, attending Little Rock musical and theater performances. She served on the boards of the Little Rock Musical Coterie, the Hot Springs Music Festival and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Friends of the Arts, and was a founding member of the Little Rock Arts and Humanities Promotion Commission.
Nicholson was born in India, the daughter of a British Army officer, and educated in India, Kashmir, Scotland, England and the United States. She and her husband, David, who died in December 2012, lived in Canada and Kentucky before they moved in 1978 to Arkansas, where she became public relations director for Ballet Arkansas.
Nicholson’s daughter, Dido, was a professional ballet dancer, with the Royal Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada and the Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet Company in London, before a foot injury sidelined her at 23. She went on to a career in occupational therapy and neuroscience, and is currently on the faculty at Brunel University London and Jonkoping University in Jonkoping, Sweden.
“Both my parents loved classical music,” she said from her home in Oxford, England. “My mother trained as a singer, as a specialist and a leader, not in opera, but she loved opera.”
Green said Nicholson is also survived by a son, Niall Nicholson, and two sisters, one in Toronto and one in Oxford. The coronavirus is complicating plans for a funeral; Green said the family and the radio station staff are looking at a possible future memorial service.