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Another Spin

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Maine Public Radio’s always-popular audio-diary series heads into a sixth season.

“It’s like choosing between your children,” Susan Tran says, but if she has to pick a favorite Music That Moves ME episode, it’s the one with Falmouth resident Alice White remembering how her mother would hammer out Bizet’s scandalous “Carmen” on the family piano: “It opened her eyes — her mother had a life outside of being her perfect mom.” Almost by accident, Tran, who normally does marketing and development for the station, wound up in charge of the program, in which each installment features a Mainer reflecting on a personally meaningful song. When the original producer left after the first season, in 2013, Tran lobbied hard to save it. “Sometimes you have to be careful what you ask for,” she says. “Someone said, okay, if you have time to coordinate this, we’ll keep it.” Now, she reviews more than 100 submissions and conducts 20-plus interviews to prepare a new month-long run for every June. Ahead of this season, Tran shared notes on some memorable picks from the first five years.

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