Podcasts about Manhattan School

This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with acclaimed pianist and composer, Chloe Flower. Born in Pennsylvania, Chloe began playing piano at age two, later studying at the Manhattan School of Music Pre-College and London's Royal Academy of Music. A classically trained pianist turned genre-bender, she calls her unique style “popsical” (a fusion of classical, pop, and hip-hop). She has collaborated with major artists like Céline Dion, Babyface, Nas, and Cardi B (whose 2019 Grammy performance she helped elevate). Beyond music, Chloe is a passionate advocate for music education and anti-human trafficking efforts.In this episode, Ari and Chloe dive into her artistic journey. They discuss everything from rigorous classical training to creating a hybrid genre that seemed nonexistent before her. Chloe explains how she navigates the music business, and the lessons she's learned from bridging two very distinct worlds. Ari and Chloe talk about label strategy, collaboration with big-name artists and producers, and maintaining authenticity while scaling. Chloe shares her approach to building a personal brand (both musically and visually), her perspective on empowering women in the industry, and how she sees the future of genre-fluid music and education. https://www.instagram.com/misschloeflower05:00 – The Holiday Album and Women Composers10:30 – Understanding Public Domain and Classical Music Rights15:45 – YouTube Covers, Metadata, and Going Independent19:00 – Meeting Babyface and Blending Genres25:00 – The Viral Grammy Performance with Cardi B29:30 – Evolving Sound and the Role of Collaboration33:00 – Running an Independent Label and Revenue Streams36:00 – Pros and Cons of Major vs. Indie Labels47:00 – Music Education and Inspiring the Next Generation54:00 – Performing with Orchestras and ConductorsEdited and mixed by Peter SchruppMusic by Brassroots DistrictProduced by the team at Ari's TakeOrder the THIRD EDITION of How to Make It in the New Music Business: https://book.aristake.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How has the classical music industry approached representation and how has the new music community forged new paths to embrace diverse musics? On tonight's episode of Obbligato on APEX Express, Isabel Li is joined by violinist Shalini Vijayan, who discusses her vibrant career and reflects upon the ways contemporary classical music can build community.  Violinist Shalini Vijayan, deemed “a vibrant violinist” by Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times is an established performer and collaborator on both coasts. Always an advocate for modern music, Shalini was a founding member and Principal Second Violin of Kristjan Jarvi's Absolute Ensemble, having recorded several albums with them including 2001 Grammy nominee, Absolution. Shalini was also a founding member of the Lyris Quartet, one of Los Angeles' most beloved chamber ensembles. With Lyris, she has performed regularly at Walt Disney Concert Hall on the Green Umbrella series, for Jacaranda Music and helped to found the Hear Now Music Festival in Venice, California, a festival dedicated to the music of living composers in Los Angeles.  Shalini performed for over a decade with Southwest Chamber Music and can be heard on their Grammy nominated Complete Chamber Works of Carlos Chávez, Vol. 3. She has been a featured soloist with the Los Angeles Master Chorale in Chinary Ung's Spiral XII and Tan Dun's Water Passion, including performances at the Ravinia Festival. As a chamber musician, Shalini has collaborated with such luminaries as Billy Childs, Chinary Ung, Gabriela Ortiz, and Wadada Leo Smith on whose Ten Freedom Summers she was a soloist. Shalini joined acclaimed LA ensemble, Brightwork New Music in 2019 and also serves as the curator for Brightwork's Tuesdays@Monkspace series, a home for contemporary music and performance in Los Angeles. As a teacher, she has been on the faculty of the Nirmita Composers Workshop in both Siem Reap and Bangkok and coaches composition students through the Impulse New Music Festival.  Shalini received her B.M. and M.M. degrees from Manhattan School of Music as a student of Lucie Robert and Ariana Bronne. As a member of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida, Shalini served as concertmaster for Michael Tilson Thomas, John Adams, Reinbert de Leeuw and Oliver Knussen. She was also concertmaster for the world premiere performances and recording of Steven Mackey's Tuck and Roll for RCA records in 2000. Shalini was a member of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra for ten seasons and also served as Principal Second Violin of Opera Pacific. She lives in Los Angeles with her son, husband and two dogs and spends her free time cooking Indian food and exploring the culinary landscape of Southern California.  Check out more of her work at:  https://brightworknewmusic.com/tuesdays-at-monk-space/  https://www.lyrisquartet.com/    Transcript  Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the APEX Express.    00:01:03 Isabel Li  You're listening to Obbligato, which is a segment about the Asian American Pacific Islander community, specifically in classical music.  00:01:11 Isabel Li  I'm your host, Isabel Li, and today joining me is Shalini Vijayan, who is a violinist, established performer, and always an advocate for modern music.  00:01:21 Isabel Li  Shalini is also a founding member of the Lyris Quartet, one of Los Angeles most beloved chamber ensembles. With Lyris, she has performed regularly at Walt Disney Concert Hall on the Green Umbrella series for Jacaranda Music, and helped to found the Here and Now Music Festival in Venice, California, a festival dedicated to the music of living composers in Los Angeles. She joined acclaimed LA ensemble Brightwork New Music in 2019, and also serves as the curator for Brightwork's Tuesdays at Monk Space series. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her son, husband and two dogs, and spends her free time cooking Indian food and exploring the culinary landscape of Southern California.  00:02:04 Isabel Li  Well, Shalini, thank you so much for joining me in this conversation today.  00:02:09 Shalini Vijayan  I'm so happy to be with you.  00:02:11 Isabel Li  Awesome. I'd like to just get to know you and your story. How do you identify and what communities do you consider yourself a part of?  00:02:18 Shalini Vijayan  I use the pronouns she, her, and I. Um, I identify as South Asian. I grew up in an Indian family. My parents immigrated to the US in the sixties to teach at medical school. And I grew up with a great deal of Indian culture. And I've spent a lot of time going back and forth to India from the time that I was very young. You know, it's interesting because I feel like in LA, where I live and work specifically, there is so much overlap between all of our different musical communities. You know, I went to school in New York, and I feel like there I was much more, I'm very connected to the new music community in New York and felt really kind of entrenched in that at the time I was there. And after coming to LA, I realized that, um, there are a lot of musicians doing so many different things. That's one of the things I love about Los Angeles, actually. And, you know, I'm definitely very, very rooted in the new music community in LA. And that was where I made my first sort of connections when I first moved to Los Angeles. But I also, you know, worked in an orchestra when I first came to LA. I played in the Pacific Symphony for almost ten seasons, and so I became a part of that community as well. And you know, as the years went on, I also became much more involved in the studio music community of LA studio musicians playing on movie scores, playing on television shows, records, what have you, Awards shows, all sorts of things. And these are all very distinct communities in LA in music. But I see a ton of overlap between all of them. There are so many incredibly versatile musicians in Los Angeles that people are able to really very easily move from one of these groups to the other and, you know, with a great deal of success. And I feel like it gives us so much variety in our lives as musicians in LA, you don't feel like you're ever just in one lane. You can really occupy all these different kinds of spaces.  00:04:23 Isabel Li  Right, yeah. So you're classically trained, from what I know, and you describe yourself as an advocate for modern music. So why modern music?  00:04:33 Shalini Vijayan  That's a great question. I have have had to answer this question quite a bit over the years, especially to non-musicians. And it's always an interesting story for me. You know, as a violinist in particular, you know, we have such a storied history of repertoire and pedagogy, and there is such an incredible, um, library of music that we have access to from the very standard classical repertoire. And there is a great deal to be learned about the instrument and about music from playing all that repertoire. I think at some point when I was in high school, I started to become interested in more modern music. And actually I grew up in Davis in Northern California.   My parents both taught at the university there, at the medical school and in Sacramento. Nearby there was a festival of modern American music that I think still goes on to this day at Cal State University, Sacramento. And it was really a great festival. And at that time, you know, they would bring professional artists, they'd have composers, they'd have commissions, all sorts of things. But at the time that I was like in high school, they also had a junior division to the festival, and I was asked to play a couple pieces in the Festival of, um, Modern Works, and I can't remember at this time what the pieces were, but it left such a huge impression on me. And I think what I really took away from that experience as a kid is that in my studies as a violinist, I was always being asked to sort of live up to this history and this legacy of violin music and violin playing in Western classical music. And it's a very high bar. And it's, um, you know, of course, there's so much great stuff there. But there was something so freeing about playing this music that had either never been played or not been recorded. So there was nothing to reference in terms of listening to a recording, um, and listening to how you, you know, quote, should be playing it that it made me feel, uh, you know, all this, this freedom to really interpret the music, how I felt, rather than feeling like I had to live up to a standard that had been set for me, you know, decades or centuries before. And I think that really something really clicked for me with that, that I wanted to have that kind of freedom when I, when I was playing. And so from there on out, um, you know, when I went to college and I really sought out opportunities in new music as much as I could.  00:07:00 Isabel Li  So you were first exposed to new music when you were in high school. Did that influence your decision to become a musician at all? Or were you already set on becoming a musician and that was just part of what shaped your works over the years.  00:07:15 Shalini Vijayan  I think by that time, I had already decided that I wanted to be a musician. I mean, as you know, so many of us as musicians and I think particularly string players, we decide so young because we start our instruments at such a young age and we start studying so early. Um, that I think by that time I, I had decided I wanted to do music, but this sort of opened another door for me that made me realize that it wasn't just one path in music necessarily. I think it's very easy as a, as a kid and as a violinist to think you admire these great soloists that you see and, you know, people like Perlman and, you know, Isaac Stern, who were the stars of the time when I was growing up. But, you know, you get to be in high school and you realize that hasn't happened yet. It's probably not going to happen. And so, you know, what's then then what's your path forward? How do you find a life in music if you're not going to be one of these stars? And I think, you know, new music really opened up that opportunity for me. And yeah, made me look at things a little differently for sure.  00:08:18 Isabel Li  And currently you're in the contemporary classical music ensemble, Brightwork newmusic, and you curate the ensemble's concert series, Tuesdays @ Monk Space. So how do you go about curating concerts with music by contemporary or living composers? What do you look for?  00:08:33 Shalini Vijayan  Well, right now I'm really focused on trying to represent our new music community in LA at Monk Space, which is such, you know, we have such a diverse community of musicians, not just in the makeup of who the people are making the music or writing the music, but also in just the styles of music. And so I think I try to really represent a very diverse set of aesthetics in our season. Um, you know, everything from, you know, last season we had, uh, Niloufar Shiri, who is a traditional Persian kamancheh player, but she also she can play very in a very traditional way, but she also plays with a jazz pianist. And, you know, it does all this very improvisatory stuff. And, you know, then we would have other programs where everything is very much written out and very through, composed and you know, it's been a very wide variety. And, you know, when I try to build the season, I try to make sure that it's really balanced in terms of, you know, the different types of things you'll be hearing because not every audience member is going to want to engage with every type of music. Um, or, you know, if we if we really stuck to one style and it was just in that language for the whole season, then I feel like we would, you know, alienate potential audience members. But with this, I feel like if we can bring people in for one concert and they're really into it, then hopefully they'll come to something else that is new and different for them and be exposed to something that they may really get into after that. So yeah, I think diversity and variety is really where I try to start from.  00:10:09 Isabel Li  How does that engage the community? Have you observed audience reception to this type of new music when there are composers from all different types of backgrounds?  00:10:20 Shalini Vijayan  Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think that each composer and each artist brings their own community into the space, which and so that's another. I feel like another strong reason why I try to make things very different from concert to concert. And, you know, we have some younger players who come in and bring in, you know, everyone from college students to, you know, their friends and family. And then, you know, really established composers. Like this season we have Bill Roper, who is kind of a legend in the music community in LA. Mult instrumentalist and composer who has been around for decades. And, you know, I think people will come out just because they want to see him and he's such a draw. And, um, you know, I, I also would love to be able to incorporate more world music into the series. Like I said, we did do Niloufar concert, which I felt like I really hoped would like engage with the Persian community in LA as well. And a couple seasons ago we had Rajna Swaminathan, who is, I just think, an incredible artist. Um, she plays mridangam, which is a South Indian percussion instrument, but she also writes for Western instruments, uh, and herself. And we had her and a pianist and then Ganavya, who's a vocalist who's amazing. And, you know, Ganavya had her own following. So we had and Rajna has her own following. So we had a whole full audience that night of people who I had never seen in the space before. And that was for me. That's a success because we're bringing in new friends and new engagement. And, um, I was really excited about that. When I'm able to make those kinds of connections with new people, then that feels like a success to me.  00:12:05 Isabel Li  Certainly.  00:12:06 Isabel Li  Let's hear one of Shalini's performances. This is an excerpt from the 10th of William Kraft's “Encounters”, a duologue for violin and marimba, performed here by Shalini Vijayan with Southwest Chamber Music.  00:12:20 [MUSIC – Encounters X: Duologue for Violin & Marimba]  00:17:18 Isabel Li  An excerpt from William Kraft's Encounters, the 10th of which is called Duologue for Violin and Marimba, that was performed by Shalini Vijayan, the violinist, with Southwest Chamber Music.  00:17:31 Isabel Li  And Shalini is here with me in conversation today. We've been discussing contemporary music and her involvement in the new music scene, specifically in Los Angeles.  00:17:40 Isabel Li  Music is all about community, drawing people together. So going back to how you describe yourself as an advocate for modern music, what are other ways that you have advocated for modern music besides curating the concert series?  00:17:53 Shalini Vijayan  Well, over the years, um, you know, I feel like in all the ensembles I've been in, there's been a real focus on commissioning composers and on performing works that have not been, uh, either performed or recorded before. And I feel like the only way to really get the music out there is to, obviously, is to play it and hopefully to be able to record it. We've worked especially with the lyrics quartet. We've worked with so many young composers in LA either just strictly, you know, contemporary classical composers or even film composers who, um, have works that they'd like to have recorded. And, you know, it's been great to see a lot of those people go on to really amazing things and to be a part of their journey, uh, and to help support them. And, uh, the other thing that the quartet has been heavily involved in and now Bright Work Ensemble has been involved in as well, is the Here Now music festival, which has been going on in LA for well over a decade now. We were involved in the first, um, seasons of that festival. We've been one of the resident ensembles since the very beginning, and that festival is dedicated to the music of LA and Southern California composers. And, um, we have a call for scores every year that we, the four of us in the quartet, are part of the panel that reviews all the scores, along with a lot of our other colleagues, um, who are involved with the festival, and Hugh Levick, who is the artistic director of the festival and has we've worked side by side with him on this for a very long time. And that's also been a fantastic avenue for, um, meeting new composers, hearing new works, having them performed. And the thing I always say about that festival every time it comes around, usually in the spring we have at least three concerts. It's this incredible coming together of the new music community in Southern California, where all these great composers and all these amazing players come together and play these series of concerts, because there's such a vast number of pieces that end up getting programmed. They can't rely on just like one group or one or two groups to play them. So it really pulls in a lot of players from all over town. And I don't know, it always just feels like a really fun time, a fun weekend for all of us to see each other and connect. And, um, and again, just build our community to be even stronger.  00:20:20 Isabel Li  That's really cool. How do you ignite interest in new music? Because this is a genre that I think is slightly underrepresented or just underrepresented in general in both the classical music community and the music industry as a whole.  00:20:35 Shalini Vijayan  That's a great question, and I think it's a really important question for our whole industry and community. How do you engage people in new music and get them into a concert? Um, you know, I think one of the biggest hurdles for classical music in general, I will say, um, when I talk to people about why they don't want to come to a concert or why they don't want to, you know, let's say, go see the LA Phil or, you know, wherever, whatever city they're in, the major cultural music institution. I think there is a misconception generally that, oh, it's, you know, I have to be dressed a certain way or I it's going to be really stuffy. And, um, I, you know, I don't know what to wear or I don't know how I'm supposed to dress or how I'm supposed to act when I'm in the concert. Am I going to clap at the wrong time? You know, is it going to be really long? And, you know, and I and I get it, you know, I mean, I understand why that would be uncomfortable for a lot of people.   And it's not, um, it's something that necessarily everyone has grown up with or that it's been a part of their life. So I think it's really up to us, as you know, when we're on the side of programming concerts or putting together festivals or whatever, um, that we make things more accessible in terms of, um, concert length and interaction with audience. And, um, you know, I think it's I know I've been told so many times and I really think it's important that I think audiences love it when performers talk to them, when they talk about the music and, and set things up for a listener. I think that puts a kind of context on things that makes it so much easier for perhaps a new audience member, someone who's never come to a concert before to feel at ease and feel like, okay, I know what I'm getting into.   One of our, actually our former executive director at Brightwork, Sarah Wass, who was fantastic, and I was very happy to work with when I was just starting out programming, Monk Space had the idea of putting on the program the running time of the pieces, and I think even that is just something that, like, can prepare people for what they're getting into when they're about to listen to something new. And in terms of the music itself, I think that if someone, especially a younger person, doesn't feel like they have any connection to Beethoven or Brahms or Mozart, they might actually feel more connected to someone who is their age or a little older.   Someone who has had similar life experiences to them, or grown up in the same era as them, rather than someone who grew up, you know, in the seventeen hundreds. You know, there can be more of a real connection there, and that that person is writing this music and reflection of their life and their experiences. And, um, you know, again, I think that kind of context is important for a listener. And yeah. And then just lastly, I would say also, I feel like our space at Monk space is very inviting. It's very low key. It's, um, you know, it's casual, it's comfortable. Role. Um, we have, you know, snacks and a bar and, you know, everyone is very relaxed at intermission and has a good time. And I mean, for me, every time we host one of those concerts, I feel like I'm hosting a little party, you know? That's what it feels like for me. And that's what I want it to feel like for the audience as well.  00:23:52 Isabel Li  That brings up a really good point in that new music can make classical music or a new classical music, contemporary music, more accessible to different audiences. And certainly I've definitely heard the complaint from people over the years about classical music being a little too uptight. Would you say that these are two different genres?  00:24:11 Shalini Vijayan  I think that there is overlap, and I think, you know, for an ensemble like ours, like Brightwork, we have chosen to make our focus new music. So that's our thing. That's what we do. Um, and, uh, all of our concerts and our programming reflect that. Very rarely do we do anything that's not considered a contemporary piece. Um, but, you know, if you do look at some of our major institutions, like I think the LA Phil and I think the San Francisco Symphony, um, earlier, you know, like in the nineties under MTT, really started to pave the way for incorporating contemporary music into a standard classical format. And, you know, I think that's been very important. And I think it's really changed the way that orchestras have programmed across the country. And there has been such a nurturing of contemporary music in larger spaces. Now that I think that kind of overlap has started to happen much more frequently. I think that in more conservative settings, sometimes there's pushback against that. And even even, you know, in some of the places that I play, you know, sometimes with with the lyrics quartet, um, we are asked to just purely program standard classical repertoire, and we will occasionally throw in a little short piece, you know, just to try and put something in there, you know, something that's very accessible. Um, and, uh, you know that we know the audience will like so that we can help them, you know, kind of get over that fear of connecting to a newer piece. And I, I think in some ways, that's where the path forward lies, is that we have to integrate those things, you know, in order to keep kind of the old traditions of classical music alive. I think we have to keep the newer tradition alive as well, and find a way to put them in the same space.  00:26:00 Isabel Li  I certainly agree with that.  00:26:01 Isabel Li  Let's hear more of Shalini's work in new music. This is a performance of the first movement of Atlas Pumas by Gabriela Ortiz. Violinist Shalini Vijayan is joined by percussionist Lynn Vartan.  00:26:18 [MUSIC – Atlas Pumas, mvt 1 by Gabriela Ortiz]  00:29:21 Isabel Li  The first movement of Gabriela Ortiz's Atlas Pumas played here by violinist Shalini Vijian, and Lynn Vartan plays the marimba.  00:29:30 Isabel Li  And Shalini is actually joining us here for a conversation about new music, performances, identity, and representation.  00:29:38 Isabel Li  Many Asian American Pacific Islander artists in music have varying relationships between their art and their identity. I was wondering, to what extent do you feel that perhaps your South Asian identity intersects or influences the work that you do with music?  00:29:54 Shalini Vijayan  Growing up, um, you know, I grew up in a in a university town in Northern California and, you know, a lot of highly educated and, you know, kids of professors and, you know, but still not the most terribly diverse place. And then going into classical music. And this was, you know, in the early nineties when I went to college, um, it still was not a particularly it was very much not a diverse place at all. And, um, there certainly were a lot of Asian students at, um, Manhattan School of Music where I did my my studies.   But I would say it was a solid decade before I was ever in any sort of classical music situation where there was another South Asian musician. I very, very rarely met any South Asian musicians, and it wasn't until I went to the New World Symphony in the early late nineties, early two thousand, and I was a musician there. I was a fellow in that program there for three years that I walked into the first rehearsal, and there were three other South Asian, I think, of Indian descent musicians in the orchestra, and I was absolutely blown away because I literally had not, um, other than here and there at some festivals, I had not met any other South Asian classical musicians.   So it was really like that was the hallmark moment for me. It was a really big deal. And coming with my family, coming from India, you know, there is such a strong tradition of Indian classical music, of Carnatic music and Hindustani music. And, um, it's such a long, long tradition. And, you know, the people who have studied it and lived with it are, you know, they study it their whole lives to be proficient in it. And it's such an incredible, incredible art form and something that I admire so much. And I did as a kid. Take a few lessons here and there. I took some Carnatic singing lessons, um, and a little bit of tabla lessons when I was very young. Um, but I think somewhere in middle school or high school, I kind of realized that it was, for me at least, I wasn't, um, able to put enough time into both because both of them, you know, playing the violin in a Western classical style and then studying Indian classical music require a tremendous amount of effort and a tremendous amount of study. And I at that point chose to go with Western classical music, because that's what I'd been doing since I was five years old. But there has always kind of been this longing for me to be more connected to Indian classical music. Um, I'll go back again to Rajna. When I presented Rajna Swaminathan on Monk Space a couple of years ago, it was a really meaningful thing for me, because that's kind of what I'd always wanted to see was a joining together of that tradition, the Indian tradition with the Western tradition. And, um, I'm so happy that I'm starting to see that more and more with a lot of the artists that are coming up now. But at the time when I was young, it just it felt almost insurmountable that to to find a way to bring the two together. And, um, I remember very clearly as a kid listening to this, um, there was an album that Philip Glass did with Ravi Shankar, and I thought that was so cool at the time. And I used to listen to it over and over again because I just again, I was so amazed that these things could come together and in a, in a kind of successful way. Um, but yeah, there is, you know, there there's a part of me that would still love to go back and explore that more that, that side of it. Um, and but I will say also, I'm very happy now to see a lot more South Asian faces when I, you know, go to concerts on stage and in the audience. And, you know, a lot of composers that I've worked with now, um, of South Asian descent, it's been, you know, I've worked with Reena Esmail and Anuj Bhutani and Rajna and, um, there's so many more, and I'm so glad to see how they're all incorporating their connection to their culture to, to this, you know, Western kind of format of classical music. And they're all doing it in different ways. And it's it's really amazing.  00:34:22 Isabel Li  That's fantastic.  00:34:24 Isabel Li  I was wondering if you could maybe describe what this merging or combination of different styles entails. Do you think this makes it more accessible to audiences of two different cultures?  00:34:36 Shalini Vijayan  For me, one example, before I started running the series at Tuesdays at Monk Space, Aron Kallay, who is our Bright Work artistic director, had asked me to come and do a solo show on Monk Space, which I did in November of 2019.  00:34:52 Shalini Vijayan  And at the time, I wanted to commission a piece that did exactly that, that, that, um, involved some sort of Indian classical instrument or kind of the language of Indian classical music. And so I actually did reach out to Reena Esmail, and she wrote me a very cool piece called blaze that was for tabla and violin. Um, and I really had so much fun doing that. And Reena, Reena really has a very fluid way of writing for the violin, which she actually was a violinist, too. So she's she's really good at doing that. But being able to write for any melodic instrument or for the voice, which she does quite a bit as well, and incorporating sort of the tonality of Indian classical music, which obviously has its own scales and, um, has its own harmonic, harmonic world that is different from the Western world, um, but finds a way to translate that into the written note notation that we require as, uh, Western classical musicians. And, you know, I think that's the biggest gap to bridge, is that in Indian classical music, nothing is notated. Everything is handed down in an oral tradition, um, over the generations. And for us, everything is notated. And in Indian classical music, you know, there's much more improvisation. And now, of course, with modern classical music, there now is a lot more improvisation involved. But in our old standard tradition, obviously there isn't. And in the way that we're trained, mostly we're not trained to be improvisers. And um, so it's it was great. She has a great way of writing so that it kind of sounds like things are being tossed off and sounding sounds like they're being improvised, but they are actually fully notated, um, which I really appreciated.  00:36:50 Isabel Li  Yeah.  00:36:51 Isabel Li  So your career has spanned orchestras, recording ensembles, chamber music. Having had so much experience in these types of performance, what does representation in classical music mean to you?  00:37:04 Shalini Vijayan  Well, representation is is very important because we're talking about a tradition that was built on white men from centuries ago, European white men. And and it's again, it's an incredible tradition and there's so much great repertoire. But I'm going to circle back to what you were saying or what you asked me about connecting to audiences and, you know, connecting to audiences with new music. It's I think people like to see themselves reflected in the art that they choose. They choose to consume. And, you know, whether that's movies or television or music, I think that's how you connect with your audience is by being a bit of a mirror.  I think the only way that we can really continue to connect with a diverse audience is by having that type of diverse representation on our stages and on our recordings. And again, also not just the people, but the types of music, too. You know, musical tastes run wide, genres run wide as well. And it's I think It's good for all of us to be exposed to a lot of different kinds of music, to figure out what we connect with the most. And, um, yeah, the only way we can do that is by really, you know, opening our arms to a, a much wider variety of styles of music. And so I, you know, I mentioned improvisation, improvisation earlier. And I think that is something that's now starting to happen so much more in modern classical music. And, you know, I think there's something about the energy that a player has when they're improvising that is maybe not something that an audience member could quantify verbally, but there's a looseness and a freedom there that I think, you know, for a lot of audience members, they probably really can connect to. And, you know, that's a lot of why people go and listen to jazz is because there's so much freedom and there's so much improvisation.   I've been very lucky to be able to work with, um, Wadada Leo Smith, who's a trumpet player and composer. I've worked with him for probably almost ten years now. And um, through Wadada, actually, I have learned to become much more comfortable with improvising on stage and not within a jazz language of any kind or any kind of harmonic structure necessarily, but within the language of his music, which is very unique and very open and very free and, um, but also has a really strong core in its connection to history. And, um, you know, he's written a lot of amazing works about the civil rights movement and about a lot of, you know, important moments in history for our country. And, um, that's been a real learning experience for me to connect with him in that, in that way and learn from him and learn to be more comfortable with improvisation. Because I think growing up, improvisation for me always meant jazz, and that was not a language I was comfortable in. And um, or even, you know, jazz or rock music or folk music or whatever, you know, it was just not something that came naturally to me as a kid to, I mean, I listened to all of it. I listened to everything when I was a kid, but I never played in any of those styles. And I think the older you get, the scarier it gets to start branching out in those ways. But, um, I think, uh, that's been a an incredible, like, new branch of my life in the last decade has been working with Wadada.  [MUSIC – “Dred Scott, 1857,” from Ten Freedom Summers, by Wadada Leo Smith]  00:42:23 Isabel Li  An excerpt of Wadada Leo Smith's music to give you a sense of the jazz influences in these types of contemporary new music pieces that also touch on pieces of history. This was an excerpt from his album, Ten Freedom Summers, which also consists of compositions based on pieces of American history. For example, what we just heard was from a piece called Dred Scott, 1857.  00:42:49 Isabel Li  Now that I realize that we've been having a conversation about new music, I realize that, hmm, when does new music really start? So if you take a look at maybe music history, when does new music really become new music?  00:43:07 Shalini Vijayan  I guess it depends on who you ask, probably. Um, it's it's pretty recent. You know, it has to be really legitimately pretty new. And, um, again, you know, if you ask an audience member, um, and I think of some of my friends or family who are maybe who are not musicians who come to concerts, and I'm always so interested in talking to them and hearing their opinions about things. Um, you know, they will listen to Bartok and say, oh, that sounds like new music to me. But, you know, Bartok, Bartok passed away a long time ago, and it's, you know, and for me, that's more like canon now. You know, that's like now for me, part of the the standard repertoire. But there was a time when Bartok was new music. And I think for, you know, maybe the listeners who are more comfortable with the very diatonic, you know, world of Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, then something like Bartok really does sound so modern for me. Boy, maybe around the time that minimalism started, you know, John Adams and Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Philip Glass, all of that for me feels like maybe that's the older like the The edge of new music now even though that was that would be the eighties, probably seventies 80s, you know, but that we're talking about like, you know, fifty years ago. So yeah, I mean, it's not that new, but those are all still living composers. So maybe, maybe that's part of what it is for me is that it's the composers of our era, the composers who are alive, who we can communicate with and ask questions of. And, um, you know, at the very least, if you can't talk to John Adams, you can talk to somebody who has worked directly with him and get their impressions of how something should be played, um, as opposed to composers who have been gone for hundreds of years. And you can't have that level of communication with them. I think that, for me is what new music, new music is about. It's about working with living composers and, um, having that type of interaction.  00:45:15 Isabel Li  Yeah. So would the word or the phrase contemporary classical music, be a little oxymoronic in a sense?  00:45:26 Shalini Vijayan  No, I don't think so. I think it's still part of the same tradition. Um, yeah. I really do think it is, because I think there is a lineage there. Um, for a lot of composers, not all of them, um, that I mean, I think particularly if you're writing for, let's say, an orchestra or a string quartet or sort of one of these very standard classical ensembles. Um, even if you're writing in a very new language and you're writing in a very different way, I think there is still a through line to the canon of classical music. I guess for me, new music and classical music are not mutually exclusive. I think they can be the same. So I don't I don't think they're totally different. I think that there is a lot of a lot of overlap.  00:46:16 Isabel Li  For sure, considering how new music fits into the classical music or the classical music industry as a whole. Have you noticed any sorts of shifts in the classical music industry in the past several decades in regards to diversity, equity, inclusion? And have you just noticed any changes?  00:46:35 Shalini Vijayan  I have noticed some changes. I mean, I think that most organizations in this country are making an effort to be more inclusive in their programming now. And, um, you know, another another South Asian composer who I just think is fantastic is Nina Shekhar. And, um, she has had pieces played by the New York Phil for the last couple seasons. I mean, you know, so on on major, major stages, I feel like now I'm seeing more representation and that is definitely Encouraging and, um, you know, uh, same for Anuj and Rajna and Reena. They've all, you know, had their works done by major ensembles. And, um, I think I think there is definitely movement in that direction, for sure. I think it could always be more.   I think also for women and women composers, women performers, I think that has also always been a struggle to find enough representation of women composers and you know, especially if like as I mentioned before, when you're in a situation where an organization asks you to program a concert, like, let's say, for our quartet and wants much more standard repertoire than it does limit you, you know, how because there isn't much from the older canon. You know, there is. You know, there's Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann and, um, you know, I think in the last five to ten years they've both been played a lot more, which is great. But, you know, I think, uh, there's so many amazing female composers right now that I think are starting to get much more recognition. And I think that just needs to be more, more and more, um, but, uh, you know, that is why, again, like on those programs, sometimes we try to just sneak one modern piece in because it's important for those voices to be heard as well. But yes, I do see some forward movement in that direction with, um, classical programming. And, you know, you just have to hope that the intent is always genuine in those situations. And I think, um, you know, I think that's the most important thing. And giving a platform to those voices is really important.  00:48:59 Isabel Li  How would you go about arts advocacy during this current time when, well, the arts are being defunded and devalued by our current administration and how everything is going on right now?  00:49:10 Shalini Vijayan  Yeah, it's really, really difficult right now. And, um, you know, I think a lot of arts organizations are losing a lot of government funding. Obviously, I know of a couple projects that lost their NEA funding because of DEI, and which is so disheartening. And, um, I think, you know, there's going to be a lot of leaning on private donors to try and, uh, make up that difference or, you know, private foundations to make up the difference in funding, hopefully. And, um, uh, you know, it's yeah, it's scary. It's  a scary time. And I think, you know, even for private funding and, um, private donors, it's, you know, everyone is feeling stressed and feeling concerned about our future right now, just as a country. and there's so much uncertainty. And, um, but I think people who really rely on the arts for all the things that it can provide, you know, an escape and pleasure and, you know, stimulation of a different kind. And especially in a time like this, when you want to be able to get away from maybe what's going on around you, you know, I'm hoping we can find a way to really come together and, um, kind of, you know, rally around each other and find a way to support each other. But, um, I think it is going to be hard for the next few years if we can't find ways to replace that funding that so many people have lost. And I certainly don't think that anyone wants to back away from the progress that's been made with inclusion and representation, you know, just to get funding. So I know we have to be very creative with our path ahead and find a way to, to keep doing what we're doing in this current environment.  00:51:07 Isabel Li  Yeah, on a brighter note, I read about your work with Lyris Quartet earlier this year when you presented a concert with Melodia Mariposa called Altadena Strong with the Lyris Quartet, raising funds for those who have been affected by the LA fires. Can you talk a bit about the power of music? And we're going to end on a stronger note here about the power of music in bringing communities together and accelerating community healing.  00:51:31 Shalini Vijayan  Well, I have to say that concert was really a special one for us. You know, um, so many musicians were affected by the fires in LA. And, you know, I, I've lived in LA for over twenty years now, almost twenty five years and, um, certainly seen my share of wildfires and disasters, but this one hit so much more close to home than any of the other ones have. And, you know, I know at least twenty five people who lost their homes in between the Palisades and Altadena and Altadena in particular.   When I moved to LA, it was a place where a lot of musicians were moving to because you could it was cheaper and you could get a lot of space, and it's beautiful. And, you know, they really built a beautiful community there among all the musicians out there. And it's just heartbreaking, um, to see how many of them have lost everything. And I have to say, Irina Voloshina, who is the woman who runs Melodia Mariposa, and just an amazing violinist and an amazing, wonderful, warm, generous person. You know, she started that series in her driveway during COVID as a way to just keep music going during the pandemic, and it really turned into something so great. And she's, you know, got a whole organization with her now and puts on multiple concerts a year. And when she asked us if we would play that concert for the community in Altadena is, you know, there's no question that we were going to do it. I mean, we absolutely jumped at the chance to support her and support the organization and that community. And people really came out for that concert and were so excited to be there and were so warm and, um, you know, and and she talked to the crowd and really connected with everybody on a very personal level, because she also lost her home in Altadena and, um, you know, it was it was a really meaningful show for all of us. And again, those are the moments where you realize that you can use this art to really connect with people that you may have never met before and show your your love for them, you know, through music, as corny as that may sound, but it's true.  00:53:54 Isabel Li  Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you so much, Shalini, for sharing your visions, your knowledge with new music and community building with us today. Thank you so much for being on Obbligato.  00:54:07 Shalini Vijayan  Thank you so much for having me, Isabel. It was really a pleasure.  00:54:10 Isabel Li  What a wonderful conversation that was with LA-based violinist Shalini Vijayan. If you go to kpfa.org, you can check out more of her work. I put the links to two of her ensembles, Brightwork New Music and Lyris Quartet up on kpfa.org. And thank you for listening to our conversation here on Obbligato on Apex Express.  00:54:32 Isabel Li  We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating, and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important.  00:54:42 Isabel Li  APEX Express is produced by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Swati Rayasam, and Cheryl Truong. Tonight's show was produced by Isabel Li. Thanks to the team at KPFA for their support. Have a great night.  [OUTRO MUSIC]  The post APEX Express – 11.13.25 – Obbligato with Violinist Shalini Vijayan appeared first on KPFA.

Naše pozvanie do štvrtkového Rána na eFeMku prijal mladý svetový klavirista. Jazzový hudobník Alan Bartuš sa ako prvý Slovák prebojoval do semifinále súťaže Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition a zaradil sa medzi top 10 jazzových klaviristov svojej generácie. Získal mnoho hudobných ocenení vrátane Radio_Head Award 2023 a tento rok sa stal absolventom prestížnej Manhattan School of Music v New Yorku. Dominike a Martinovi porozprával o svojej hudbe, štúdiu v zahraničí aj o spolupráci so svetovými hudobníkmi.

Recognized for her "sensual" and "strong" voice (New York Times), mezzo-soprano Devony Smith is a versatile performer with a wide-ranging repertoire in opera and concert music. Devony is a sought-after collaborator with composers, having premiered works by Grammy-award winning composer Jennifer Higdon, Jake Landau, Eve Beglarian, and Luna Pearl Woolf.  This season, Devony has been featured on multiple album releases, including singing the role of the Lover in Kate Soper's Romance of the Rose. She also performs the alto solos on Benjamin Wenzelberg's release of his cantata, Any of those Decembers. This spring, Devony anticipates the release of her debut solo album In This Short Life with pianist Danny Zelibor, which features premiere recordings of works by composers Mark Adamo, Grammy award winning Jennifer Higdon, Jake Landau, Pulitzer Prize winner David Lang, B.E. Boykin, Eve Beglarian, and Will Liverman.Pianist Danny Zelibor, praised for his sensitive and colorful playing, is a sought-after collaborator and performer. He made his Carnegie Hall debut with baritone Jarrett Ott and has performed in recital with numerous leading musicians, including soprano Harolyn Blackwell and Canadian cellist Amanda Forsyth. An ardent lover of art song, he frequently performs with the Brooklyn Art Song Society and the New York Festival of Song and has recorded world premieres of songs by Jake Heggie, Jennifer Higdon, and Mark Adamo. On the cutting edge of new music, he has premiered and workshopped dozens of new works.  A true believer in the power of music to be a bridge and a force for good, he joined baritone Sidney Outlaw on a concert tour and series of masterclasses in The Republic of Chad sponsored by the U.S. State Department and recently performed in his first series of Well-Being Concerts at Carnegie Hall with cellist Joshua Roman and violinist Simon Porter.  Danny's debut CDs for Toccata Classics, the beginning of a multi-volume set of the piano music of Alexandre Tansman, have received widespread praise from top music publications. A fellow of Tanglewood and graduate of Manhattan School of Music, Danny resides in New York City. http://DevonySmith.com http://DannyZelibor.comMake sure you SUBSCRIBE to Crushing Classical, and maybe even leave a nice review! Theme music by DreamVance.I help people to lean into their creative careers and start or grow their income streams. You can read more or hop onto a discovery call from my website.  https://jennetingle.com/work-with-meI'm your host, Jennet Ingle. I love you all. Stay safe out there! 

This is the evening All Local for September 13, 2025.

Asians and Asian Americans are numerous within the classical music industry, but their identities are often politicized and racialized in this Eurocentric musical genre. For the third episode of Obbligato on APEX Express, Isabel Li discusses this intersection with Mari Yoshihara, Professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and Professor at the Center for Global Education at the University of Tokyo, Japan; author of many books, including Musicians from a Different Shore: Asians and Asian Americans in Classical Music (2007) and Dearest Lenny: Letters from Japan and the Making of the World Maestro (2019). Tonight's episode features music by Chinese American composer Zhou Tian. To learn more about Mari and her work, please visit her website: https://www.mariyoshihara.com/index.html  Musicians from a Different Shore: https://tupress.temple.edu/books/musicians-from-a-different-shore-2 Dearest Lenny: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/dearest-lenny-9780190465780?cc=jp&lang=en&  Transcript  Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.    00:00:53 Isabel Li  Good evening. You're listening to KPFA 94.1 FM. My name is Isabel Li and I'm delighted to be hosting a new edition of Obbligato on Apex Express, which is a semimonthly segment specifically about AAPI identities in classical music. Tonight's guest is someone I have been incredibly excited to speak to because her writings have actually very much informed my studies and research. In fact, her books are exactly about the subject matter of Obbligato. I am honored to be speaking to Mario Yoshihara, Professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and Professor at the Center for Global Education at the University of Tokyo, Japan; author of many books, including Musicians from a Different Shore: Asians and Asian Americans in Classical Music, published in 2007, and Dearest Lenny: Letters from Japan and the Making of the World Maestro, which was published in 2019. Welcome to Obbligato on Apex Express. Mari, how are you doing?  00:01:55 Mari Yoshihara  I'm doing fine. Thank you for having me.  00:01:58 Isabel Li  Of course, my first question for you is how do you identify and what communities are you a part of?  00:02:06 Mari Yoshihara  Oh well, that's actually a little bit complicated I am. I am a Japanese woman who have spent a little bit over well, maybe not more than a little more than half of my life in the United States. Born in New York but raised in Tokyo, educated mostly in Japan, but also earned my graduate degrees in the United States and most of my academic career has been in Hawaii, so I've been in American academia for almost 30 years now, but I also have a dual appointment with the University of Tokyo in Japan. So I split my time between Japan and Hawaii now.  00:02:54 Isabel Li  Can you tell us a little bit about your work and your books? I had a chance to read Musicians from a Different Shore, but how would you summarize your research to someone who might not have read your book?  00:03:04 Mari Yoshihara  So I am a scholar of American studies, which is an interdisciplinary field that has anything to do with America broadly defined. And within that, my area of expertise is about, well, I would say I'm a scholar of US cultural history. US Asian relations, mostly US, East Asian relations, especially in the cultural dimension, cultural studies, gender studies, Asian American studies, etc. And so I have written a number of books, both in English and Japanese, but the one that you're referring to, Musicians from a Different Shore, is a book that I did research for more than 20 years ago and was published in 2007. It's a study of Asians and Asian Americans and classical music. So it was partly historical in that I examined the ways. which Western music, so-called western classical music, was introduced to East Asia and how also East Asians became have become so successful and prominent in this field that is generally considered a white European elite art form, so it was partly historical, but then the rest of the book was based on my ethnographic field work and interviews among Asians and Asian Americans in classical music looking at how well who these people are in the first place and then also how musicians, Asian and Asian musicians themselves, understand the relationship between their racial and cultural identity on the one hand, and their practice of Western classical music on the other, so that was my study.   And then I also wrote another book called Dearest Lenny. It's about—the subtitle is Letters from Japan and the Making of the World Maestro. It's about Leonard Bernstein's relationship with two very special individuals in Japan. And through that story, I interweave an account of various things. For one thing, how Leonard Bernstein became a world maestro and also the relationship between politics and arts, gender, sexuality, art and commerce, etcetera, etcetera. So that was my most recent book published in English and then, I'm sure we'll talk more about this, but I'm currently doing a follow up research on the on Musicians from a Different Shore, taking into account all the changes that have been taking place in the classical music industry in the United States in the past, I would say five years or so especially so that's my that's the abbreviated version of my research.  00:05:55 Isabel Li  That's really cool, and I also want to ask you about these changes, if you can talk a little bit about the classical music world. I feel like classical music is one of those genres that seems to be unchanging on the outside. But as a scholar of classical music, what types of changes have you observed that has influenced how AAPI identities play into this world?  00:06:18 Mari Yoshihara  Yeah, I think especially in the last, I would say, yeah, 5 to 10 years, especially in the last five years, classical music industry in the United, I mean I say specifically in the United States because I don't see the similar kind of changes taking place in Japan where I'm currently located. And I also don't really know the situation in Europe. But the field of classical music in the US is changing. I think most significantly because of movements like the Black Lives Matter movement and also with the onset of COVID and the rise of anti Asian hate, there's been a lot more heightened awareness about how issues of race and also class shapes classical music. So there's a lot more vibrant conversations and debates about these topics in the industry and also in terms of AAPI community, are the biggest changes, the biggest change I'm seeing is that Asian and Asian American musicians themselves are being a lot more vocal and active in issues of race and racism in the field and there I've encountered many Asian and Asian American musicians who have, for instance, you know organized events or organizations, or taken up various forms of advocacy and activism on these issues. So compared to, say, 20 years ago, 20, 25 years ago, when I was doing the original research, I see a lot more kind of, you know, explicit awareness and awareness and articulation of these issues by Asian and Asian American musicians themselves.  00:08:12 Isabel Li  That's really interesting. Just because classical music is also one of those genres, that doesn't seem like a genre that most people explicitly associate with politics or activism. What are some examples of these, like activist movements that you've observed within the Asian American community in classical music?  00:08:32 Mari Yoshihara  So for instance, some Asian and Asian American musicians are are becoming a lot more vocal about the actual like racism or sexism that they have themselves experienced, or that they witness in the industry, like in in schools, conservatories, orchestras, opera companies, etc. Either through the media or you know their own writing, and also like speaking up within the organizations that they work in. So that's one. There are other kinds of advocacy and activism in that they demand more diverse repertoire, and I think the repertoire is in terms of the industry industry changes. That's the area that's changing the most, the the kind of repertoire that many orchestras for instance perform have become a lot more– I mean overall it's still very white, European centered– but in terms of the actual numbers of pieces that are performed, works by living, composers and composers of color, women composers, etcetera. That is significantly increased in the last 10 years and that is, you know significantly to do with the advocacy and activism on the part of, you know, artists of color.  So yeah, so things like that and then, you know, many Asian, Asian American artists are doing their own programming, for instance, like event organizing programming. So yeah, those are the areas that I see changes. I see things happening that I didn't see 25 years ago.  00:10:20 Isabel Li  Definitely. I remember reading your book, and your book has been published since 2007, so a lot of changes have happened since then. But in general, when you did your research at first, what how would you summarize the dynamic of Asian identities, Asian American identities in this very Eurocentric field, it's a juxtaposition of two different cultures and identities that a lot of people also observe in orchestras. There's a large population of Asian and Asian American musicians, conductors just in general. It's a very large population, but yet this identity is still not quite represented in media. It's not quite seen, so talk to us a bit about this juxtaposition and how you observe these dynamics in your research.  00:11:10 Mari Yoshihara  Yeah. So. The thing is, Asians and Asian Americans are indeed numerically overrepresented in classical music, in the sense that compared to the general public, the the the proportion of Asians and Asian Americans in the overall US population, the number of Asian and Asian Americans in classical music indexed by things like the student body at major conservatories or membership roster of US orchestras, etcetera, Asians and Asian Americans percentage is higher than the general population, right. So in terms of the numbers, Asians and Asian Americans are, quote unquote overrepresented. But those numbers are not reflected in the actual like voice, power and influence that they have in the industry.   So that was my finding back 2025 years ago and I think that's still true today. Also, the thing about Asian, Asian American musicians is that it's a racialized category. They are seeing and treated as Asian. It's this racial category. But their identities and experiences as Asians is not at all uniform, right?   Some of these Asian musicians are Asian Americans, like multi generational Asian Americans whose parents or grandparents or great grandparents etcetera have come to the United States and they themselves are U.S. citizens. So that's one group.   Many Asian musicians working in the United States are people who were born and raised in Asia, places like China or South Korea, Japan, etcetera, and came to the United States as international students to study music, often at the college level, college conservatory level, so obviously these people have very different sense of identity and experience as Asians compared to say, you know 3rd, 4th generation Chinese Americans or 1.5 Korean Americans.   There are other people who live in the United States because they were very talented, very young musicians, and the whole whole family immigrated to the United States specifically for their music education. So Midori, the famous violinist, Midori is a case, example of this, but there are also a number of other, especially among Koreans and Chinese. There are families, the whole family immigrated to the United States when the child was a very promising musician at age 7 or something. So that's one group. They too have a different sense of identity and experience of Asians than the two former groups that I that I talked about.   There are other people who also came to the United States because not because of the music education, but because of their parents' profession, for instance. And they have transnational kind of family ties and you know, they move, they go back and forth between US and Asia, for instance. And then there are also mixed roots families where one parent is Asian and the other is non Asian.   And then there are also Asians who were born and raised in Europe for other parts of the globe and then came to the United States, for either personal or professional reasons.   So in other words, they're all Asians in terms of their racial identity. But what that means is really quite diverse and their experience as Asian and Asian American musicians is also quite diverse. So it's not as if you know, just because they're Asian, they share some kind of experience and identities around which they coalesce. So that's, you know, that was true 20, 25 years ago. And I think that's still true today.  More and more Asian musicians are coming to the United States to study, study or work in classical music, but especially because of this, like new influence, this Asian category is becoming even more diverse. However, because of the COVID, you know the rise of Anti Asian hate during the COVID pandemic, I think that heightened the awareness of, you know, these different kinds of Asians, the heightened awareness that they are Asians. First and foremost, you know, in, in that in the sense of being racialized in the United States. So I have talked with a number of musicians, Asians and Asian American musicians, who did not really, hadn't thought about their Asianness before. It wasn't at the forefront of their identity before, but during this rise of anti Asian hate it they became they basically became more politicized. You know, they had quite a politicized language and awareness to think about race and racism especially against Asians and Asian Americans.  00:16:31 Isabel Li  Yeah, that's a great point. It is a such a diverse group and there are so many different identities, even within just the Asian American framework AAPI, as a label is very, very diverse. And that applies to classical music as well. But I think there's also this social perception of Asian and Asian Americans as a group that also relates to the model minority stereotype that's historically been present and, for example, a lot of people might think of, like a young Asian or Asian American musician as being like a prodigy because they are technically skilled at their instrument, where like these social perceptions that exist both in media and in the culture around us, why do you think that is?  00:17:15 Mari Yoshihara  Well, that as you said, there is a model minority myth and there is a stereotype of Asians and Asian Americans as being very studious and diligent, but also quiet, right? I mean, they just quietly follow, like, obedient, obediently follow the instructions and that translates in the field of music as the stereotype that Asian musicians are technically very proficient but artistically non expressive. I mean, that's a very common stereotype that yeah, you know, practically any Asian, Asian Americans in classical music have been subjected to, you know, quite regularly and frequently. And I think that, yeah, that just comes with the overall kind of racial stereotype of Asians and Asians and Asian Americans in American society at large. And also the fact that, you know, classical music, especially in terms of instrumental performance, it is an area that is, it's something that is, indeed, technically very demanding, right? You need many, many years of disciplined training and a lot of practice. And there is a myth of merit– well, no, not entirely a myth– but there is this this very, you know, dearly held faith in meritocracy in classical music. The idea that if you have the chops you will be rewarded, you will be recognized and you know, no matter what kind of great artistic idea you might have, if you can't play the notes, you can't play the notes. That kind of ethos of meritocracy is particularly strong in classical music because of the technical demands of the genre, and that and that kind of, you know, goes hand in hand with the model minority methods for Asian Americans.  00:19:20 Isabel Li  Definitely. That's really interesting and another part of your book that was quite fascinating to me when I first read it was chapter 3. You talked about the intersection of gender as well as, you know, racial identity in classical music. The chapter is called Playing Gender and you talk about, I think at large don't necessarily associate classical music with a discipline that provides a stable job. It is an art form and there is kind of an uphill battle for artists in a sense like a starving artist myth there. We're not even a myth. Like if there's a starving artist image, whereas the image of a very successful classical musician there's this duality that you also mentioned in one of your other chapters about class. So what really interested me in for this chapter was that there was this intersection of power in classical music of who would go down the path that might not be traditionally as successful. How do you think gender dynamics play into this and how do you think they might have shifted within the last two decades or so?  00:20:20 Mari Yoshihara  Huh. I'm not sure if it has shifted all that much in the last two decades, but as you said, because music I mean, not just classical music, but music. Like, you know, arts in general is a field that is very like economically insecure in terms of career, right?   But at the same time. Classical music is associated with kind of, you know, bourgeois identity and just kind of overall cultivation and so, many Asian, Asian American parents are very eager to send their kids to, say, piano lessons, violin lessons, cello lessons, etcetera. To, you know, give them a well-rounded education and also because it is considered useful tool, you know, when you're going to college and stuff like, you know being, you know, being able to show that you're very talented violinist, for instance, is believed to help your college application.  So there's this, you know, both stereotype and reality that like, you know, places like Julliard Pre-College, very competitive, you know, school, like music education program for kids is filled with Asian, Asian American, you know, students and their parents who are waiting, waiting for them to come out of school.   So there's that. But how gender plays into this is that while both men and women are do study music at a young age. When it comes to, you know, choosing say, college, like what they would, what they would pursue at the college level, far fewer male students tend to choose music as their college major or go to conservatory and pursue it as a as a career. But I think it's both their own choice. And also especially for Asian and Asian Americans, like parental pressure to not pursue music professionally because of, you know, financial insecurity.   So there's that, and also how that plays into the actual experiences of Asian, Asian Americans musicians who do study music is that I have heard from a number of female Asian musicians that either their peers or especially their teachers are doubtful that they are actually serious about music. There is a stereotype that, you know, say for instance, Japanese or Korean female students at Juilliard School, Manhattan School or whatever, they are there because they, you know, they want to study music and then find a good husband and marry, you know, a lawyer or doctor or engineer or something. [laughs] And and not that that doesn't happen. But that's a stereotype of, you know, that's a racialized and gender stereotype that comes from these, you know, gender and class and racialized dynamics.  00:23:35 Isabel Li  And just for clarification, is the classical music world at large still a male dominated field?  00:23:41 Mari Yoshihara  Yes. Oh yes. Definitely. I mean, it depends on the segment of you know, I mean classical music is itself quite diverse. So if you look at, for instance, the string section, especially the violin section of the New York Philharmonic for instance, you will find that like, I think the majority of those violin players are Asian women, perhaps. But if you look at say for instance, the Faculty of Conservatories or music directors and major orchestras and said, I mean still very male dominated.  00:24:23 Isabel Li  Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I like how your book also has so many different layers for each chapter. So Chapter 3 was about the gender intersection with this, with this identity, and Chapter 4, was it Chapter 4, I believe it was about class, Class Notes, and you've already mentioned a little bit about how class plays into the perception of music, how class influences gender even. But there's a statement in there that you said that, “it's misleading to characterize Asian musicians as just coming from the upper middle class.” And it makes sense that people would think of musicians coming from this economic bracket, because classical music is an in and of itself a very kind of expensive undertaking. You need so many lessons, so many instruments. But tell us why this statement would be misleading.  00:25:15 Mari Yoshihara  Because I mean, first of all, most of the overwhelmed, I would say overwhelming majority of the Asian, Asian American musicians that I interviewed come from middle class backgrounds, many of them from so-called like professional executive class backgrounds in, meaning that their parents hold these professional executive positions, right. And that's why they were able to afford advanced musical studies from a fairly young age. They need, you know, sustained and disciplined and often costly, you know, lessons, you know, competitions, etcetera, auditions, travel, etcetera. So that's for sure, yeah.   At the same time, there are also Asian musicians who come from less privileged backgrounds, you know, immigrant families who have, because quite a few. I mean overall Asian American population, many immigrants experience downward social mobility upon immigrating to the United States because of, you know, oftentimes linguistic barriers or you know, or plain old racism. And so you're not Asian families that immigrate to the United States, like, for instance, if the parents have professional positions back in South Korea, oftentimes they become, you know, for instance, you know, small business owners and they experience downward social mobility. I mean, that's a very common scenario. Yeah, so now all Asian, Asian American musicians grow up in a privileged environment.  00:27:06 Isabel Li  Definitely a great point. Now before we move on to some discussions about Mari's research. First of all, thank you for tuning in to Obbligato on APEX Express, we'll be taking a short music break and as mentioned earlier, a great way to increase diversity within classical music is to uplift works by living composers. If you're listening to my first.  00:27:26 Isabel Li  Episode 2 months ago, you'll know that I featured music by Chinese American composer Zhou Tian. I'm happy to say that coming up next is one of Zhou's compositions inspired by a trip to Italy. This is a piece called Hidden Grace performed by the Formosa Trio.  27:45 – COMP MUSIC – Hidden Grace  00:35:34 Isabel Li  That was a piece called Hidden Grace, composed by Zhou Tian for a fascinating instrumentation of flute, Viola and heart coming up for our second piece. In this interview, break another movement by Zhou Tian, the third movement of his double concerto for violin and Viola, called Rendezvous.  35:58 – COMP MUSIC – Double Concerto for Violin and Viola, III. Rendezvous  00:41:09 Isabel Li  Noah Bendix-Balgley on violin, Shanshan Yao on viola, and the Hangzhou Philharmonic, playing the third and final movement of Zhou Tian's Double Concerto for violin and viola. So back to the conversation with Professor Mari Yoshihara.  00:41:25 Isabel Li  As you also mentioned before, you're working on an updated version of Musicians from a Different Shore. Can you talk–I don't know how much you can talk about your, like upcoming projects, but are you using similar research methods to what you've done before using ethnographic field work? You've mentioned the new changing dynamics of classical music in the United States with new waves of activism and awareness. What are some new topics of your chapters that you might focus on? So for your 2007 publication, you talked about your gender and class and how these intersect with identity. Are there any new things that you're drawing upon here?  00:42:02 Mari Yoshihara  Yeah. So I'm using basically the same research method. I'm interviewing actually some of the same people that appeared in Musicians from a Different Shore. Some people kept in touch with over the years, I've gone back to them and interviewed them to see the trajectories of their careers since the first time I interviewed them. But then I've also interviewed a bunch of other, you know, new musicians that I'm speaking with for the first time. So it's essentially an interview and ethnographic fieldwork-based research.  I told you earlier about I think one of the biggest changes is, as I said before, the activism and advocacy on the part of Asian, Asian American musicians themselves. So I have one chapter about that. Like, what? How? What kinds of advocacy and activism they're engaged in.   Another big change that I'm seeing is that compared to 20 years ago, there are a lot more Asian musicians in the field of opera.  00:43:01 Isabel Li  Ohh yeah.  00:43:02 Mari Yoshihara  Uh. Both as singers. Yeah, many of them singers, but also in other, you know, like for instance opera, you know, pianist for opera or be opera directors, et cetera. There are many more Asians in this particular field than what I saw 20 years ago. And I talked about this a little bit in my first book, but opera is a very particular kind of field within classical music.   How race plays into opera is very different from other areas of classical music because it's a theatrical art form. It's visually oriented, you know art form. And because singers have to be cast in order to, you know, sing on stage. So the racial politics in opera, you know, unfolds very differently from, say, for pianists or cellists or conductors or or composers.   So I now have a whole chapter about opera, especially Madame Butterfly, that this very fraught work, you know, opera that many Asian and Asian Americans have love hate relationships. A lot of pigeon-holing that happens in that through that opera. But also, production of new opera by Asian and Asian American artists, composers, directors, singers, etcetera. So I have a whole chapter about that.   And then I also will have another chapter about, you know, what it means to, you know, sit at the table, basically. Like stand on the podium and sit at the table, stand on the podium. Not only, I mean I will, I will have a whole discussion about Asian and Asian Americans conductors, but not only in that literal sense of, you know, standing at the podium, but like being at the table like in other words, not only, Asian and Asian American musicians playing music that are given to them and they are assigned to them that they're hired to play, but also having a real voice in the organizational and institutional dimensions of classical music industry. So the kinds of people, Asians, who are in these positions more executive positions with decision making power what their experiences are like. I'm going to have a chapter about that.   So those are some of my ideas. I'm still in the middle of the project, so I can't. I can't see the whole picture, but those are some of my current ideas.  00:45:48 Isabel Li  I see. And do you have an idea of when this book will be published or an updated version?  00:45:54 Mari Yoshihara  Well [laughs], my goal rather ambitious goal is to have it published in 2027, because that would be 20 years since Musicians from a Different Shore, so that would be ideal if I can make that.  00:46:08 Isabel Li  Well, yeah. Nice. That's really exciting, definitely. I will also kind of bridge, I guess my part of the research into this part of the interview, since I'd love to talk to you a little bit more about how classical music in general is portrayed in media.   So as I've introduced myself before, I had a back, I have a background in media studies as well as music history and theory. And what was really interesting to me in my senior thesis while I was doing research for that was I coined this term and it could just be loosely associated with the genre of film. But it's the “classical music film.” So think of any narrative fictional film you can think of with a classical musician in there. So it could be like Amadeus, where I think of like Tár. If you watch Tár like a lot of these depictions are quite understandably white and European, but they my senior thesis I've never really seen any depictions of Asian American or Asian classical musicians? I was wondering if you have ever watched a film like that, or could maybe talk a bit about maybe the lack of representation in media, how media plays into how people perceive classical music as a genre as a whole.  00:47:23 Mari Yoshihara  That is a very interesting question. I think you know, because of the stereotype of Asian and Asian American model minority and model minority stereotype often is associated with, you know, violin or piano-playing Asian American kids, I think. Asian, Asian American characters who are, you know, these kind of musical classical music geniuses appear here and there. But the ones that center on such a character as the main, you know, like the protagonist, come to think of it, I'm not sure if I've seen. I mean, I've seen several Korean dramas, you know, character, but those are Korean dramas, not Asian American, so more American works with Asian classical musicians…  00:48:21 Isabel Li  And I think also classical music as a genre is. It's interesting because classical music is also kind of underrepresented. It's not quite in the mainstream. And then one of my final questions for you is I do also want to take a second to acknowledge that your book was actually one of the only books that I could find about this topic. I think there are not that many other books about Asian and Asian Americans in classical music. I think there are a few other books and a few and definitely some papers that talk about this, but what got you interested in this field? And I don't know if you think there's a scarcity of information, but do you think there's relative scarcity of information about this topic?  00:49:01 Mari Yoshihara  Yeah. So how I got into it is. So I was a pretty serious student of piano when I was a child. That's like, yeah, that really kind of preoccupied my childhood and adolescence. But then I, for various reasons I ended up not going to a music Conservatory and became an academic.   And then once I entered academia and became a scholar of American studies, all I was studying was like race, gender, class. I mean, that's what  we do in American studies. And my first book, which was originally my doctoral dissertation, was a cultural history of orientalism and white women. So that was a study of the intersections of race and gender and to some extent class in American history.   So once I finished that book, I was thinking about what projects to work on next. And I happened to turn on the TV, and it just so happens that the Vienna Phil New Year's concert, conducted by Seiji Ozawa was playing on the TV and that was sort of my “aha” moment because I had always known or, you know, kind of generally aware that Asians and Asian Americans are, if not necessarily overrepresented, but, you know, they're quite numerous, you know. They're present. Their numerical presence is quite notable in classical music that is often associated with white, you know, European culture, elite culture.  So I was kind of curious about that phenomenon, but I hadn't really thought too much about it until I watched Seiji Ozawa were conducting the Vienna Phil. And that's when I thought, well, maybe I can kind of combine my classical music background and my academic training in studies of race, gender, class into this project. So that's when I decided to work on. You know, this topic of Asians and Asian Americans, classical music.  I think the reason that there hadn't been at least a book-length study on the topic until my book is that for one thing, classical music is considered to be kind of a very abstract absolute form of music. This ethos that it is kind of transcends– that it is a universal, transcendental kind of genre, that is sort of above things like politics or race or gender. Like it shouldn't matter that these, you know, individual identity, racialized gender identity shouldn't matter vis-à-vis the universalism of classical music. I mean that kind of ethos is very strong in this particular genre of music. I think that has a lot to do with it.   And also the study of classical music until rather recently, like musicological study of classical music, really tended to be focused on the study of composers and their works, right? It was the textual that, like it, was an analysis of Beethoven Symphony or, you know, Bach Fugues, etcetera. Yeah. It was really focused on the study of the score, the study of the composer's ideas, as reflected in the score, I mean that was the centerpiece of musicological approach to classical music.  And so sort of more sociological anthropological study of the musical practice is a relatively new approach in in the field of musicology. I'm not a musicologist. So that's not how I'm trained. But I think the academic approach to classical music was not very, kind of, open to the kinds of topics that I raised in Musicians from a Different Shore.  00:53:12 Isabel Li  Definitely. I see. And my very final fun question for you is can you name three of your favorite classical music pieces for any recommendations you have for the audience who might be listening, who might be wondering what they will listen to next?  00:53:27 Mari Yoshihara  Well, OK well. Pieces well, because I wrote a book about Leonard Bernstein. I mean, I ended up– I wrote a book about Leonard Bernstein. Not necessarily because I was an avid fan of Bernstein. It just kind of happened this this project. But nonetheless of while I was doing research and writing the book I did listen to a lot of Bernstein. I and I have come to really love Bernstein music and so. And you know, of course, everybody knows West Side Story, but he actually wrote many other pieces that may not be as well known.   Well among the pieces that I like, I like…which one should I choose? I will choose. Ohh well, I'll choose a piece that I learned myself as a pianist.  I learned the piece called “Touches” that he wrote. It was a commission piece for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, and it's kind of yeah, it's a chorale and variation. So that's very interesting and very interesting and very Bernstein-esque so well.   I'll OK, as an American study scholar. I'll, I'll stick with American pieces. I like someone Barber a lot. I like Barber “Excursions,” which I also learned to play.  00:55:04 Isabel Li  Yeah.  00:55:09 Isabel Li  Tough question.  00:55:11 Mari Yoshihara  Umm, Mason Bates piece that I also learned, “White Lies For Lomax.” This one was also, I believe…was it commissioned by the Cliburn? But no, maybe it wasn't. Yeah, I think it was commissioned. But anyway, I played it at the Van Cliburn International– the amateur competition of the Cliburn competition.  I did all these. So like Bernstein, Bates, Amy Beach piece I also played. Yeah, I'll stop there. I I wish you had prepped me for that then [laughs]–  00:55:42 Isabel Li  Oh my gosh. Great responses.  00:55:46 Mari Yoshihara  Hard to think on the spot.  00:55:47 Isabel Li  Yeah, I totally get that. Whenever people ask me for my favorite composer, I never have an answer. No, so I totally get it.   Well, thank you so much for your time, Mari. And thank you for your wonderful insights. I'll put the link to your books so that people can learn about your works on APEX Express on kpfa.org. So thank you so much for your time, Mari.  00:56:07 Mari Yoshihara  Thank you.  00:56:09 Isabel Li  As mentioned, please check our website kpfa.org to find out more about Mari Yoshihara, her scholarship, and links to two of her books. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important.  00:56:31 Isabel Li  APEX Express is produced by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Swati Rayasam, and Cheryl Truong. Tonight's show was produced by Isabel Li. Thanks to the team at KPFA  for their support. Have a great night.  [OUTRO MUSIC]  The post APEX Express – 09.04.2025 – Obbligato with Mari Yoshihara appeared first on KPFA.

The story of Regina Spektor is one of a truly self-made artist. In 1989, at nine years old, Spektor and her family emigrated from Moscow to the Bronx in New York. Her love and affinity for playing the piano found her studying in high school at the Manhattan School of Music, and as she continued her classical studies she was also being exposed to and fell in love with pop music, hip-hop, and punk rock. Her self-released albums 11:11 and Songs led to a growing audience and opening slots for The Strokes and Kings of Leon. She was soon signed to Sire Records, who released her third album, Soviet Kitsch. Fast forward many years, and the list of accolades and accomplishments for Regina is long. She has released eight studio albums, featured at the Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, and Glastonbury festivals, performed at the White House for the Obamas, wrote the theme song for the Netflix series Orange is the New Black, and has had songs appear in multiple films. She recently reissued her albums Begin to Hope, Far, What We Saw From The Cheap Seats, Remember Us To Life, and Live in London all exclusively on vinyl. Geoff Stanfield caught up with Regina from her home in New York to discuss her early years, her passion for the craft, and takeaways from working with producers such as Jeff Lynne, Jacknife Lee, John Congleton, and Mike Elizondo. Enjoy!

Receiving B.S. and M.S. degrees from The Julliard School of Music, David Taylor started his playing career as a member of Leopold Stowkowski's American Symphony Orchestra, and with appearances with the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez. Simultaneously, he was a member of the Thad Jones Mel Lewis jazz band, and recorded with groups ranging from Duke Ellington to The Rolling Stones. He has also recorded numerous solo CDs on the following labels: Koch, New World, ENJA, DMP, Tzadik, CIMP, PAU, and TLB. Mr. Taylor performs recitals and concerti around the world: from Lincoln Center in NY to the Musikverein in Vienna and Suntory Hall in Japan. In addition to his own compositions, he has been involved in well over a hundred commissioning projects for solo bass trombone collaborating with composers including Alan Hovhaness, Charles Wuorinen, George Perle, Frederic Rzewski, Lucia Dlugoszchewski, Eric Ewazen, Dave Liebman, and Daniel Schnyder. He has appeared and recorded chamber music with Yo Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, and Wynton Marsalis and performs with the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, Orpheus, and the St. Luke's Chamber Orchestra. Throughout his career, Taylor has appeared and recorded with major jazz and popular artists including Barbara Streisand, Miles Davis, Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra, and Aretha Franklin. Mr. Taylor has won the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Most Valuable Player Award for five consecutive years, and has been awarded the NARAS Most Valuable Player Virtuoso Award, an honor accorded no other bass trombonist. He has also won The International Trombone Association's Award “in recognition of his distinguished career and in acknowledgement of his impact on the world of trombone performance. He has been a member of the bands of Gil Evans, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, Jaco Pastorius, Charles Mingus, JJ Johnson, Joe Henderson, George Russell, Michele Camilo, Bob Mintzer, Dave Matthews, Dave Grusin, Randy Brecker, and the Words Within Music Trio (Daniel Schnyder, David Taylor, Kenny Drew Jr., The Art of the Duo (with D Schnyder) and B3+. He has performed on numerous GRAMMY Award winning recordings. David Taylor is also on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College, and NYU. He plays Edwards bass trombones and Griego/Taylor mouthpieces exclusively. https://www.davetaylor.net/

Trumpeter Chris Gekker has done just about everything a brass player can do—and done it at the highest level. A longtime member of the American Brass Quintet (18 years) and now Professor of Trumpet at the University of Maryland, Chris has also taught at Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music, and Columbia University. His career spans recording Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 to sharing the stage with Sting, all grounded by a reflective artistic life shaped by literature and poetry.In Part 1, we talk about the books that feed his imagination, his father and early upbringing, the interpretive world of the Hindemith Sonata, trumpet mentors from Gerard Schwarz to Thomas Stevens, and the winding arc of a career that prizes curiosity over categories.[Subscriber Content] In Part 2, Chris reflects on the transition to full-time teaching at Maryland and takes us deep into his approach to trumpet playing and musicianship—drawing on insights from his writing, especially Trumpet Talk.DoricoProfessional music notation and composition software from Steinberg. Download a free 30-trial today!Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Would you like more inspirational stories, suggestions, insights, and a place to continue the conversations with other listeners? Visit anthonyplog-on-music.supercast.com to learn more! As a Contributing Listener of "Anthony Plog on Music," you'll have access to extra premium content and benefits including: Extra Audio Content: Only available to Contributing Listeners. Podcast Reflections: Tony's written recaps and thoughts on past interviews, including valuable tips and suggestions for students. Ask Me Anything: Both as written messages and occasional member-only Zoom sessions. The Show's Discord Server: Where conversations about interviews, show suggestions, and questions happen. It's a great place to meet other listeners and chat about all things music! Can I just donate instead of subscribing? Absolutely! Cancel at anytime and easily resubscribe when you want all that extra content again. Learn more about becoming a Contributing Listener @ anthonyplog-on-music.supercast.com!

Ayanna Nicole Thomas didn't follow a traditional path to Broadway—but that's exactly what makes her story so compelling. After growing up between the Bronx and LA, she eventually made her way back to New York to study musical theatre. But right before her senior year, she booked her Broadway debut in How to Dance in Ohio—a show that celebrates neurodivergence and gave her a sense of belonging she didn't expect. Now, she's playing Rose Granger-Weasley in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, bringing her own warmth and humor to a character born from one of the world's most beloved franchises. In this conversation, Ayanna opens up about being diagnosed with ADHD and autism, and how that diagnosis helped her better understand her brain and her process. She shares how she uses Play-Doh and fidget toys backstage, what it was like to be a Broadway swing, and how she balances structure with spontaneity in a show filled with choreography, magic, and fireballs. She's charming, thoughtful, and not afraid to let her Bronx roots shine through. Ayanna Nicole Thomas is currently starring as Rose Granger-Weasley in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway. She made her Broadway debut in How to Dance in Ohio and studied musical theatre at the Manhattan School of Music. A lifelong performer with a deep love of musicals and jazz, she's also a passionate advocate for neurodivergent representation onstage. Connect with Ayanna: IG: @ayannanicolethomass Connect with The Theatre Podcast: Support the podcast on Patreon and watch video versions of the episodes: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/TheTheatrePodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter & Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@theatre_podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook.com/OfficialTheatrePodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TheTheatrePodcast.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Alan's personal Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@alanseales⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email me at feedback@thetheatrepodcast.com. I want to know what you think. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My only family heirloom is my Dad's 1960s stereo console he had at boarding school. As a kid my parents listened to the music of that time and I'll always have a special place for the likes of Barbra Striesand, The Bee Gees, and James Taylor. Around the age of seven a family friend gifted me with a transistor radio and though I had a couple dogs, my best friend became music, and the love affair not only never ended, it continues to flourish. I've always felt music was more than just a mere accoutrement to life but had never dug into any psychological research. Until now. What you are about to hear I feel will elevate your utilization of music to improve your life. Sara Leila Sherman is my guest. Sara is a big name in the New York music scene. She's a distinguished classical musician and a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and has performed at Lincoln Center, Steinway Hall, Yamaha Artist Salon and all the impressive places. But it's her interest in blending music and mindfulness that got my attention. Sara has pioneered innovative approaches that empower educators and parents to use music as a tool for mindful learning and personal growth. Sara is a music lover, from classical to pop. She grew up with a Dad, Mort Sherman, who loved music and ingrained Sara in its glory and power. Together they've written a book, Resonant Minds: The Transformative Power of Music, One Note at a Time. I brought Sara on to help understand why I've felt so much power and resonance in music. One aspect you're about to hear is Sara's research into how music engages all the parts of your brain, so it makes sense that when you feel emotions or have experiences accompanied by intentional music, it makes a bigger impact on you. That info alone was worth the conversation. But we covered…more. https://www.resonantminds.com/ Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the show this time, it's the heavy-rock of alt-metal pioneers, Helmet. Helmet was formed in 1989, in New York City. Guitarist Page Hamilton was there to study Jazz at the Manhattan School of Music. He auditioned for and then joined Band of Susans. He brought a few of his own songs to the band, but even though they liked the songs, they were not a fit for the Susans. There was nothing to do but form his own band. We don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that rock music was changed forever. Helmet’s tunings, rhythms, and chord voicings are startlingly original, and easily as heavy as anything that came before or after them. Their most recent album is 2023’s LEFT, released through earMUSIC, and their 2024 covers and live tracks compilation Move On. Recorded March 5, 2025 Wilma's Rainbow Repetition Dislocated Milquetoast Watch the full Live on KEXP session on YouTube.Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the show this time, it's the heavy-rock of alt-metal pioneers, Helmet. Helmet was formed in 1989, in New York City. Guitarist Page Hamilton was there to study Jazz at the Manhattan School of Music. He auditioned for and then joined Band of Susans. He brought a few of his own songs to the band, but even though they liked the songs, they were not a fit for the Susans. There was nothing to do but form his own band. We don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that rock music was changed forever. Helmet’s tunings, rhythms, and chord voicings are startlingly original, and easily as heavy as anything that came before or after them. Their most recent album is 2023’s LEFT, released through earMUSIC, and their 2024 covers and live tracks compilation Move On. Recorded March 5, 2025 Wilma's Rainbow Repetition Dislocated Milquetoast Watch the full Live on KEXP session on YouTube.Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Horn Signal is proudly brought to you by Bob Reeves Brass. Join hosts John Snell and Preston Shepard as they interview horn players around the world.  Today's episode features Julie Landsman, former Principal Horn of the Metropolitan Opera and teacher at University of Southern California. About Julie: Principal horn with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for 25 years, Julie Landsman is a distinguished performing artist and educator. She received a bachelor of music degree from The Juilliard School in 1975 under the tutelage of James Chambers and Ranier De Intinis, and has served as a member of the Juilliard faculty since 1989. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Landsman achieved her dream of becoming principal of the MET in 1985 and held that position until 2010. She has also shared her talent to many other ensembles within the city as a current member of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and having performed and recorded with the New York Philharmonic. Additionally, she has performed with numerous groups outside the city, including her co-principal position with the Houston Symphony, substitute principal position with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and recent performances with The Philadelphia Orchestra as Associate principal horn, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, principal horn. She has recorded for RCA, Deutsche Gramophone, CRI, Nonesuch and Vanguard labels, and is most famous for her performance of Wagner's “Ring” cycle as solo horn with the MET Opera under the direction of James Levine. Landsman has performed as chamber musician at many festivals and concert series, including the Marlboro Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, La Jolla Summerfest, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center,  Orcas Island Chamber Music  Festival,  and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she appeared as a guest artist with the Guarneri Quartet. In the summers she performs and teaches at the Music Academy of the West , the Sarasota Music  Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival. World renowned as a master teacher, Julie Landsman holds faculty positions at The Juilliard School and Bard College Conservatory, and teaches frequently as a guest at the Curtis Institute. She has presented master classes at such distinguished institutions as The Colburn School, Curtis Institute, Eastman School of Music, Mannes College of Music, Manhattan School of Music, USC Thornton School of Music, Cal State Long Beach, Rowan University, University of Oklahoma, and University of Southern Mississippi, to name a few. She is also a visiting master teacher at the New World Symphony in Miami. Her international presence includes master classes in Norway, Sweden, and Israel.  In 2016 Landsman was an honored jury member at the ARD horn competition in Munich, Germany. Her students hold positions in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Opera and Ballet Orchestras, Washington National Opera Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Colorado Symphony, and the American Brass Quintet. She recently received the “Pioneer Award” from the International Women's Brass Conference and was a featured artist at the International Horn Society Conference in 2012 and 2015. Her recent series of Carmine Caruso lessons on YouTube have led to further fame and renown among today's generation of horn players. Landsman currently resides in Santa Barbara, California.

The Trombone Corner Podcast is brought to you by Bob Reeves Brass and The Brass Ark.  Join hosts Noah and John as they interview Dr. Brittany Lasch, trombone soloist and professor at Indiana University.   About Brittany: A winner of the S&R Foundation Washington Award and Astral Artists National Auditions, trombonist Brittany Lasch brings authenticity and unshakeable commitment to all aspects of her music-making. Increasingly in demand as a soloist with orchestras and brass bands alike, Brittany balances an intensive performance career with her role as a sought-after educator and newly appointed Assistant Professor of Trombone at the renowned Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. As a serial collaborator and commissioner of composers, Brittany is a musical explorer creating new repertoire for her instrument from some of today's most compelling voices, and true ambassador in expanding recognition for the trombone as a powerful solo voice for today. Brittany has appeared as a soloist with ensembles ranging from the U.S. Army Band “Pershing's Own”, Rodney Marsalis Philadelphia Big Brass, and for concerto performances with the Queens Symphony, National Repertory Orchestra, Bucks County Symphony, Bowling Green Philharmonia, Manhattan School of Music Philharmonia, and others across the country. With playing described as “masterful” (Syracuse Post-Standard), American Record Guide recently hailed Brittany as an "excellent soloist" across a diverse range of repertoire.  Brittany has been a featured guest artist at numerous festivals, including the International Trombone Festival, the International Women's Brass Conference, and the American Trombone Workshop. She was a winner of the National Collegiate Solo Competition hosted by the U.S. Army Band, the Eisenberg-Fried Brass Concerto Competition at the Manhattan School of Music, the Zulalian Foundation Award in Boston. Her trombone quartet Boston Based won the 2017 International Trombone Association's Quartet Competition. In 2018, Brittany was awarded 2nd place in The American Prize Solo Instrumentalist competition. A prizewinner in numerous other competitions, she received the coveted John Clark Award upon graduation from the Manhattan School of Music for outstanding accomplishment in brass performance. For six seasons, Brittany was the Principal Trombone of the Detroit Opera Orchestra at the Detroit Opera House. She has performed with orchestras nationwide, including the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Nashville Symphony, The Florida Orchestra, Toledo Symphony Orchestra, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic, the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra, the Vermont Symphony, Albany Symphony, Syracuse Symphony, and the New World Symphony in Miami Beach. She participated in the Verbier Festival Orchestra for two summers, and has also appeared at the Spoleto USA Festival, the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, the Castleton Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival. An active presence in the global trombone community, Brittany's performances for the current and past seasons include Argentina's Trombonanza, Portugal's Gravíssimo Festival, as well as appearances in Japan and Korea. As an advocate for new music, Brittany has commissioned and performed several new pieces for the trombone, including acclaimed composer Reena Esmail's major Sonata for Trombone and Piano, which she commissioned for her Astral Artists recital in Philadelphia. Brittany gave the premiere of the orchestrated version of Martin Kennedy's Theme and Variations for Trombone and Orchestra with the BGSU Philharmonia under the direction of Dr. Emily Brown. She also recorded the work with the BGSU Philharmonia, which was recently released on the Albany Records label. Other recent projects include collaborations with composers Inez McComas, Adam Har-zvi, and David Miller. Her debut solo album Dark Horse features works by Samuel Adler, Tony Plog, Reena Esmail, Shawn Davern, and the album's pianist, Thomas Weaver. A native of Park Ridge, Illinois, Brittany earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Boston University, where she received the Brass Department Award. She also holds a Master of Music degree from Yale School of Music. With a deep commitment to education, she has previously served as faculty at the College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University and the Boston University Tanglewood Institute. She has also been a featured teacher and performer at summer festivals, including the Sewanee Music Festival and the DC Trombone Workshop. Recent residencies include those at the University of Central Arkansas, James Madison University (Tromblow'in), University of Iowa, Oklahoma State University, Stetson University, the University of Florida, and as the guest artist at the 2023 Frühling Posaunen hosted at Ithaca College. She has presented masterclasses at universities across the country and internationally. Brittany Lasch is an Edwards Trombone Performing Artist. She also proudly uses and endorses ChopSaver Lip Care. Outside of music, Brittany has recently completed her eleventh full marathon and loves spending time with her cats, Clove and Poppyseed.

Voice, Acting teacher, and Operatic Contralto, Professor Megan Gillespie, is a Los Angeles native and earned her master's degree in Opera Performance from the Manhattan School of Music Conservatory. She has been teaching students the art of performance for over 15 years. And recently transitioned her opera career into ConversationalEnglishPro.com where she coaches students and professionals who speak English as a Second language in fluency and confidence through pronunciation and soft skills.​Megan is currently the Outreach Advisor for the Music Center Spotlight Program where she trains their public speakers. She conducts and stage directs operas and concerts in the US and is Adjunct Faculty with the Music Department at Santa Monica College. Megan's Website: ConversationalEnglishPro.com and MeganGillespiesStudio.com

In the words of The New Yorker, Charles Neidich “is an artist  of  uncommon merit -- a master of his instrument and, beyond that, an  interpreter  who keeps listeners hanging on each phrase.”        Charles is the artistic  director of the Wa Concert Series at  the Tenri Cultural Institute in New  York, which he founded with his wife, clarinetist Ayako Oshima, in September 2017. This concert series is inspired by the  Japanese concept “wa”—  meaning circle, but also harmony and completeness; each  performance is  thus paired with visual arts and offers a variety of culinary delicacies prepared by Ayako Oshima. In recent seasons, Charles has added conducting to his musical accomplishments. He has led the Cobb Symphony Orchestra and Georgia Symphony in performances of the Franck Symphony in D Minor and Mozart's Clarinet Concerto (also playing the solo clarinet part). Charles commands a repertoire of over 200 solo works, including pieces commissioned or inspired by him, as well as his own transcriptions of vocal and instrumental works. With a growing discography to his credit, he can be heard on the Chandos, Sony Classical, Sony Vivarte, Deutsche Grammophon, Musicmasters, Pantheon, and Bridge labels. His recorded repertoire ranges from familiar works by Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, and Brahms, to lesser-known compositions by Danzi, Reicha, Rossini, and Hummel, as well as music by Elliott Carter, Gyorgy Kurtag, and other contemporary masters. Although Charles became quite active in music at an early age, he opted against attending a music conservatory in favor of academic studies at Yale University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, in Anthropology. In 1975 he became the first American to receive a Fulbright grant for study in the former Soviet Union, and he attended the Moscow Conservatory for three years where his teachers were Boris Dikov and Kirill Vinogradov. Charles Neidich has achieved recognition as a teacher in addition to his activities as a performer, and currently is a member of the artist faculties of The Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, the Mannes College of Music. During the 1994-95 academic year he was a Visiting Professor at the Sibelius Academy in Finland where he taught, performed and conducted. Mr. Neidich is a long-time member of the renowned chamber ensemble Orpheus.

Episode 94 — Frank Pagano: From Glen Rock to the Broadway PitIn this must-hear episode of the Broadway Drumming 101 Podcast, I sit down with legendary drummer and percussionist Frank Pagano — a true veteran of both the concert stage and the Broadway scene.Frank's career reads like a who's who of the music industry. He's played with icons like Bruce Springsteen, Bette Midler, Al Green, and Phoebe Snow. On Broadway, his credits span from Leader of the Pack and The Who's Tommy to Smokey Joe's Cafe, Cry-Baby, The Pirate Queen, Good Vibrations, Fosse, Big River, Saturday Night Fever, and more. What you'll hear in this episode:* How a 4th-grade music demo sparked Frank's lifelong love of drums.* Growing up and gigging with the Vivino brothers (yes — that Jimmy Vivino).* What it was like studying percussion at Manhattan School of Music and later with Joe Morello and Justin DiCioccio.* His unusual path to Broadway — having a chair before ever subbing.* The real reason he pivoted to Broadway full-time: marriage, fatherhood, and health insurance.* Wisdom on subbing: play their show, not yours.* Lessons from playing percussion alongside killer drummers like Brian Brake.* Touring vs. pit life — the physical grind of the road versus the stability of Broadway.* How working with artists like Laura Nyro and Bruce Springsteen shaped his perspective on artistry and professionalism.* Advice for drummers who want to make it in New York: “Play with everyone. Play everything. Be early. Be likable. Be ready.”Frank's reflections on time, groove, and what it really means to be musical are some of the best insights I've heard on this show. This episode is for any drummer who wants to play on Broadway — and stay there.Watch more episodes on YouTubeListen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcastsLearn more about Frank Pagano: https://www.frankpagano.com/bioClayton Craddock founded Broadway Drumming 101, an in-depth online platform offering specialized mentorship and a carefully curated collection of resources tailored for aspiring and professional musicians.Clayton's Broadway and Off-Broadway credits include tick, tick…BOOM!, Altar Boyz, Memphis The Musical, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, Ain't Too Proud – The Life and Times of The Temptations, Cats: The Jellicle Ball, and The Hippest Trip: The Soul Train Musical. As a skilled sub, he's contributed his talents to Motown, Evita, Cats, Avenue Q, The Color Purple, Rent, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical, Hadestown (tour), and many more. He has also appeared on major shows, including The View, Good Morning America, Jimmy Fallon, The Today Show, and the TONY Awards, and performed with legends like The Stylistics, The Delfonics, Mario Cantone, Laura Benanti, Kristin Chenoweth, Kerry Butler, Christian Borle, Norm Lewis, Deniece Williams, Chuck Berry, and Ben E. King.Clayton proudly endorses Ahead Drum Cases, Paiste Cymbals, Innovative Percussion drumsticks, and Empire Ears.Learn more about Clayton Craddock here: www.claytoncraddock.com Get full access to Broadway Drumming 101 at broadwaydrumming101.substack.com/subscribe

We sat down with musician/trumpeter Brandon Woody to discuss his debut album - "For The Love Of It All." Brandon is a Baltimore native who began his training at the Baltimore School of the Arts, and went on to Study at the Brubeck Institute in California, as well as the Manhattan School of Music. He's since gone onto work with artists like Solange, Robert Glasper, Lalah Hathway and more, brands like Calvin Klein, Nike, Reebok. He's performed at venues like the the Newport Jazz Festival and can be seen at the upcoming Roots Picnic. In 2017 he formed his band, "Upendo," and has since signed with Blue Note Records where he released his debut album this month! Follow Brandon: ⁠@BrandonWoody (IG)⁠ ⁠www.brandonwoody.com⁠ ⁠www.bluenote.com⁠ Follow Us: All Links: https://linktr.ee/otwweekly Instagram/Twitter: @onthewayweekly FB: facebook.com/onthewaypod | Youtube: https://bit.ly/3CWxgPZ Website: instinctent.com/ontheway | www.mochapodcastsnetwork.com/ontheway Sylvee - @sylveejones Kahlil - @kahlilxdaniel | www.kahlildaniel.com | www.facebook.com/kxdmusic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

durée : 00:25:09 - Rhoda Scott, organiste et chanteuse de jazz (1/5) - par : Alex Dutilh - Rhoda Scott nait en 1938 dans le New Jersey. Fille de pasteur, elle découvre l'orgue toute gamine à l'église, puis le r'n'b grâce à Ray Charles. À New York elle découvre la musique classique à la Manhattan School of Music et se fait très vite une place dans les clubs. - réalisé par : Gilles Blanchard

Back when we were all stuck inside and Broadway had gone quiet, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the great Warren Odze—a true Broadway and NYC studio veteran. Re-listening to this interview in 2025, I'm reminded just how rich and inspiring Warren's stories are. Things have changed for the better since we first recorded, but this conversation holds up stronger than ever.Warren has played in an incredible list of Broadway shows, including:

Welcome to Mysteries to Die For and this Toe Tag.I am TG Wolff and am here with Jack, my piano player and producer. This is normally a podcast where we combine storytelling with original music to put you at the heart of mystery. Today is a bonus episode we call a Toe Tag. It is the first chapter from a fresh release in the mystery, crime, and thriller genre.Today's featured release is Rented Grave by Charles Philipp MartinTG Wolff ReviewRented Grave is an suspense novel. A man is dead. A boy is missing. When it comes to the crimes, three men are in it to win it. Criminal, victim, and cop. But address and title doesn't necessarily tell who is who.Bottom line: Rented Grave is for you if you like gritty stories of haves and have nots with a Hong Kong flair.About Charles Philipp MartinCharles Philipp Martin grew up in New York City's Greenwich Village in a family steeped in music and literature. After attending Columbia University and Manhattan School of Music, Martin took off for a six-year paid vacation in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. While in Hong Kong he hung up his bow and turned to writing, spending four years as a Sunday Magazine columnist for the South China Morning Post, and writing for magazines all over Southeast Asia. His weekly jazz radio show 3 O'Clock Jump was heard every Saturday on Hong Kong's Radio 3 for some two decades. Martin now lives in Seattle with his wife Catherine. Find him at www.NeonPanic.comWondering what to read after you finish Rented Grave? Partners in Crime Tours is your ultimate destination for all things mystery, crime, thriller, and cozy! Since 2011, they've been working to fill bookshelves with gripping and heart-pounding reads. Discover new mystery series and connection with other fans with Partners in Crime. Look up Partners in Crime Tours on the web or your favorite social media - www.partnerincrime.com.And Authors, whether you're looking to promote your latest thriller, discover a new mystery series, or connect with fellow fans of the genre, PICT has you covered. Check out their promotion options that come with the personal attention of a dedicated coordinator.

Ever get that overwhelmed feeling in the practice room? Where you know there's a ton of work to be done, but you're not quite sure where to start or what exactly to do?Maybe you're not happy with your sound, or your intonation is sketchy, or perhaps it's one of those days when it feels like everything needs attention?We only have so much time and energy, so what are we to do?Flutist Linda Chesis is a soloist, chamber musician, educator, and festival director. She was a student of Jean-Pierre Rampal at the Paris Conservatory, a top prizewinner at the Paris and Barcelona International Competitions, and has been a longtime faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music and Chair of the Woodwind Department.In this episode, Linda shares insights on how to cultivate a more beautiful sound, walks us through a checklist for what exactly to listen and look for when listening back to recordings of ourselves, and how to manage and organize our practice time when we have too much music to learn and not quite enough time:Get all the nerdy details and connect with Linda here:Linda Chesis: On Cultivating a More Beautiful Sound and Becoming a Better Practicer* * *Have you ever wondered why it is exactly that things often sound better at home than they do on stage? If you've been confused (and frustrated) by the inconsistency of your performances, I put together a FREE 4-minute quiz called the Mental Skills Audit, which will help you pinpoint your mental strengths and weaknesses, and figure out what exactly to adjust and tweak in your preparation for more consistently optimal performances. It's 100% free, takes only 4 minutes, and you'll get a downloadable PDF with a personalized breakdown of where you stand in six key mental skill areas. You'll also get the Pressure Proof Practice Challenge, a free 7-day email course where you'll learn specific practice strategies that will help you perform your best, even under pressure. Take the quiz here: bulletproofmusician.com/msa

Born in the Pinar del Río province of Cuba, Steinway Artist, Grammy Nominated, and 2014 Jalc Millennium Swing Award! recipient pianist and composer Elio Villafranca was classically trained in percussion and composition at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana, Cuba. Since he arrived in the U.S. in mid-1995, Elio Villafranca has been at the forefront of the latest generation of remarkable pianists, composers, and bandleaders. NYC Jazz Record selected his concert Letters to Mother Africa as Best Concerts in 2016. In 2015, Mr. Villafranca was among the 5 pianists hand-picked by Chick Corea to perform at the first Chick Corea Jazz Festival, curated by Chick himself at JALC. Elio Villafranca's new album Caribbean Tinge (Motema), received a 2014 Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik Nomination by the German Records Critics Award, as well has been selected by JazzTimes and DownBeat magazines for a feature on their very competitive section Editor's Pick. He also received a 2010 Grammy Nomination in the Best Latin Jazz Album of the Year category. In 2008 The Jazz Corner nominated Elio Villafranca as pianist of the year. That year, Mr. Villafranca was also honored by BMI with the BMI Jazz Guaranty Award. He received the first NFA/Heineken Green Ribbon Master Artist Music Grant for the creation of his Concerto for Mariachi, for Afro-Cuban Percussion and Symphony Orchestra. Finally, his first album, Incantations/ Encantaciones, featuring Pat Martino, Terell Stafford, and Dafnis Prieto was ranked amongst the 50 best jazz albums of the year by JazzTimes magazine in 2003. Over the years Elio Villafranca has recorded and performed nationally and internationally as a leader, featuring jazz master artists such as Pat Martino, Terell Stafford, Billy Hart, Paquito D'Rivera, Eric Alexander, Lewis Nash, David Murray, and Wynton Marsalis among others. As a sideman, Elio Villafranca has collaborated with leading jazz and Latin jazz artists including: Chick Corea, Jon Faddis, Billy Harper, Sonny Fortune, Giovanni Hidalgo, Miguel Zenón, and Johnny Pacheco among others. This year, in 2017 Elio Villafranca received The Sunshine Award, founded in 1989 to recognize excellence in the performing arts, education, science and sports of the various Caribbean countries, South America, Central America, and Africa. He is based in New York City and he is a faculty member of Temple University, Philadelphia, The Juilliard School of Music, New York University, and Manhattan School of Music in NYC.

In this episode of Broadway Drumming 101, we sit down with Andrew Beall, an accomplished percussionist, composer, and Broadway musician whose career spans international performances, musical theater orchestration, and a deep love for percussion. From his early days in Ohio to working on some of Broadway's biggest productions, Andrew shares insights into his journey, his influences, and his passion for composition.We dive into the art of orchestration, the challenges of subbing on Broadway, and how he balances multiple musical roles—including running Bachovich Music Publications and managing orchestras. Andrew also talks about adapting to technological advancements in music, the impact of Finale's discontinuation, and how biking in NYC keeps him in rhythm with the city's fast pace.Whether you're an aspiring Broadway musician or just love behind-the-scenes stories from the theater world, this episode is packed with wisdom, humor, and practical advice.Episode Highlights:

  About Kate: Kate Caliendo enjoys a diverse musical career of symphonic playing, chamber music, recording, soloing and teaching. She is currently Second Horn of the Jacksonville Symphony and has also held Fourth Horn positions with the Houston Symphony and San Antonio Symphony. She is a frequent guest musician with groups including the Kansas City Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Charleston Symphony, Houston Grand Opera, North Carolina Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic and the Coastal Symphony of Georgia. As a recorded artist, she is featured on projects with the Kansas City Symphony, Rice University Horn Studio and the Houston Symphony, including their 2018 Grammy Award winning live concert performance of Wozzeck. During the summers, Kate performs with the Bellingham Festival of Music in Washington state, and has also been a musician at Festival Mozaic in California and the Tanglewood Music Center. An avid solo musician, she performed as guest soloist with the Charleston Symphony, and in 2011 commissioned and premiered “Vanishing Points, Six Aural Paintings for Low Horn and Piano” by Rice Doctorate composer Stephen Bachicha. A native of New Jersey, Kate began her musical studies with her father, who was her band director. She was a student of Michelle Baker at the Manhattan School of Music and received her Bachelors and Masters degrees in French Horn Performance from Rice University as a student of William VerMeulen. Her other notable teachers  include Dale Clevenger, Julie Landsman, Douglas Lundeen, and Jeff Nelsen.

Send your questions or provocations to Adam or Budi here!In this episode, Adam and Budi continue our Grad School Series with Chair of Graduate Acting at NYU Tisch, Carl Cofield. Carl Cofield is the Chair of Graduate Acting at NYU Tisch and has served as the Associate Artistic Director of the Classical Theatre of Harlem since 2018. CTH directing credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, Seize the King, The Bacchae, Antigone, Macbeth, The Tempest, and Dutchman. He also directed  The XIXth (The Nineteenth) at the Old Globe Theatre as well as the world premiere of Kemp Powers' One Night in Miami for Rogue Machine Theater in Los Angeles, and later iterations at Miami New Drama and Denver Center. Other directing venues include Oregon Shakespeare Festival, McCarter Theatre, and Yale Repertory. He has served on faculty at Yale School of Drama, Columbia School of the Arts, Manhattan School of Music, and the New School. Education: MFA in Directing from Columbia University.Support the showIf you enjoyed this week´s podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. To submit a question: Voice- http://www.speakpipe.com/theatreofothers Email- podcast@theatreofothers.com Show Credits Co-Hosts: Adam Marple & Budi MillerProducer: Jack BurmeisterMusic: (Intro) Jack Burmeister, (Outro) https://www.purple-planet.comAdditional compositions by @jack_burmeister

Just graduated from Curtis Institute and Manhattan School of Music Anton Mejias and Ossi Tanner are sharing their experiences of classical piano studies in the USA

Episode 88 of Messy Jesus Business podcast, with Sister Julia Walsh. In this episode of Messy Jesus Business podcast, Sister Julia Walsh, FSPA talks with Rev. Ricky Manalo, CSP, about faith and culture, vocation, liturgical music, what worship is, AI, what it means to be human, and polarization and unity. Podcast: Play in new window | Download Subscribe:  Email | RSS | More A transcript of the show is available.  I define [worship] as any kind of response that we might have to something or someone holy....worship could take place anywhere. It could take place when I'm going for a walk in Manhattan or I'm in the subway and I notice someone who's in need of help." -Rev. Ricky Manalo, CSP Rev. Ricky Manalo, CSP ABOUT THE GUEST Rev. Ricky Manalo, CSP, Ph.D. is a Paulist priest, a composer, theologian, and author. He is the recipient of the 2020 Distinguished Catholic Music Composer of the Year Award by the Association of Catholic Publishers, and the 2018 Pastoral Musician of the Year Award by the National Association of Pastoral Musicians. He studied composition and piano at the Manhattan School of Music, theology at the Washington Theological Union (WTU), and liturgy, culture, and sociology at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), Berkeley, CA. Currently, he is serving as Chairperson of the Paulist Initiative on Polarization. MESSY JESUS BUSINESS is hosted by Sister Julia Walsh.  Produced and edited by Colin Wambsgans. Email us at messyjesusbusiness@gmail.com BE SOCIAL: https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MessyJesusBusiness Twitter: @messyjesusbiz Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/messyjesusbusiness SUPPORT US: https://www.patreon.com/messyjesusbusiness

Tom Nelson is a pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader. He is a busy freelance musician, performing with some of the top jazz and classical musicians in New York City. He is also the house pianist at the University Club. Tom performs all styles of music ranging from classical to jazz to rock to Broadway, but is especially fond of the Great American Songbook repertoire featuring such composers as George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Richard Rogers.Born in Logan, Utah, Tom received a Bachelor's of Jazz Studies from the University of North Texas and a Master's of Jazz Composition from the Manhattan School of Music. He has composed works for string quartet, jazz orchestra and chamber jazz ensemble, songs for soprano, violin and piano and composed for small jazz ensemble as well. Tom is also active as a Musical Director on the New York cabaret scene and works as a rehearsal pianist and dance accompanist. He lives in Manhattan with his wife and two daughters. www.tomdnelson.com

On this episode I talked with Ayanna about her background in theatre, including her childhood in the Bronx and her move to Los Angeles, where she attended performing arts schools, the cultural adjustment she faced in LA and her longing for New York, especially during the pandemic, choosing to study at the Manhattan School of Music and appreciating it's welcoming atmosphere and rich history, the significance of the people and experiences that shaped her artistic journey, her casting experience for "How to Dance in Ohio," which began with a self-tape submission after seeing a casting call on social media, her excitement when she received a callback for the show and the welcoming atmosphere during her final audition, how the show resonated with her post her autism diagnosis, her Broadway debut and experience as a swing in @ohiomusical where she covered five roles, her current role in Harry Potter & The Cursed Child on Broadway where she plays Rose Granger Weasley (the daughter of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger), being part of a new cast who debuted a new version (under three hours) of Cursed Child on Broadway, characteristics of Ron and Hermione that she has made sure to add to Rose Granger Weasley on stage, her favorite bit of magic that happens in the show, her real life Hogwarts house, dream roles she has, her passion for jazz music, and much more! 

Mateo Vintimilla is an Ecuadorian born Classical Guitarist who has performed in venues across the globe giving recitals in Dominican Republic, Iceland, United States, and Ecuador. A recipient of the Augustine Foundation Scholarship, he has collaborated with the Brooklyn Composers Society, premiering new music at Brooklyn College and commissioned and premiered works from several Ecuadorian composers. Mateo obtained his bachelor's degree in classical guitar performance at the Manhattan School of Music with the American virtuoso Mark Delpriora and his master's degree under the tutelage of the internationally acclaimed artist Dr. Andrew Zohn at the Schwob School of Music. As an educator Mateo has been a faculty member in The Brooklyn Center for Musical Arts, the New York City Guitar School, and non-profit organizations like Lead Guitar and Internal Creations, where he currently works as artistic director.

This is a throwback episode that I will probably always post around this time because I always need this reminder!! Hope you enjoy this conversation around New Year's resolutions!Want to transform the way you view New Year's resolutions? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Dr. Michael Alcée, who returns to share his captivating insights into the tradition of setting annual goals. Dr. Alcée helps us navigate the emotional rollercoaster of resolutions, from the excitement of self-improvement to the weight of societal expectations. Get ready to rethink your approach with fresh perspectives on blending self-acceptance and growth. We'll explore how the rigidity of conventional resolutions might stifle creativity and discover ways to harmonize the enthusiasts and skeptics among us. Amidst discussions on SMART goals and the cultural phenomenon of "Quitter's Day," Dr. Alcée invites us to embrace a mindset filled with playfulness and curiosity. Imagine resolutions as an ever-evolving journey rather than a strict deadline. Together, we reevaluate the traditional calendar-bound mindset, celebrating the essence of continuous personal development. By the end, you'll learn how high achievers find fulfillment in the process itself, leading to sustained innovation and success. Prepare to leave this episode with renewed motivation and a fresh perspective on how to craft resolutions that truly resonate with your unique rhythm and needs.Michael Alcée, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Tarrytown, NY and Mental Health Educator at Manhattan School of Music. He specializes in the psychology of artists and everyday creativity and the professional development of therapists. His contributions have appeared in The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The New York Post, NPR, Salon.com, and on the TEDx stage. His book from Norton entitled Therapeutic Improvisation: How to Stop Winging It and Own It as a Therapist is available wherever books are sold.  Book LinkTherapeutic Improvisation Websitehttps://michaelalcee.com/ This podcast is meant to be a resource for the general public, as well as fellow therapists/psychologists. It is NOT meant to replace the meaningful work of individual or family therapy. Please seek professional help in your area if you are struggling. #breakthestigma #makewordsmatter #thingsyoulearnintherapy #thingsyoulearnintherapypodcast  Feel free to share your thoughts at www.makewordsmatterforgood.com or email me at Beth@makewordsmatterforgood.comIf you are a therapist or psychologist and want to be a guest on the show, please complete this form to apply: https://forms.gle/ooy8QirpgL2JSLhP6 Support the showwww.bethtrammell.com

The Cello Sherpa Podcast Host, Joel Dallow, interviews cellist Julia Lichten. She has been on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music since 1989. Julia shares how she first fell in love with the cello, her teaching philosophy and offers sage advice on how to put your best foot forward when applying to summer music programs. For more information on Julia: https://www.msmnyc.edu/faculty/julia-lichten/If you are looking for in person/virtual cello lessons, or orchestral repertoire audition coachings, check out http://www.theCelloSherpa.comFollow us on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Bluesky @theCelloSherpaFor more information on our sponsor: www.CLEAResources.com 

En el nuevo episodio de No Se Edita, tuve el honor de conversar con la soprano María Brea, una artista que transformó los desafíos en melodías y los sueños en realidades. Desde su origen como una talentosa venezolana, hasta ser seleccionada para una beca en la prestigiosa Manhattan School of Music, María nos contó cómo su camino la llevó a Juilliard y, finalmente, a conquistar los escenarios más importantes del mundo. Su historia no sólo inspira, sino que demuestra que el esfuerzo, la pasión y la determinación pueden abrir cualquier puerta.

On this episode of the Psychology Talk Podcast, we have the pleasure of speaking, once again, with Dr. Michael Alcée, a clinical psychologist based in Tarrytown, New York. Michael is not only a mental health educator at the Manhattan School of Music but also an award-winning author. His innovative work marries the worlds of psychology and creativity, offering fresh insights into the human condition. His acclaimed book, Therapeutic Improvisation: How to Stop Winging It and Own It as a Therapist, highlights his unique approach to therapy and personal growth. Join us as we explore Michael's groundbreaking perspectives on OCD and the hidden strengths that lie within. His new book is entitled Upside of OCD: Flip the Script to Reclaim Your Life.Dr. Hoye & Dr. Alcée cover the creative side of OCD and dive into the heart of what makes OCD "tick."  Discover how to meet OCD in a new light, combining the older, more mechanistic models of treatment, such as CBT and exposure therapy, with the emotional side of the disorder.  They unravel OCD's paradoxes and find the gems hiden in plain sight.  This epsiode should add more insight, and quite possibly flip your OCD script. Dr. Alcée's website The Book: The Upside of OCD: Flip the Script to Reclaim Your LifeThe Psychology Talk Podcast is a unique conversation about psychology around the globe. Your host Dr. Scott Hoye discusses psychology and mental health trends with practitioners and experts to keep you informed about issues and trends in the industry. Dr. Hoye is a clinical psychologist and the director of Chicago Psychology Services, in Chicago, IL., USA.https://psych-talk.comhttps://www.instagram.com/psychtalkpodcast/https://www.facebook.com/psychtalkpodcasthttps://chicagopsychservices.com   Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/psychology-talk-podcast--3571902/support.

Donald Vega was trained classically in piano in his native Nicaragua. He emigrated to the United States at age 14 and found a musical home with the Colburn School of Performing Arts (CSPA). He began his studies there in classical piano with Teresa de Jong Pombo and Dr. Louis Lepley. Vega started to learn the language of jazz from mentor Billy Higgins at The World Stage and continued at CSPA with Jeffrey Lavner, then later with bassist John Clayton at the University of Southern California. He went on to graduate from the Manhattan School of Music and The Juilliard School where he studied with piano great Kenny Barron, Phil Markowitz, and Gary Dial. Vega currently performs internationally as the pianist for world-renowned bassist Ron Carter's Golden Striker Trio with whom he has recorded several albums. Mr. Vega is also a professor at The Juilliard School and Hofstra University and sits on the board of BackCountry Jazz. This non-profit organization provides music education programs and performances to underprivileged youth.  Vega's debut album, Tomorrows, was released in 2008 to rave reviews. In his sophomore album, Spiritual Nature (Resonance Records, 2012), he was joined by the regal rhythm tandem of bassist Christian McBride and drummer Lewis Nash. Vega teamed up again with Lewis Nash on his third album, Concerning Monty, (Resonance Records, 2015) along with Hassan Shakur, the great bassist and former Monty Alexander band member, and long-time friend and Grammy-nominated artist, Anthony Wilson on guitar.  Donald recently finished recording his latest album, As I Travel (2023), with Lewis Nash on drums and John Patitucci on bass, featuring Luisito Quintero on percussion. 

In this episode, Megan and Taleen dive into incredible world of music and education. Professor Megan Gillespie is a dynamic force in opera, education, and public speaking. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, she has cultivated a career marked by extraordinary achievements. As an opera soloist and stage director, Megan's performances captivate audiences worldwide with her vocal prowess and dramatic flair. Her dedication to her craft has earned her acclaim in prestigious venues. In the realm of education, Megan is a transformative figure, particularly as a trainer for educators. Notably, she revolutionized the choir program at Paul Revere Middle School, shaping the next generation of musical talent. She is the founder of Megan Gillespie's Studio for Actors, singer, voice over artists and public speakers. MeganGillespiesStudio.com You can follower her on YouTube, TikTok, IG and FaceBook @MeganGillespiesStudio Furthermore, Megan is a sought-after public speaker, inspiring audiences with her insights on topics like conflict resolution and the power of music in education. Her keynote speeches at institutions such as the University of Omaha, Nebraska, and Santa Monica College leave a lasting impact. Through her passion, talent, and dedication, Professor Megan Gillespie exemplifies the potential for a fulfilling career that transcends boundaries. Her contributions continue to inspire and uplift audiences globally.

When we think about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), our minds often go straight to the difficulties it brings—the obsessive thoughts and compulsive actions that can disrupt daily life. But what if there's a side of OCD that's rarely discussed, one that offers unique strengths?   In this episode of The OCD Whisperer Podcast, Dr. Michael Alcée, a clinical psychologist and mental health educator at the Manhattan School of Music, helps us rethink our view of OCD. Through insights from his forthcoming book, The Upside of OCD, Dr. Alcée shares how the intense emotional sensitivity and vivid imagination often seen in individuals with OCD can be seen as valuable assets rather than limitations.   Together, Dr. Alcée and Kristina dive deep into the heart of OCD, exploring how understanding the emotional roots behind its symptoms can foster greater self-awareness and more compassionate self-care. Dr. Alcée discusses how setting healthy boundaries and embracing one's unique traits can lead to a more balanced, fulfilling life, shifting the focus from “disorder” to the richness of experience that OCD may offer.   Tune in to gain a compassionate new outlook on OCD, and if this resonates, don't forget to subscribe and share with others who might need a fresh perspective! In This Episode [01:12] Introduction to Dr. Michael Alcée [02:06] The upside of OCD [02:58] Emotional sensitivity and imagination in OCD [03:19] Understanding OCD symptoms [04:18] The role of feelings in OCD [05:11] Nuanced emotional awareness [06:16] Imagination and the OCD mind [07:21] Case study: Navigating driving fear [08:28] Contextualizing different aspects of OCD [09:34] The richness of the OCD mind [10:38] Exploring ERP and exposure exercises [11:32] Differences in managing OCD feelings [12:04] Balancing loss and love in OCD [13:30] The nature of compulsions [15:12] Coping with emotional overextension [16:04] Understanding underlying stress causes [17:08] Recognizing the importance of conflict awareness [18:10] OCD's distraction mechanism [19:02] Nurturing boundaries for emotional health [20:17] Reclaiming healthy agency and empowerment [24:19] Mindfulness and self-reflection [25:16] Self-awareness for personal growth [27:06] The poet's soul Notable Quotes [02:06] “We don't focus enough on the person who has OCD; we focus a lot on the disorder. The upside is this wonderful kind of spark of emotional sensitivity and imaginative range.” - Dr. Michael Alcée [04:18] “Most people with OCD feel so much, but they don't have someone to help them mirror it back. By the time they catch up with it, it's already converted itself into all these terrible obsessions and compulsions.” - Dr. Michael Alcée [12:38] “People with OCD have a precocious existential sensitivity. They notice death way earlier, and it's almost like they never had the language to understand it. I want to highlight and celebrate that rich capacity to live.” - Dr. Michael Alcée [17:59] “When I realized I wasn't listening to my feelings, the obsession melted away.” - Dr. Michael Alcée [22:17] “People with OCD have an extremely enormous heart, but they don't always trust it and give it away too easily.” - Dr. Michael Alcée [27:06] “I want people with OCD to realize that they have poet souls.” - Dr. Michael Alcée Our Guest Dr. Michael Alcée is a clinical psychologist and mental health educator at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. Known for his innovative approach, he blends psychology with artistry, encouraging clients to see mental health as a creative process. His book Therapeutic Improvisation explores how therapists interact with clients like jazz musicians, and his upcoming work, The Upside of OCD, redefines OCD as a unique sensitivity. Dr. Alcée's insights have been featured in outlets like Psychology Today, NPR, and the New York Times, enriching our emotional and existential awareness understanding. Resources & Links   Kristina Orlova, LMFT https://www.instagram.com/ocdwhisperer/ https://www.youtube.com/c/OCDWhispererChannel https://www.korresults.com/ https://www.onlineocdacademy.com   Dr. Michael Alcee https://michaelalcee.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-alcee-14417755/ https://www.instagram.com/mike_drop_/ https://www.facebook.com/livelifecreatively2/   Mentioned  Therapeutic Improvisation: How to Stop Winging It and Own It as a Therapist The Upside of OCD: Flip the Script to Reclaim Your Life Disclaimer Please note while our host is a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in OCD and anxiety disorders in the state of California, this podcast is for educational purposes only and should not be considered a substitute for therapy. Stay tuned for biweekly episodes filled with valuable insights and tips for managing OCD and anxiety. And remember, keep going in the meantime. See you in the next episode!

Dive into the rich history of jazz with Loren Schoenberg, Grammy Award-winning saxophonist, conductor, and senior scholar at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. In this HarmonyTALK episode, Loren chats with host Lisa Champeau about his experiences performing with jazz legends, his work preserving American jazz history, and his journey as a respected educator at institutions like Juilliard and the Manhattan School of Music.  If you've ever had an interest in the inside look at the career of a multi-faceted musician, this episode uncovers the stories, sounds, and cultural impact of jazz music and offers unique insights into Loren's career, dedication, and passion for the genre. FOLLOW HARMONYTALK PODCAST @harmonytalkpodcast Join Our Mailing List: https://www.harmonytalkpodcast.com/signup  Instagram: https://instagram.com/harmonytalkpodcast  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/harmonytalkpodcast  YouTube: https://youtube.com/@HarmonyTALKPodcast  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/harmonytalkpodcast    https://harmonytalkpodcast.com/  Follow Host, Lisa Champeau:  https://www.instagram.com/lisachampeau/  Email harmonytalkpodcast@gmail.com for sponsorship and guest opportunities!     See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello friends! Nashville-based artist, multi-instrumentalist and producer Dex Green is my guest for episode 1439! As an engineer and producer Dex has worked with Elvis Costello, Margo Price and Shemekia Copeland, which earned him a GRAMMY nomination for mixing and engineering her 2022 album Done Come Too Far  on 3Sirens Music Group. His debut solo album, the dreamy and soulful Imaginary War is out now wherever you stream or download music. Listen to Imaginary War on Spotify. Dex and I have a great conversation about engineering and producing records in Nashville, being inspired by the loss of his mother to make Imaginary War, his love of dreamy soul music, growing up in South Carolina, studying music at the Manhattan School of Music, recording on his own and much more. I had a great time getting to know Dex. I'm sure you will too. Let's get down! Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you pod. If you feel so inclined. Venmo: venmo.com/John-Goudie-1  Paypal: paypal.me/johnnygoudie

Bill Warfield, a dynamic and innovative composer, bandleader and trumpeter, has energized audiences, performers and writers for over four decades. Warfield's most recent accomplishments are two highly regarded recordings including “Mercy Mercy Mercy”, recorded on the BluJazz label by the Hell's Kitchen Funk Orchestra in 2015 and “Trumpet Story” with Randy Brecker on Planet Arts Records, recorded in 2014. These recordings are a celebration of the composer's formative musical experiences. The two groups perform Jazz selections based on the genres of funk, Latin Jazz, and Hard Bop, all arranged by Warfield. He holds an M.M. in Jazz Commercial Trumpet Performance from the Manhattan School of Music where he received the William H. Borden Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Jazz/Commercial Music, The Carmine Caruso Award for Outstanding Musicality and Trumpet Performance and the Maynard Ferguson Scholarship. In 1990 he participated in the BMI Jazz Composers Workshop, directed by Bob Brookmeyer and Manny Albam.

This week on Psychologists Off the Clock, Jill takes on the dynamic blend of science and art in therapy with our amazing guest, Dr. Michael Alcee, a mental health educator and the author of Therapeutic Improvisation: How to Stop Winging It and Own It as a Therapist.Michael sheds light on the vital balance between left-brain logic and right-brain creativity that makes for effective psychotherapy, shares thoughts on the power of humor, metaphor, and emotional connection, and reveals how therapists can embrace their creative side while staying rooted in scientific principles. With fascinating examples from Miichael's professional experience, he presents practical strategies to help therapists enhance their intuitive skills, boost their therapeutic presence, and build stronger connections with their clients.Please join us for an intriguing discovery of how blending science and art can elevate your therapeutic practice and transform the outcome of your client sessions!Listen and Learn:  How the art of therapy and music intertwine to create healing conversations that inspire growth The surprising encounter with Irving Yalom that revealed profound insights into the art of therapy and led Michael to write his book  How therapy becomes an art, blending science and creativity to help clients find their true selves Embracing intuition, creativity, and improvisation as a therapist to enhance your practice Understanding left and right brain dynamics and how it enhances therapy, fostering creativity and insight  How the concept "mindsight" and "wise mind" blend logic and emotion in therapy How therapists can embrace metaphor and intuition for deeper client connections and transformative outcomes  Resources: Therapeutic Improvisation: How to Stop Winging It and Own It as a Therapist https://michaelalcee.com/ https://michael-alcee.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-alcee-14417755/ https://www.instagram.com/mike_drop_/ https://www.facebook.com/livelifecreatively2/ Mentioned in this episode: The Courage to Create: https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Create-Rollo-May/dp/0393311066 About Michael AlceeMichael Alcée, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in Tarrytown, NY, and is a Mental Health Educator at the Manhattan School of Music. In his first book, Therapeutic Improvisation: How to Stop Winging It and Own It as a Therapist (Norton, 2022), Michael demonstrated how all clinicians are artists, reading the changes like well-versed jazz musicians, finding the poetic turns in their client's stories like skilled writers, and reveling in the creative act that emerges in the humanistic encounter of psychotherapy. His forthcoming book is entitled The Upside of OCD: Flip the Script to Reclaim Your Life (Rowman & LIttlefield, 2024) and aims to add depth to the exploration and understanding of the OCD experience. Michael has been a TEDx speaker and organizer and is a regular contributor at Psychology Today along with contributions to NPR, The Chicago Tribune, and The New York Times, among others. You can also find him on The Psychology Podcast with Scott Barry Kaufman and on Shrink Rap Radio.Related Episodes 82. Therapist Self Doubt with Jim Lucas 106. Therapy from “The Heart of ACT” with Robyn Walser 158. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone with Lori Gottlieb 294. Yes And: Improv in Psychology with Kelly Leonard 269. Connection Through Vulnerability with Rikke Kjelgaard 366. Psychologists ON the Clock: Getting Experiential with Us Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Psychologists Off the Clock, Jill takes on the dynamic blend of science and art in therapy with our amazing guest, Dr. Michael Alcee, a mental health educator and the author of Therapeutic Improvisation: How to Stop Winging It and Own It as a Therapist. Michael sheds light on the vital balance between left-brain logic and right-brain creativity that makes for effective psychotherapy, shares thoughts on the power of humor, metaphor, and emotional connection, and reveals how therapists can embrace their creative side while staying rooted in scientific principles.  With fascinating examples from Miichael's professional experience, he presents practical strategies to help therapists enhance their intuitive skills, boost their therapeutic presence, and build stronger connections with their clients. Please join us for an intriguing discovery of how blending science and art can elevate your therapeutic practice and transform the outcome of your client sessions! Listen and Learn:  How the art of therapy and music intertwine to create healing conversations that inspire growth The surprising encounter with Irving Yalom that revealed profound insights into the art of therapy and led Michael to write his book  How therapy becomes an art, blending science and creativity to help clients find their true selves Embracing intuition, creativity, and improvisation as a therapist to enhance your practice Understanding left and right brain dynamics and how it enhances therapy, fostering creativity and insight  How the concept "mindsight" and "wise mind" blend logic and emotion in therapy How therapists can embrace metaphor and intuition for deeper client connections and transformative outcomes  Resources: Therapeutic Improvisation: How to Stop Winging It and Own It as a Therapist https://michaelalcee.com/ https://michael-alcee.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-alcee-14417755/ https://www.instagram.com/mike_drop_/ https://www.facebook.com/livelifecreatively2/ Mentioned in this episode: The Courage to Create: https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Create-Rollo-May/dp/0393311066 About Michael Alcee Michael Alcée, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in Tarrytown, NY, and is a Mental Health Educator at the Manhattan School of Music. In his first book, Therapeutic Improvisation: How to Stop Winging It and Own It as a Therapist (Norton, 2022), Michael demonstrated how all clinicians are artists, reading the changes like well-versed jazz musicians, finding the poetic turns in their client's stories like skilled writers, and reveling in the creative act that emerges in the humanistic encounter of psychotherapy. His forthcoming book is entitled The Upside of OCD: Flip the Script to Reclaim Your Life (Rowman & LIttlefield, 2024) and aims to add depth to the exploration and understanding of the OCD experience. Michael has been a TEDx speaker and organizer and is a regular contributor at Psychology Today along with contributions to NPR, The Chicago Tribune, and The New York Times, among others. You can also find him on The Psychology Podcast with Scott Barry Kaufman and on Shrink Rap Radio. Related Episodes 82. Therapist Self Doubt with Jim Lucas 106. Therapy from “The Heart of ACT” with Robyn Walser 158. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone with Lori Gottlieb 294. Yes And: Improv in Psychology with Kelly Leonard 269. Connection Through Vulnerability with Rikke Kjelgaard 366. Psychologists ON the Clock: Getting Experiential with Us Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Act 1, we explored some jaw-dropping stats on arts access in New York City, the transformative power of the arts on emotional well-being, and why the arts deserve a place alongside core subjects like history and social studies. Our guest, Judith Insell, shared her insights on how the arts can be an economic engine and an accessible career pathway. If you missed it, be sure to catch up on that conversation! In Act 2, we get personal. Judith takes us on her own artistic journey, from discovering her passion for music at a young age to attending the prestigious LaGuardia High School and Manhattan School of Music. Through a series of serendipitous events, she found herself gigging professionally and stepping into arts administration by the age of 24. Judith reflects on the reality of supplementing her career as a musician with teaching and how her experience as a practicing artist has shaped her unique approach to arts administration today. This is a powerful exploration of the intersection of artistry and leadership.

The author of the classic “Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music,” Angela Myles Beeching is the former director of career and entrepreneurship programs at Manhattan School of Music, Indiana University, and New England Conservatory. Ms. Beeching maintains a thriving online coaching practice helping musicians get more of their best work out into the world so they can become the artists they are meant to be. Find her online and grab your copy of her Musician's Pathfinder Guide at http://AngelaBeeching.com.     Thanks for joining me on Crushing Classical!  Theme music and audio editing by DreamVance. Join my email list HERE, so you never miss an episode! I help people to lean into their creative careers and start or grow their income streams. You can read more or hop onto a short discovery call from my website. I'm your host, Jennet Ingle. I love you all. Stay safe out there!    

This episode of The Other Side of the Bell, featuring trumpeter, Imani Duhe', is brought to you by Bob Reeves Brass. You can also watch this interview on Youtube. About Imani: Imani Duhe' is a versatile young musician from Atlanta, Georgia, known for her rich, soulful trumpet playing. Starting music at a young age, she's been surrounded by different styles of music her entire life. Imani has performed regularly with orchestras, chamber ensembles, and in small solo settings as a trumpeter for over 12 years. Through her love for the trumpet and music she also discovered a talent for composing songs, which she performs with her ensembles. Imani has performed on podcasts, in multiple large music venues including the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall, and The Walt Disney Concert Hall. She has had the opportunity to play for live televised events and popular music festivals and continues to make her name known as a sought-after musician. She has worked with artists such as Ms. Lauryn Hill, Ani Difranco, Daniel Pemberton, Metro Boomin, T-Pain, and more. Imani also teaches for the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles as a trumpet instructor and brass specialist and gives master classes around the greater Los Angeles area. Ms. Duhe received her Bachelors from Manhattan School of Music and her Masters at the University of Southern California.

Michael Alcee, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in Tarrytown, NY, and is a Mental Health Educator at the Manhattan School of Music. In his first book,Therapeutic Improvisation: How to Stop Winging It and Own It as a Therapist, Michael demonstrated how all clinicians are artists, reading the changes like well-versed jazz musicians, finding the poetic turns in their client's stories like skilled writers, and reveling in the creative act that emerges in the humanistic encounter of psychotherapy.   In his forthcoming book, The Upside of OCD, Michael takes on the field's tilted view of OCD as merely a biological and behavioral condition. Instead, he claims that OCD is a misunderstood existential and empathic sensitivity that has served the life and work of notable OCD sufferers like climate activist Greta Thundberg, author John Green, record producer Jack Antonoff, biologist Charles Darwin, and innovator Nikola Tesla. Carrying on the relational work implied in Freud's case of the Ratman, Michael believes that OCD arises as an intriguing interplay of nature and nurture, one that can only be fully healed through an integrative approach that embraces meaning and feeling in equal measure alongside thoughts and behavior.  Michael has been a TEDx speaker and organizer and is a regular contributor at Psychology Today along with contributions to NPR, The Chicago Tribune, and The New York Times, among others. Sign up for 10% off of Shrink Rap Radio CE credits at the Zur Institute    

Send us a Text Message.In today's episode I am so thrilled to share the heartwarming and inspiring conversation I had with my dear friend Ivy Austin. Ivy's journey is nothing short of a testament to the resilience and transformative power of stepping outside your comfort zone. A former Broadway performer, Ivy reinvented her life in her late fifties to become a licensed marriage and family therapist. We dive deep into her remarkable story of returning to school, creating a new career, and how she now merges her deep love for the arts into her therapeutic practice. Her unique perspective as a performer and therapist offers a treasure trove of insights, especially for those in the theater industry.As we rekindle old memories and share laughter, Ivy opens up about her personal spark-igniting activities and her passion for helping others find their own light. From her childhood dreams of Broadway to her current work with young artists at the Manhattan School of Music, Ivy's journey is filled with inspiring lessons on embracing discomfort, saying yes to new opportunities, and finding joy in unexpected places. Together, we hope to motivate you to step outside your comfort zone, pursue your passions, and achieve personal growth at any stage in life. And remember, for those looking to reignite their spark, there is a special discount on my program "How to Ignite Your Spark for Women in Midlife and Beyond." [CLICK FOR COURSE]Join us as we encourage you to find your light, be happy, and pursue your dreams.Find IVY [HERE] for therapy, and [HERE] for all the theatrical fun!Thanks for shining - now go SHARE THAT LIGHT!xo[KIM'S WEBSITE]

A new proposal from the Biden administration calls for a nationwide cap on rent increases. Economists think that's a terrible idea. We revisit a 2019 episode to hear why. SOURCES:Tommy Andersson, professor of economics at Lund University.Vicki Been, professor of law at New York University and former deputy mayor for housing and economic development in New York City.Rebecca Diamond, professor of economics at Stanford Graduate School of Business.David Eisenbach, history lecturer at the Manhattan School of Music and Columbia University.Ed Glaeser, professor of economics at Harvard University. RESOURCES:"The State of the Nation's Housing 2024," by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University (2024).“The Effects of Rent Control Expansion on Tenants, Landlords, and Inequality: Evidence from San Francisco,” by Rebecca Diamond, Tim McQuade, and Franklin Qian (American Economic Review, 2019).“Housing Market Spillovers: Evidence from the End of Rent Control in Cambridge, Massachusetts,” by David H. Autor, Christopher J. Palmer, and Parang A. Pathak (Journal of Political Economy, 2014).“An Econometric Analysis of Rent Control,” by Edgar O. Olsen (Journal of Political Economy, 1972).Roofs or Ceilings?: The Current Housing Problem, by Milton Friedman and George J. Stigler (1946).