About Confetti Park
Confetti Park is a radio program and podcast focused on the children’s music and stories of Louisiana. Katy Hobgood Ray is your host and producer. For each episode, she mixes together field recordings and commercial music along with in-studio interviews and performances with authors, musicians, and folklorists Ray curates songs that well-known musicians may have created for their own kids – both commercial and personal — as well as local recordings from after-school programs, churches, and community groups. Each show explores the soundscape of local memory, as sprinkled accessed from the aural and musical memories of Louisiana musicians, interviews with regional culture-bearers, and a sprinkling of folklore. “Music permeates the fabric of our daily lives in Louisiana, and a lot of our music is naturally kids’ music—danceable, full of whimsy and fun,” Ray explains. “So while Confetti Park is created for kids, anyone who loves Louisiana culture, a good song, and a good story is going to love this show.” For the weekly segment Confetti Park Storytime, Ray traverses the state all year long to unearth music and folktales, local legends and spooky stories, colorful family memories and forgotten histories. This segment often features published children’s authors as well as interview and encounters with everyday people on the street. “Confetti Park is a showcase of the cultural diversity of Louisiana,” says Ray. “I think about the intimacy of bedtime storytelling and lullaby singing between grandparents and grandchildren—how very genuine and emotional is the transmission of family history and culture at that time. What better way to share a culture than through storytelling and song?” The Confetti Park podcast is available for free on iTunes
About Kathryn Hobgood
Kathryn Hobgood Ray was born in Bogalusa, raised in Shreveport, and now resides in New Orleans. She holds an M.A. in Musicology from Tulane and is a former show host for Red River Radio, an NPR-affiliated network in north Louisiana. She taught Kindermusik at the Renzi Education and Art Center in Shreveport and currently directs a children’s chorus called the Confetti Park Players. Confetti Park is a small playground in the heart of Algiers Point, a historical neighborhood on the West bank of the Mississippi River in New Orleans.