Podcasts about new music usa

From Cuba, Dafnis Prieto's revolutionary drumming techniques and compositions have had a powerful impact on the music landscape, nationally and internationally. His various awards and honors include a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, a GRAMMY Award for Back to the Sunset (2018), two additional GRAMMY nominations, two Latin GRAMMY nominations (including Best New Artist in 2007), and the Jazz Journalists Association's Up & Coming Musician of the Year in 2006. As a composer, Prieto has created music for dance, film, chamber ensembles, and most notably for his own bands, ranging from duets to big bands. He has received commissions, grants, and fellowships from Chamber Music America, Princeton University, Jazz at Lincoln Center, MoMA, Whitney Museum of American Art, National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, Jerome Foundation, East Carolina University, Painted Bride Art Center, Meet The Composer, WNYC, New Music USA, Hazard Productions, and Metropole Orkest, among others. Prieto has performed at many national and international music festivals as a bandleader. Since his 1999 arrival in New York, he has also worked in bands led by Michel Camilo, Chucho and Bebo Valdés, Henry Threadgill, Steve Coleman, Eddie Palmieri, Chico and Arturo O'Farrill, Dave Samuels and the Caribbean Jazz Project, Jane Bunnett, D.D. Jackson, Edward Simon, Roy Hargrove, Don Byron, and Andrew Hill, among others. Also a gifted educator, Prieto has conducted numerous master classes, clinics, and workshops around the world. He was on the jazz studies faculty at New York University from 2005 to 2014, and in 2015 joined the faculty of the University of Miami's Frost School of Music. In 2016, Prieto published the groundbreaking analytical and instructional drum book, A World of Rhythmic Possibilities. In 2020, he published Rhythmic Synchronicity, a book for non-drummers inspired by a course of the same name that Prieto developed at the Frost School of Music. In 2025 he released the book "WHAT ARE THE ODDS" the third book in his catalog, and it shows not only his passion for rhythm and drumming but furthermore his commitment to music education at large. This one takes you to a fascinating journey of rhythms and meters. The book features 519 examples, and each of them comes with an audio track and a video clip. He is the founder of the independent music company Dafnison Music, established in 2008. In this episode Dafnis talks about: Building a career on your own terms Teaching at Frost School of Music at Miami University His new book: “What are the Odds” Asking tough questions about tradition as it relates to Latin music Allowing patterns and phrasing to dictate the time feel Valuing the content you play over the ability to play with a click Here's our PatreonHere's our YoutubeHere's our Homepage

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Today on the show I get to sit down with Galen Joseph-Hunter. She has served as Executive Director of Wave Farm since 2002. Wave Farm is an international transmission arts organization driven by experimentation with the electromagnetic spectrum. Wave Farm cultivates creative practices in radio and supports artists and nonprofits in their cultural endeavors. Based in New York's Upper Hudson Valley, Wave Farm is a media arts center, arts service organization, and media outlet operating WGXC 90.7-FM: Radio for Open Ears.Over the past two decades, she has organized and curated numerous exhibitions and events internationally, including "Wave Farm (in residence)" for TuftsPUBLIC at the Tufts University Art Galleries (2018-2019).She was the co-organizer of “Groundswell” an annual exhibition event featuring broadcast, performance, sound, and installation works by contemporary artists conceived within the 250 acres of the Olana State Historic Site from 2013 to 2015.In 2015 and 2016 she curated the Columbia University Sound Arts MFA spring exhibitions.She has produced numerous radio programs for Wave Farm's WGXC and stations internationally including "Climactic Climate" for Kunstradio Vienna (2015).In 2019 and 2020, she organized and led the "Radio for Open Ears" workshop series with 16 and 17 year-olds incarcerated in the Hudson Correctional Facility through CreativityWorksNYS.Galen is the author of the book “Transmission Arts: Artists and Airwaves” (PAJ Publications: 2011,) as well as "Transmission Arts: the air that surrounds us" (PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, September 2009: MIT Press).Previously, Galen worked closely with Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), serving as Assistant Director and then Executive Consultant and now sits on their advisory board. She is the administrator of Regrant Programs with the New York State Council on the Arts and has served as a panelist/reviewer for the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Experimental Television Center, Meet The Composer, New Music USA, Harpo Foundation, and the Greene County Council for the Arts, among others. Galen also lends her time on the Board of Greater Hudson Promise Neighborhood, the Board of Montez Press Radio and is a founding Board Member of New Ear Inc, a New York City-based organization formed in 2024 in response to the energy and success of the New Ear Festival and the spatial sound series CT::SWaM.We get to speak about all of the inspiring work Wavefarm is connected with and supporting including the expanding work in correctional facilities, the newly announced residencies for 2025 and a special upcoming event on May 29th at Hi-Way Drive-In Theatre, Coxsackie, NY featuring Eno on 4 Screens + Fred Frith+ Eucademix (Yuka Honda). We get a peak into Galen's personal life and how turning 50 has her reflecting.Here's your Mystic Mamma Neptune in Aries wisdom and Tanaaz's report on this big shift into Aries.Today's show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.Our show music is from Shana Falana!Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org** Please: SUBSCRIBE to the pod and leave a REVIEW wherever you are listening, it helps other users FIND IThttp://iwantwhatshehas.org/podcastITUNES | SPOTIFYITUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/i-want-what-she-has/id1451648361?mt=2SPOTIFY:https://open.spotify.com/show/77pmJwS2q9vTywz7Uhiyff?si=G2eYCjLjT3KltgdfA6XXCAFollow:INSTAGRAM * https://www.instagram.com/iwantwhatshehaspodcast/FACEBOOK * https://www.facebook.com/iwantwhatshehaspodcast

The sonically innovative harpist, Brandee Younger, is revolutionizing harp for the digital era. Over the past fifteen years, she has worked relentlessly to stretch boundaries and limitations for harpists.  In 2022, she made history by becoming the first Black woman to be nominated for a Grammy® Award for Best Instrumental Composition. That same year, she was also nominated for an NAACP Image Award and later, the winner of the 2024 NAACP Image Award in the category of Outstanding Jazz Album for her latest album Brand New Life.  Ever-expanding as an artist, she has worked with cultural icons including Common, Lauryn Hill, John Legend, Pharoah Sanders and Christian McBride.   Her original composition “Hortense” was featured in the Netflix Concert-Documentary, Beyoncé: Homecoming and in 2019, Brandee was selected to perform her original music as a featured performer for Quincy Jones and Steve McQueens' “Soundtrack of America”.  Brandee is often noted for standing on the shoulders of the very women who ushered in the harp as a clear and distinct voice in jazz & popular styles - particularly Detroit natives Dorothy Ashby & Alice Coltrane.  Her new album, Brand New Life, builds on her already rich oeuvre, and cements the harp's place in pop culture.  As the title of the album suggests, Brand New Life is about forging new paths–artistic, personal, political, and spiritual.  Younger's music is imbued with a sense of purpose and respect of legacy, creating a larger platform for the harp to reach newer and wider audiences than ever before.  In addition to teaching at Steinhardt, Younger holds leadership positions as a board member of The Coltrane Home and New Music USA.Maggie speaks with Brandee at the 67 Monterey Jazz Festival about her band and her association with Alice Coltrane and  The Year of Alice.“No harpist thus far has been more capable of combining all of the modern harp traditions — from Salzedo, through Dorothy Ashby, through Alice Coltrane — with such strength, grace and commitment.” -  The New York TimesFollow: @harpistaSource: https://brandeeyounger.com/Source:https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/people/brandee-youngerSource: https://thecoltranehome.org/2024/03/16/let-the-year-of-alice-begin/Host Maggie LePique, a radio veteran since the 1980's at NPR in Kansas City Mo. She began her radio career in Los Angeles in the early 1990's and has worked for Pacifica station KPFK Radio in Los Angeles since 1994.Send us a textSupport the show@profileswithmaggielepique@maggielepique

Today we talked with F-Plus Trio!   F-PLUS is a violin, clarinet, and percussion trio committed to collaborating with today's most exciting composers to establish a diverse repertoire for their unique instrumentation. Formed in 2016 at the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, the ensemble has performed all over the country, including Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Ear Taxi Festival, the International Clarinet Association "ClarinetFest," and the New Music Gathering. F-PLUS has premiered over 35 new works since its inception, including commissioned works by Chen Yi, Chicago Symphony Mead Composer-in-Residence Jessie Montgomery, Grawemeyer-winner George Tsontakis, Emma O'Halloran, Gemma Peacocke, Perry Goldstein, Matthew Ricketts, and Charles Peck, among many others. The ensembled has been the recipient of commissioning grants and additional funding from the Fromm Foundation, Chamber Music America, the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, New Music USA, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Irish Arts Council and the New Zealand Arts Council. F-PLUS is committed to working with the next generation of composers and performers, and has held residencies at Princeton University, the University of Delaware, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Washington University (St. Louis), University of Texas-Austin, University of North Carolina-Greensboro, UNC-Pembroke, UNC-Wilmington, and Grand Valley State, Central Michigan, Stony Brook, Duke, and Illinois State Universities.    With F-Plus we discussed how you can commission music in college and form chamber ensembles that continue after you all graduate. Follow F-Plus on all their social media to stay up to date with their performances and projects!   https://www.fplusmusic.com/ https://www.instagram.com/fplusmusic/ https://www.youtube.com/fplusmusic https://www.facebook.com/fplusmusic    

Poetry has long served as a point of inspiration for classical composers. Just think of Beethoven's magnificent setting of Schiller's "Ode to Joy," Schubert's cinematic take on Goethe's "Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel," or Ned Rorem's soulful songs based on the words of Frank O'Hara. And now there's a new work to add to this storied tradition from composer Brian Raphael Nabors. In Upon Daybreak, premiered by the Berkeley Symphony in late 2022, Nabors turns to a poignant poem by the late Maya Angelou, "A Brave, Startling Truth." Rather than set the poem's text to music, however, Nabors distills Angelou's visionary call for a great "day of peacemaking" into a powerful orchestral work that imagines a utopian world without hatred or malice. "In the poem, [Angelou] talks about all the chaos, war, and dystopia that come about from us being humans and destructive," Nabors says on the latest episode of the Classical Post podcast. "But also all the beauty that comes from humanity and what we're able to offer. It talks about this day when all this war mongering ends finally and we realize that the true wonders of the world are ourselves and life itself." Commissioned by New Music USA as part of its Amplifying Voices program, Upon Daybreak has been performed by the Detroit Symphony, River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, and the Boston Landmarks Orchestra since its Berkeley premiere, and the work will make its way to the Seattle Symphony in 2024.  In this episode, Nabors and I talk more about composing Upon Daybreak and what it was like working with the Berkeley Symphony's music director, Joseph Young, on a host of community engagement projects leading up to the premiere. Plus, he shares the important part his spiritual life plays in maintaining the energy to compose, how video games help him overcome creative blocks, and why skin care is always a top priority in his wellness routine. — ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Classical Post® is created and produced by Gold Sound Media® LLC, a New York-based marketing agency for the performing arts industry. Explore how we can grow your audience to make a lasting impact in your community.

Award-winning vocalist, composer, and educator Kavita Shah's latest album, Cape Verdean Blues, is the culmination of a diasporic quest to find a spiritual home. The carefully curated album of traditional Cape Verdean music is also a tribute to the charismatic and unapologetically individual artist Cesária Évora, and a love letter to her breathtaking archipelago and its welcoming people. On Cape Verdean Blues, Shah's ethnographic research on the island of São Vicente, and her bold self-possession have enabled her to achieve a rare feat: creating a world music album that feels like home. At the heart of the 12-song album is “sodade,” an idiomatic word that doesn't have a strict English definition, but connotes a melancholy sense of transience that permeates Cape Verde, its music, and its free-spirited island population. “In this paradise in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, I found a sense of home that has eluded me for much of my 37 years,” Shah says. She continues: “When I look back, I realize that upon hearing Cesária's voice nearly a decade ago, she was summoning me down a path I must continue walking in search of sodade.” Shah is a global citizen and cultural interlocutor whose work involves deep engagement with the jazz tradition, while also addressing and advancing its global sensibilities. She is a lifelong New Yorker of Indian origin hailed for possessing an “amazing dexterity for musical languages” (NPR). Shah speaks 9 languages—she is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and French—and incorporates ethnographic research into original music. She has researched traditional music practices in Brazil, West Africa, East Africa, Turkey, and India. To support her work, Shah has earned grants from the Jerome Foundation, Chamber Music America, Asian Cultural Council, and New Music USA. Shah holds a B.A. in Latin American Studies from Harvard, and a Master's in Jazz Voice from Manhattan School of Music. To date, Shah's projects include Visions (2014), co-produced by Lionel Loueke; Folk Songs of Naboréa, which premiered at the Park Avenue Armory in 2017; and Interplay in duo with François Moutin, which was nominated in 2018 for France's Victoires de la Musique for Jazz Album of the Year. Shah regularly performs her music at major concert halls, festivals, and clubs on six continents. 乐团 whose 2020 album “The Adventures of Pie Boy” won Best Instrumental Album, Best Instrumental Recording and Best Arrangement (Bittersweet) at the 32nd Annual Golden Melody Awards and serves as music director for Tia Ray 袁婭維. He has recorded, produced, performed and arranged for dozens of artists across Greater China, including David Tao陶喆, Li Ronghao 李榮浩， Matzka馬斯卡, Leah Dou竇靖童, Maobuyi 毛不易， Karen Mok莫文蔚， A-Lin, Kevin Sun and more. He graduated from Oberlin College and Conservatory, where he studied Jazz performance with Robin Eubanks. Hsieh plays Denis Wick mouthpieces and the Adams F5 Flugelhorn. If you enjoyed this episode please make sure to subscribe, follow, rate, and/or review this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, ect. Connect with us on all social media platforms and at www.improvexchange.com

inti figgis-vizueta creates music that carefully balances experimentation and practicality. In her conversation with Frank J. Oteri, she likens her compositions to plants which have the ability to grow and change when different people performing them. And in the last few years inti's music has been championed by an extremely wide range of musicians from Roomful of Teeth to Ensemble Dal Niente to the Kronos Quartet.

David Ludwig is an American composer, teacher, and Dean of Music at The Juilliard School. His work has been commissioned and performed by artists and ensembles including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. He is a committed advocate for diversity and inclusion in new music and programming, and serves on the national program committee of New Music USA and is a member of the distinguished mentors council of Composers Now.  Grab your favorite instrument and the first chair…let's talk about life, MUSIC, and learning.  Please leave a review and visit us at www.teacherpeprally.com  Join the Facebook community to collaborate and celebrate with us and fellow educators. If you are enjoying the podcast, we would greatly appreciate it if you rate the show and then leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Reviews helps other educators to find the Teacher's Pep Rally.  ARE YOU LOOKING FOR INSPIRATION AND TO BUILD A NETWORK OF FUN AND INNOVATIVE TEACHERS?  Join us at the most MAGICAL PLACE for a 4-DAY PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT.  EdMagineering Education Conference in Orlando, FL  

This is a live performance of Los Angeles-based composer Colloboh, recorded and filmed at the dublab studios and featuring new compositions utilizing modular synthesizers. Colloboh – experimental producer Collins Oboh. Born in Nigeria, raised in the DMV, and now at 28 years of age, Colloboh asserts himself as a no-nonsense contender of electronic music composition utilizing modular synthesizer. With the release of his 2021 Entity Relation EP and opening for beloved dream pop duo Beach House on their ‘Once Twice Melody' tour, Colloboh has begun to cultivate a following eager to listen to his forward-thinking musical arrangements. This program is part of New Music USA's web magazine NewMusicBox “Guest Editor series”, which aims to celebrate a plurality of voices from across the nation and will feature exclusive content written, produced, or commissioned by a rotating artist or organization. The series kicks off with dublab. NewMusicBox, edited by Frank J. Oteri, amplifies creators and organizations who are building a vibrant future for new music in all its forms, and has provided a vital platform for creators to speak about issues relevant to them in their own words since 1999. The dublab partnership features weekly content from at least 15 different voices through January 2023, presented in conversations, DJ mixes, articles, and live performances all exploring the current landscape of music composition. The Guest Editor is the first such series in the magazine's 23-year history and reflects New Music USA's aim to deepen its impact across the many diverse music communities across the United States. This aim is also demonstrated by NewMusicBox's ongoing “Different Cities, Different Voices” feature that spotlights music creation hubs across the nation. You can see the video HERE

Warp Composers' Sen Moreira is joined by producer and composer Casey MQ in a conversation about the current landscape in the world of composition, film scoring, and publishing in an ever changing music industry. Sen Moreira is the North America Licensing & Composer Manager for the newly established Warp Composers, representing composers across Warp Publishing and Warp Records rosters from their offices in Los Angeles and London. Casey Manierka-Quaile is an artist, producer and composer from Toronto, now based in Los Angeles. He is classically trained as a pianist and has written and produced under the artist name of Casey MQ, collaborating with the likes of Oklou, Christine & The Queens, Flume and more. Winner of the 2021 Canadian Screen Award for Best Original Song, Manierka's scores have premiered at TIFF, SXSW, Berlinale, Sundance and Rotterdam Film Festival. This program is part of New Music USA's web magazine NewMusicBox “Guest Editor series”, which aims to celebrate a plurality of voices from across the nation and will feature exclusive content written, produced, or commissioned by a rotating artist or organization. The series kicks off with dublab. NewMusicBox, edited by Frank J. Oteri, amplifies creators and organizations who are building a vibrant future for new music in all its forms, and has provided a vital platform for creators to speak about issues relevant to them in their own words since 1999. The dublab partnership will feature new weekly content from at least 15 different voices through January 2023, presented in conversations, DJ mixes, articles, and live performances all exploring the current landscape of music composition. The Guest Editor is the first such series in the magazine's 23-year history and reflects New Music USA's aim to deepen its impact across the many diverse music communities across the United States. This aim is also demonstrated by NewMusicBox's ongoing “Different Cities, Different Voices” feature that spotlights music creation hubs across the nation. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dublab-inconversation/support

On this episode of Artimacy, K. Charles chats with New Music USA's President and CEO Vanessa Reed, and a few of their inaugural Next Jazz Legacy awardees-- Ivanna Cuesta Gonzalez; Keyanna Hutchinson; Alexis Lombre; and Anastassiya Petrova.

An interview with Dr. Brian S. Graiser, Artist/Instructor of Music, Arkansas State University and President of Vibraphone Project, Inc., discussing the Winter Vibe Fest. The Winter Vibe Fest is a one-day festival which serves as the final chapter of a multi-year celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the invention of the vibraphone, a uniquely American instrument first built in Indianapolis in 1921. The festival will take place all day on Saturday (12/10) at Schaeffer Auditorium, with daytime clinics and concerts from 9:00am-6:00pm and a gala evening concert at 7:30pm (evening concert tickets sold separately). The daytime sessions will feature clinics and panel discussions by visiting scholars and experts, on topics ranging from vibraphone history and playing techniques to discussions with some of the featured composers on the day's programming, plus a roundtable discussion about the hosting organization, The Vibraphone Project. The first daytime concert will be at 2:30 and will feature performances of the award-winning works from the Vibraphone Project's 2021 Call for Scores, featuring music by Gavin Goodrich, Brian Graiser, Bryan Jeffs, and Stephen Solook. The second daytime concert will take place at 5:00 and will feature Peruvian jazz vibraphonist Alonso Alejandro Acosta Flores and his quartet performing music from their latest project. The gala evening concert is a star-studded event packed with world premiere performances by Matthew Lau, Steph Davis, Abby Fisher, and the Bergamot String Quartet, including works by composers Robert Honstein and Pamela Z commissioned by The Vibraphone Project with grant assistance from New Music USA. The evening concert will also include the official announcement of the winners of the 2022 Vibraphone Project Legacy Awards, with video appearances and tributes from special guests. For more information, please visit https://www.thevibraphoneproject.org/wintervibefest.html, or visit https://kutztown.universitytickets.com/w/?cid=204 to purchase daytime passes and tickets to the evening concert. 

The new music community has been impacted, inspired and transformed by Tania León as a musical creator--as well as an interpreter, educator, and organizer--for decades. In the last two years, the rest of the world has caught up with her. In 2021, she received the Pulitzer Prize for Music for her extraordinary orchestral composition Stride which was given its world premiere performance by the New York Philharmonic just a few weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic reached New York City. And in December 2022, she was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors along with George Clooney, Amy Grant, Gladys Knight, and the four members of the Irish rock band U2; to mark the occasion all were greeted at The White House by U.S. President Joe Biden. Back in 1999, Tania León was the very first composer featured in a one-on-one conversation for NewMusicBox; with this new SoundLives podcast recorded more than 23 years later, she is the first person ever so featured twice!

Jeremiah Chiu is Los Angeles-based artist, musician, educator, and community organizer. Chiu's hybrid practice often operates under his studio moniker, Some All None, where projects lie at the intersection of art, music, technology, and publishing. Chiu is Full-Time Faculty in the Graphic Design Department at Otis College of Art & Design, a recording artist on International Anthem, and a resident DJ at dublab. Marta Sofia Honer is a viola and violin performer, session player, and educator in Los Angeles. Working in both classical and contemporary fields, Honer's versatility in different musical settings has garnered her credits alongside Beyoncé, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Chloe x Halle, Angel Olsen, Fleet Foxes, including four Grammy nominations. She regularly records for film and television and is a recording artist on International Anthem. This live performance by Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer took place at the dublab studios featuring some of the music they composed together as part of their recent album, Recordings from the Åland Islands, out now on International Anthem. This program is part of New Music USA's web magazine NewMusicBox “Guest Editor series”, which aims to celebrate a plurality of voices from across the nation and will feature exclusive content written, produced, or commissioned by a rotating artist or organization. The series kicks off with dublab. NewMusicBox, edited by Frank J. Oteri, amplifies creators and organizations who are building a vibrant future for new music in all its forms, and has provided a vital platform for creators to speak about issues relevant to them in their own words since 1999. The dublab partnership will feature new weekly content from at least 15 different voices through January 2023, presented in conversations, DJ mixes, articles, and live performances all exploring the current landscape of music composition. The Guest Editor is the first such series in the magazine's 23-year history and reflects New Music USA's aim to deepen its impact across the many diverse music communities across the United States. This aim is also demonstrated by NewMusicBox's ongoing “Different Cities, Different Voices” feature that spotlights music creation hubs across the nation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JRF9hVnYYQ dublab is a listener supported radio station. Become a Sustaining Member today https://www.dublab.com/support/memberships

Presented as part of ON AIR LA ANNEX, Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh and “musical weirdo and visionary” Beatie Wolfe discuss the art of composition, building worlds, and how being a conceptual artist can further open up and inform these spaces. Straddling multidisciplines, the pair also revisit Postcards for Democracy, their 2020 collective art campaign in support of USPS, and chat about its impact and how they are still receiving cards today ahead of the next election. This program is part of New Music USA's web magazine NewMusicBox “Guest Editor series”, which aims to celebrate a plurality of voices from across the nation and will feature exclusive content written, produced, or commissioned by a rotating artist or organization. Artistic visionaries Mark Mothersbaugh & Beatie Wolfe share a love of tangible artforms, in and amongst their futuristic explorations. In the summer of 2020, in light of the threat to our 225yr old postal service and at a time that could jeopardize the democracy of the country, Mothersbaugh and Wolfe joined forces for this collective postcard art demonstration. The aim of this campaign is to encourage as many people as possible to support USPS, our right to vote, and democracy as a whole via the power of art. The demonstration asks you to buy USPS stamps, design your postcard and then mail it to 8760 Sunset Blvd. The pair has so far received tens of thousands of postcards from all over the world which were exhibited at the Rauschenberg Gallery and have also been archived by the Smithsonian.

Qur'an Shaheed (b. 1992, Pasadena, CA) is a pianist, poet, singer and songwriter based in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, CA. She has been playing piano since the age of four, trained extensively in classical and contemporary music. Since 2012 she has been developing her practice as a songwriter alongside her solo piano and ensemble work. She released the album Process, with producer Jesse Justice and Preference Records, in 2020 and regularly performs in and around Los Angeles. Her sound is innovative, highly personaland experimental, incorporating elements of improvisation as well as neo-classical and neo-soultechniques. This live performance by Qur'an Shaheed is part of New Music USA's web magazine NewMusicBox “Guest Editor series”, which aims to celebrate a plurality of voices from across the nation and will feature exclusive content written, produced, or commissioned by a rotating artist or organization. The series kicks off with dublab. NewMusicBox, edited by Frank J. Oteri, amplifies creators and organizations who are building a vibrant future for new music in all its forms, and has provided a vital platform for creators to speak about issues relevant to them in their own words since 1999. The dublab partnership will feature new weekly content from at least 15 different voices through January 2023, presented in conversations, DJ mixes, articles, and live performances all exploring the current landscape of music composition. The Guest Editor is the first such series in the magazine's 23-year history and reflects New Music USA's aim to deepen its impact across the many diverse music communities across the United States. This aim is also demonstrated by NewMusicBox's ongoing “Different Cities, Different Voices” feature that spotlights music creation hubs across the nation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWhF3un9tmM dublab is a listeners supported station, become a Sustaining Member today https://www.dublab.com/support/memberships

Launched during the thick of the Covid Pandemic, the Floating series was just what Los Angeles needed—an invitation to come outside and hear the city in new ways. Through a weekly series of roving soundscapes and soundbaths activated in unique and natural spaces, the Floating collective have opened up Angelenos' ears and spirits to the wonders of the environments around them. These all ages happenings are generous affairs both for the audience and performers who are encouraged to embrace the indeterminacy of outdoor performance and expand into the infinite potential of the moment. Floating succeeds in merging the ambience of the city with the intentionality of sonic artistry and as collective co-founder Noah Klein puts it, “Finding the threads between soundscape and landscape.” dublab co-founder Mark “Frosty” McNeill sat down with Noah Klein to discuss his personal musical practice, history of community organizing through the lens of music, deep love of nature and dedication to creative placemaking. Their conversation took place under a canopy of trees at Trails Cafe, in Griffith Park over a chickpea salad sandwich and cold beverages. This program is part of New Music USA's web magazine NewMusicBox “Guest Editor series”, which aims to celebrate a plurality of voices from across the nation and will feature exclusive content written, produced, or commissioned by a rotating artist or organization. The series kicks off with dublab. NewMusicBox, edited by Frank J. Oteri, amplifies creators and organizations who are building a vibrant future for new music in all its forms, and has provided a vital platform for creators to speak about issues relevant to them in their own words since 1999. The dublab partnership will feature new weekly content from at least 15 different voices through January 2023, presented in conversations, DJ mixes, articles, and live performances all exploring the current landscape of music composition. The Guest Editor is the first such series in the magazine's 23-year history and reflects New Music USA's aim to deepen its impact across the many diverse music communities across the United States. This aim is also demonstrated by NewMusicBox's ongoing “Different Cities, Different Voices” feature that spotlights music creation hubs across the nation. https://newmusicusa.org/newmusicbox/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dublab-inconversation/support

Guitarist and composer DJ Sparr joins us to chat about the central role that the relationships built in school play in securing future work. He shares about his experience performing Kenneth Fuch's Electric Guitar Concerto with JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra and the difference between performing his vs. others' works. We also talk about the typical day-to-day schedule of a performer-composer, and working this into family life. Electric guitarist and composer D. J. Sparr, who Gramophone recently hailed as “exemplary,” is one of America's preeminent composer-performers. He has caught the attention of critics with his eclectic style, described as “pop-Romantic…iridescent and wondrous” (The Mercury News) and “suits the boundary erasing spirit of today's new-music world” (The New York Times). The Los Angeles Times praises him as “an excellent soloist,” and the Santa Cruz Sentinel says that he “wowed an enthusiastic audience…Sparr's guitar sang in a near-human voice.” He was the electric guitar concerto soloist on the 2018 GRAMMY-Award winning, all-Kenneth Fuchs recording with JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony Orchestra. In 2011, Sparr was named one of NPR listener's favorite 100 composers under the age 40. He has composed for and performed with renowned ensembles such as the Houston Grand Opera, Cabrillo Festival, New World Symphony, Washington National Opera, and Eighth Blackbird. His music has received awards from BMI, New Music USA, and the League of Composers/ISCM. Sparr is a faculty member at the famed Walden School's Creative Musicians Retreat in Dublin, New Hampshire. His works and guitar performances appear on Naxos, Innova Recordings, & Centaur Records. D. J. lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with his wife Kimberly, son Harris, Nannette the hound dog, and Bundini the boxer. D. J. Sparr's music is published by Bill Holab Music. The transcript for this episode can be found here. For more information about DJ Sparr, please visit his website.

While the idiosyncratic graphic scores of 2022 Pulitzer Prize winning composer Raven Chacon are stunningly original in their conception and have been recognized as works of visual art in their own right (several are in this year's Whitney Biennial), they have a larger social purpose. WARNING: A little bit after the 44 minute mark in this hour-long podcast there is an excerpt of a musical performance involving shotguns.

Megan Ihnen is a “new music force of nature.” The act of live performance is integral to Megan's work and her performances thrive on elaborate sound worlds and fully-developed dramatic interpretations. Through narrative and non-narrative musical storytelling, she explores the subjects of memory, nostalgia, the perception of time, and relationships. Whether through chamber music, staged recitals, opera, or large ensemble soloist work, she emphasizes the full range of vocal sounds, timbres, colors, and uses that characterize the 21st century voice. Megan is a prolific new music vocalist who has appeared with the International Contemporary Ensemble, Fifth House Ensemble, Latitude49, Great Noise Ensemble, Stone Mason Projects, Rhymes With Opera, SONAR new music, and more. She has sung with many outstanding performers including Nadia Shpachenko, Michael Hall, Gregory Oakes, Nick Zoulek, Hillary LaBonte as well as premiered the work of Mara Gibson, Griffin Candey, Garrett Schumann, Christian Carey, Alan Theisen, Anna Brake, D. Edward Davis, and more. A gifted narrative and non-narrative musical storyteller, Megan's performance work explores the depths of memory, nostalgia, the perception of time, and complex relationships. Ihnen's interpretations of modern and contemporary repertoire have garnered growing acclaim. She is particularly recognized as an excellent recitalist. Her This World of Yes program of contemporary music for voice and saxophone with Alan Theisen explores the themes of pathways, choices, and duality through the work of contemporary composers such as Jessica Rudman, Michael Young, and Michelle McQuade Dewhirst. This World of Yes has been performed across the United States including appearances in Kansas City, New Orleans, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Detroit, and Baltimore. With performances in Washington D.C., Baltimore, Colorado Springs, and Kansas City, Ms. Ihnen has worked with violinist Martha Morrison Muehleisen and Rome Prize winner video artist Karen Yasinsky to take audiences on a profound journey through György Kurtág's Kafka Fragments through video and sound. Finally, Ihnen's Single Words She Once Loved is a performance that centers around the ideas and effects of memory, dementia, and time. It is a deeply personal exploration of the dueling forces of ‘eternal sunshine of the spotless mind' and ‘God gave us memories so that we may have roses in winter'. Single Words She Once Loved features compositions by David Smooke, Ryan Keebaugh, Daniel Felsenfeld, Jeffrey Mumford, and more. Megan has enjoyed performing as part of Tuesdays @ Monk Space, Access Contemporary Music Thirsty Ears Festival, NEXTET, Ethos NewSound, 6:30 Concert Series, International U.S. Navy Saxophone Symposium, SPLICE Festival, Oh My Ears, Second Sunday Concert Series at Boston Sculptors Gallery, Winifred M. Kelley Music Series at Salisbury House, and more. She has appeared with Zeitgeist New Music, ÆPEX Contemporary Performance, Detroit New Music “Strange Beautiful Music Marathon”, Omaha Under the Radar Festival, Works and Process at the Guggenheim Series, Notes on Fiction Series at the Center for Fiction, New Music Gathering, Contemporary Undercurrent of Song Project, American Opera Theatre, Vivre Musicale, UCCS Music/Peak Frequency Creative Arts Collective, Harford Community College Sunday Afternoon Concert Series, and Silver Finch Arts Collective. In the spring of 2017, Megan undertook a fundraising project for her first album, “Sleep Songs: Wordless Lullabies for the Sleepless.” She commissioned over 25 diverse composers from the United States and abroad to write brief, wordless lullabies for mezzo-soprano. Megan has also had recordings on Navona Records, Hoot/Wisdom Recordings, I CARE IF YOU LISTEN Fall 2015 Mixtape, and the CarpeDM Seize Des Moines “Music Mix: Volume III” which was featured at the 2016 SXSW Festival. As a chamber musician, Megan is proud to have trained at the following summer festivals: impuls International Ensemble and Composers Academy for Contemporary Music, Summer Institute for Contemporary Performance Practice (SICPP), Fresh Inc Festival, Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA, and MusicX. Her devotion to the proliferation of new music extends beyond the commissioning and performing of music to teaching, workshopping, and mentoring of emerging artists in the field. She also works to increase the visibility and influence of new music through writing on the subject for multiple online and print publications. As a curator, she selected twenty songs for mezzo-soprano and piano for the NewMusicShelf Anthology of New Music. Mezzo-Soprano, Vol. 1 includes works by: Michael Betteridge, Mark Buller, Stephen DeCesare, Douglas Fisk, Matt Frey, Jodi Goble, Ricky Ian Gordon, Cara Haxo, Cameron Lam, Cecilia Livingston, Shona Mackay, Tony Manfredonia, Nicole Murphy, Eric Pazdziora, Frances Pollock, Julia Seeholzer, Alan Thiesen, Dennis Tobenski, Moe Touizrar, and Ed Windels. Megan was honored to receive a Phyllis Bryn-Julson Award for Commitment to and Performance of 20th/21st Century Music in 2009 and a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Classical Music: Solo Performance in 2014. She was an accomplished violist and drama student before pursuing degrees in music and vocal performance from Augustana University and the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. Ihnen has been a board member for Baltimore Concert Opera and HOWL performing arts ensemble. Megan is a devoted teacher who recently shepherded studios at Drake University Community School of Music, Southwestern Community College School for Music Vocations, and Graceland University before taking on communications roles at Nief-Norf, Live Music Project, and New Music USA. She has also been a resident faculty artist for the UMKC Summer Composition Workshop and the Mostly Modern Festival. In addition to UMKC, Megan has presented her popular masterclasses, workshops, and lectures a Bowling Green State University, Xavier University of Louisiana, New Music Gathering, Iowa Thespian Festival, UNCG Greensboro, and Florida Atlantic University. She was also a Visiting Artist for Louisiana State University for the 2018-2019 academic year. In addition to being an avid podcast listener, Ihnen enjoys drinking good coffee, joking around with her sisters, tweeting about contemporary poetry, and watching Law & Order. She has grand dreams that one day her dog, Hunter, will be the best dog in the neighborhood. She lives in New Orleans, LA and out of her suitcase equally.

Artimacy [ART•ə•mə•sɪ]: a close or warm friendship with the offspring of human creativity; a feeling of belonging together with the genesis of beautiful or significant things.

Composer Nina Shekhar joins us to chat about her work exploring identity, vulnerability, love, and laughter in her work and her process for exploring such complex aspects of humanity in seemingly mundane experiences, such as the car horns on the streets of India. We talk about how she approaches the business side of a professional career in composition, and how her work as a flutist, saxophonist, and pianist has informed her comfort with a wide array of compositional styles. And we speak about how we can all be more mindful to empower and promote the agency of composers and performers from marginalized communities and avoid the risks of exploiting any individual's otherness. Nina Shekhar is a composer who explores the intersection of identity, vulnerability, love, and laughter to create bold and intensely personal works. Described as “tart and compelling” (New York Times), “vivid” (Washington Post), and “surprises and delights aplenty” (LA Times), her music has been commissioned and performed by leading artists including LA Philharmonic, Albany Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Eighth Blackbird, International Contemporary Ensemble, JACK Quartet, New York Youth Symphony, Alarm Will Sound, The Crossing, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, ETHEL, violinist Jennifer Koh, saxophonist Timothy McAllister, Ensemble Échappé, Music from Copland House, soprano Tony Arnold, Third Angle New Music, The New York Virtuoso Singers, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Lyris Quartet, Ray-Kallay Duo, New Music Detroit, and Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra. Her work has been featured by Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Walt Disney Concert Hall (LA Phil's Noon to Midnight), Library of Congress, National Gallery of Art, National Sawdust, National Flute Association, North American Saxophone Alliance, I Care If You Listen, WNYC/New Sounds (New York), WFMT (Chicago), and KUSC and KPFK (Los Angeles) radio, ScoreFollower, and New Music Detroit's Strange Beautiful Music. Upcoming events include performances by the New York Philharmonic, LA Philharmonic (joined by soloists Nathalie Joachim and Pamela Z), Minnesota Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, and her Hollywood Bowl debut with the LA Philharmonic. Current projects include commissions for the Grand Rapids Symphony, 45th Parallel Universe Chamber Orchestra (sponsored by GLFCAM), and Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) (sponsored by LA Phil and New Music USA). Nina is the recipient of the 2021 Rudolf Nissim Prize, two ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards (2015 and 2019), and the 2018 ASCAP Foundation Leonard Bernstein Award, funded by the Bernstein family. The transcript for this episode can be found here. For more information about Nina Shekhar, please visit her website, Facebook, and Instagram.

Two-time Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke shares her experience of imposter syndrome, a feeling that one is not worthy or deserving of one's success. We discuss how these inner bullying voices originated in relation to her body image and how music became a safe, empowering space. Lastly, Sasha shares how couples therapy and practicing gratitude enable her to take ownership and responsibility for her personal and musical life, and how she stays connected to her kids when she's on tour. This episode of LooseLeaf NoteBook is supported by New Music USA and featured on NewMusicBox. www.sashacooke.com Questions or comments may be shared on Julia Adolphe's YouTube Channel

Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate, is a classical composer, citizen of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma and is dedicated to the development of American Indian classical composition. His Washington Post review states that “Tate is rare as an American Indian composer of classical music. Rarer still is his ability to effectively infuse classical music with American Indian nationalism.” Tate is Guest Composer/Conductor/Pianist for San Francisco Symphony Currents program Thunder Song: American Indian Musical Cultures and was recently Guest Composer for Metropolitan Museum of Art's Balcony Bar program Home with ETHEL and Friends, featuring his commissioned work Pisachi (Reveal) for String Quartet. Recent commissions include Shell Shaker: A Chickasaw Opera for Mount Holyoke Symphony Orchestra, Ghost of the White Deer, Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra for Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Hózhó (Navajo Strong) and Ithánali (I Know) for White Snake Opera Company. His music was recently featured on the HBO series Westworld. His commissioned works have been performed by the National Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Ballet, Canterbury Voices, Dale Warland Singers, Santa Fe Desert Chorale and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Tate has held Composer-in-Residence positions for Music Alive, a national residency program of the League of American Orchestras and New Music USA, the Joyce Foundation/American Composers Forum, Oklahoma City's NewView Summer Academy, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation and Grand Canyon Music Festival Native American Composer Apprentice Project. Tate was the founding composition instructor for the Chickasaw Summer Arts Academy and has taught composition to American Indian high school students in Minneapolis, the Hopi, Navajo and Lummi reservations and Native students in Toronto. Mr. Tate is a three-time commissioned recipient from the American Composers Forum, a Chamber Music America's Classical Commissioning Program recipient, a Cleveland Institute of Music Alumni Achievement Award recipient, a governor-appointed Creativity Ambassador for the State of Oklahoma and an Emmy Award winner for his work on the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority documentary, The Science of Composing. In addition to his work based upon his Chickasaw culture, Tate has worked with the music and language of multiple tribes, such as: Choctaw, Navajo, Cherokee, Ojibway, Creek, Pechanga, Comanche, Lakota, Hopi, Tlingit, Lenape, Tongva, Shawnee, Caddo, Ute, Aleut, Shoshone, Cree, Paiute and Salish/Kootenai. Among available recorded works are Iholba‘ (The Vision) for Solo Flute, Orchestra and Chorus and Tracing Mississippi, Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, recorded by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, on the Grammy Award winning label Azica Records. Tate earned his Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from Northwestern University, where he studied with Dr. Donald Isaak, and his Master of Music in Piano Performance and Composition from The Cleveland Institute of Music, where he studied with Elizabeth Pastor and Dr. Donald Erb. He has performed as First Keyboard on the Broadway national tours of Les Misérables and Miss Saigon and been a guest pianist and accompanist for the Colorado Ballet, Hartford Ballet and numerous ballet and dance companies. Mr. Tate's middle name, Impichchaachaaha', means “his high corncrib” and is his inherited traditional Chickasaw house name. A corncrib is a small hut used for the storage of corn and other vegetables. In traditional Chickasaw culture, the corncrib was built high off the ground on stilts to keep its contents safe from foraging animals.

How we perceive sound on a psychological level as it unfolds over time is key to the sonic experiences that Sarah Hennies creates. Despite the extremely broad stylistic range of her output, everything from her early collaborative work as part of an experimental rock band to a multimedia documentary to extended duration solo and chamber music compositions for various instrumental combinations, it all shares a concern for extremely precise sonic gestures and involves a great deal of repetition. While Sarah Hennies prides herself on scores that are extremely economical (a score for a nearly 34-minute piece is a mere two pages), the sonorities feel extremely generous.

Psychiatrist Alana Mendelsohn, MD, PhD, Catherine Hancock, and Katya Gruzgliina share the mission of Creatives Care, which aims to partner artists with affordable mental health care providers and help individuals assess what kind of therapy might be right for their specific needs. Our conversation covers why therapy is particularly beneficial for artists, how to understand when you might need help, and how to handle obstacles that keep us from seeking support. Catherine and Katya share their own personal experiences with vocal injury and its relationship to their work de-stigmatizing mental and physical illness within the arts. Lastly, we discuss questions collected from our podcast listeners, which range from how to handle career disappointment, leaving the arts, to how to process the unfolding crisis in the Ukraine. This episode is supported by New Music USA and featured on NewMusicBox www.creativescare.org Questions or comments may be shared on Julia Adolphe's YouTube Channel

Composer Andrew Norman shares how his creative anxiety has led him into a current period of writer's block. We discuss how his frenetic language captures how thoughts move in his mind, the underlying sources of his anxiety, and brainstorm together how he can move forward to reconnect with the joy of his creative process.   This episode of LooseLeaf NoteBook is supported by New Music USA and featured on NewMusicBox.    www.andrewnormanmusic.com   Questions and comments may be shared on my YouTube channel. 

Laura Lentz, Marc Webster, and Eric Polenik of fivebyfive join us to chat about how they tailor their work to screen-centric audiences, and how their video projects have led to particularly interesting collaborations throughout their existence. They share about their approaches to successful grant writing, and how they've found themselves working not just as grant recipients, but also as grant-writing mentors. We also speak about the role that community plays in their work, and how they continue to search for new ways to deepen their ties to their community at every level. fivebyfive (flute, clarinet, electric guitar, bass and piano) performs music of today's leading and emerging composers from around the world, advocates for creators who are underrepresented in the field, and collaborates with artists across the disciplines. Through its workshops and educational concerts, fivebyfive aims to spark young people's unlimited creative potential and inspire a deeper understanding of today's chamber music. With a commitment to accessibility, fivebyfive performs in a variety of settings, offering affordable or free programming and sensory-friendly events. fivebyfive's events often involve community-building experiences in real-time during performances. Examples of these programs include: “Music/Glass” at the 2019 Rochester Fringe Festival, where audiences were free to move throughout the space during the performance and participate in creating a fused glass art work while hearing the music performed live, Meet the Composer events where audiences were a part of the conversations bringing new works to life and its educational programs in the schools working with young people to spark their unlimited creative potential and inspire a deeper understanding of today's chamber music. These have included collaborations with students of the RocMusic Collaborative, Strings for Success, 12 Corners Middle School, among others. The winner of the 2018 Eastman/ArtistShare New Artist Program and a New Music USA grant recipient for its commissioning project for new works inspired by the stained-glass artist Judith Schaechter, fivebyfive was awarded a second New Music USA project grant for a collaboration with the George Eastman Museum, commissioning new works inspired by photographer James Welling's collection “Choreograph.” In 2020 fivebyfive was selected as one of 16 recipients for a Chamber Music America Commissioning Grant with composer/harpist Amy Nam, and in 2021 the group was chosen as a New Music USA Organizational Development Fund Recipient which recognizes outstanding organizations that work regularly with, & support the development of, music creators & artists, offering a crucial resource in their community. fivebyfive has appeared on WXXI Classical 91.5's programs Backstage Pass and Live from Hochstein, featured on Performance Rochester and Performance Upstate, and has also appeared nationally on American Public Media's Performance Today program with host Fred Child. The transcript for this episode can be found here. For more information about fivebyfive, please visit their website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Originally aired on 3/6/2017 Kevin Clark is a philanthropy consultant, product manager, and composer working to help artists thrive. He is the brains behind the New Music USA project platform, and speaks and writes about arts economics, technology in the arts and non-profit worlds, and philanthropy. During the course of our conversation, we talked about some of the interesting up-and-coming organizations that he consults for, making art sustainable, Baumol's cost disease, and fundraising with Kickstarter. Links: Kevin Clark Twitter CASH Music Live Music Project

Among the recurring themes in talking with composer-pianist-conductor Matthew Aucoin is generosity and risk-taking, something that is in abundance in Aucoin's own music as well as his personality. Over the course of an hour, Aucoin talks with Frank J. Oteri about his opera Eurydice, which was just performed at the Metropolitan Opera; the first commercial recording of his music; his just released new book about opera, The Impossible Art, which was also just released; his desire to develop new musical repertoire that addresses climate change; his critique of Pierre Boulez, and much much more. Read an introductory essay and a full transcript at NewMusicBox: https://newmusicusa.org/nmbx/matthew-aucoin-risking-generosity/

And Declassify returns! We're already halfway through this season, so quickly! This week the podcast welcomes none other than cross-genre whiz and interdisciplinary extraordinary, composer, performer, producer and curator Danielle Eva Schwob. Currently based across New York City and Los Angeles, Danielle is a staggeringly active artist and musician across multiple forms and disciplines. Her music has been featured at Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! and Philip Glass's MATA Festival, just to name few. In this episode Danielle discusses her interdisciplinary practice and recent works and how they sit outside, through and within the discipline of classical music and how contemporary  “classical” music is expanding its boundaries and begins to bleed into new territory. In fact, this episode asks of us – do we even need to call it classical music anymore?RESOURCESDanielle's website: https://danielleevaschwob.com/ Out of the Tunnel Music Video (Movement I: Fast): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3JSbti93YQ&t=44s OVERLOADED Album (2020) by DELANILA: https://open.spotify.com/album/511OUWlIwxmbYnmJxGJbtf A piece that Danielle wrote for the Strad:https://www.thestrad.com/playing-and-teaching/how-i-write-for-strings-composer-danielle-eva-schwob/13459.articleWritten piece by Danielle for New Music USA: https://newmusicusa.org/nmbx/author/danielleschwob/ 

NEA Jazz Master and three-time Grammy Award-winner Terri Lyne Carrington was practically born into jazz, but she is not a traditionalist. By embracing elements from rock, rhythm and blues, and hip-hop into her own compositions, she is making music that is very much about the present moment. And in founding the Berklee Institute for Jazz and Gender Justice and now partnering with New Music USA on the new Next Jazz Legacy program, Terri Lyne hopes to build a future that dismantles the jazz patriarchy and eliminates the gender imbalance among instrumentalists.

Episode Notes Show Highlights (0:11:38) The concept of generations in Kathak (0:13:05) How Rachna Di Teaches Differently (0:21:50) How Gurus used to teach (0:27:02) Starting Teaching (0:32:23) Balancing being an active performer and teaching (0:34:15) The responsibility of education (0:40:07) Dance Critics (0:46:04) Pride and South asian culture (0:52:56) Compensation in the arts (1:06:47) The concept of Endowments in the Arts (1:25:41) The story of Rachna di and the Harmonium Bio RACHNA NIVAS (@rachnanivas) is an artist, choreographer, educator, and activist in Indian classical dance, bringing a relevant voice to kathak. Deemed “charismatic” and “revelatory” by the San Francisco Chronicle and featured in 2021 by Dance Magazine, she is one of the most sought-after kathak artists and educators of her generation. A distinguished torchbearer of legendary master Pandit Chitresh Das' treasured lineage .Rachna is a fierce and passionate performer, a technical powerhouse with masterful creativity and infectious charm. She is a founding artist and artistic director of Leela Dance Collective, a nationally-based women-led and artist-led collective, producing powerful works by forward-thinking trailblazers in kathak dance. Rachna's original works include her collaboration SPEAK, which brings together leading women in kathak and tap, bridging Indian and African-American art and heritage along with co-creators Rina Mehta, Michelle Dorrance, and Dormeshia. Some notable SPEAK _tour stops have been Broad Stage in Los Angeles, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Mumbai Royal Opera House in India, Maui Arts and Cultural Center and University of Hawaii. Rachna is also co-creator of the large scale dance ballad, _Son of the Wind, featuring 20 dancers and a live orchestra. Tour highlights include Ford Theater in Los Angeles, Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, and Bhramara Festival in Mumba, India. Her original solo work, Meera, was featured at the ODC Walking Distance Festival in San Francisco and at Salvatore Capezio Theater in New York City. Her original work Stir, choreographed for Leela Youth Dance Company, was featured at the WorldWideWomen's Girls Festival. Her works have been funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, California Arts Council, and Zellerbach Family Foundation. Prior to work with Leela Dance Collective, Rachna was principal dancer with the Chitresh Das Dance Company for 15 years and received two nominations for an Isadora Duncan Dance Award while performing worldwide in productions such as Shiva, Sita Haran, Pancha Jati, Darbar, Shabd and many more. Some notable venues she performed at with CDDC, include Cal Performances at UC Berkeley, Roy and Edna Disney/Cal Arts Theater in Los Angeles, Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin, Scottsdale Center for Performing Arts in Arizona, National Center for Performing Arts in Mumbai, Birla Sabhagar in Kolkata, National Institute of Kathak Dance in New Delhi, and Shaniwarwada Festival in Pune, India. Rachna was also instrumental in building the Chhandam School of Kathak in San Francisco (founded by Pandit Chitresh Das in 1980). Pandit Das himself appointed Rachna to be Co-Director of the Chhandam School in 2009 (along with Seibi Lee). Rachna worked tirelessly under Pandit Das to institutionalize curriculum, build infrastructure, train teachers, direct school-wide dance dramas, and flourish the school into one of the world's leading and most influential academies of North Indian classical dance. Her passion and commitment to her own journey of the art and to building pride of Indian classical art amongst the South Asian community led her to emerge as a powerful role model amongst the Indian diaspora. In particular, Rachna has exceptional talent in teaching and training youth, making the art relevant, inspiring, and empowering to girls. Rachna was the successor to Pandit Das as Co-Artistic Director of the Chhandam School and Artistic Director of the Chhandam Youth Dance Company (now the Leela Youth Dance Company), shepherding excellence, leadership, and creative discovery amongst teens. Rachna has also taught numerous kathak workshops, after-school programs, and outreach events/residencies to communities of all backgrounds, including at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum, Treme Center of New Orleans, Conservatory of Arts in Miami, Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, LA Tap Fest at Debbie Allen Dance Academy, National Center for Kathak Dance in New Delhi, and many more. Currently, Rachna is leading and directing Leela New York, the newest chapter of Leela Institute of Kathak, bringing the teachings of her lineage for the first time to the greater New York Metro area. Title Track Audio Credit: Doug Maxwell | Bansure Raga

Composer Jerod Tate and conductor Devin Patrick Hughes discuss Chickasaw musical culture, Jerod's influences and how composers are plugged into ethnicity and national identity, along with growing up with Stravinsky, Bartok, Barber, and Liszt. They also chat about Jerod's compositional process for some of his most performed works, American Indian hymns and much more.    Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate is a classical composer, citizen of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma and is dedicated to the development of American Indian classical composition. He has recently worked as Guest Artist for the San Francisco Symphony Currents program Thunder Song: American Indian Musical Cultures and was recently Guest Composer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Balcony Bar program Home with ETHEL and Friends, featuring his commissioned work Pisashi (Reveal) for String Quartet. His commissioned works has been performed all over North American, including the National Symphony, Dallas and Detroit Symphonies, the Minnesota Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic, Winnipeg Symphony, South Dakota Symphony and many more! Jerod Tate has held the Composer-in-Residency for Music Alive, a national residency program of the League of American Orchestras and New Music USA, and brings music instruction and inspiration to the next generation through his work with the Chickasaw Summer Arts Academy, and has taught composition to American Indian high school students in Minneapolis, the Hopi, Navajo, and Lummi reservations, and to Native students in Toronto. Jerod has some amazing recordings available on the Grammy Award winning label, Azica Records, including Iholba' (The Vision) for solo Flute, Orchestra and Chorus, and Tracing Mississippi, a Concerto for Fute and Orchestra. He earned his music and composition degrees from Northwestern University and the Cleveland Institute of Music, and also performed on keyboard for the Broadway tours of Les Misérables and Miss Saigon.  Thank you for joining us on One Symphony and thanks to Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate for sharing his music and insights. Thank you to all the incredible performers and record labels that made this episode possible! Lowak Shoppala' (Fire and Light) was played by the Nashville String Machine and conducted by the composer, with the Chickasaw Nation Children's Chorus and Dance Troupe. Vocal Soloists are Stephen Clark, Chelsea Owen, Meghan Vera Starling, and Narrators are Lynne Moroney, Wes Studi, and Richard Ray Whitman. It's available on Azica Records. Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony was played by the Oslo Philharmonic and conducted by Mariss Jansons on the Chandos label. Pisachi was performed on Documerica, by ETHEL String Quartet with Ralph Farris (viola), Dorothy Lawson (cello), Kip Jones (violin) and Corin Lee (violin) on the Innova label. Heloha Okchamali was played by Elizabeth Hill, Piano and Anastasia Christofakis, Clarinet. Tracing Mississippi was recorded by the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Symphony Chorus conducted by Edwin Outwater and is available on Azica Records. You can check out Jerod's music online at https://jerodtate.com. You can always find more info at OneSymphony.org including a virtual tip jar if you'd like to lend your support. Please feel free to rate, review, or share the show! Until next time, thank you for being part of the music!

Our podcast guest today is Danielle Eva Schwob. The New Yorker hails her as a “notable cross-genre composer”, who writes concert works, experimental electro-rock, and film scores. Many listeners should care about her work because she is redefining what it means to be a "serious composer". Notable presenters have featured her work, like Lincoln Center and Le Poisson Rouge, and she has received commissions from the American Composers Forum and New Music USA. But unlike many composers who run in these circles, she has her finger on the pulse of music for big name Hollywood movies. She's worked on the music team for Manhattan Night starring Adrien Brody, and the film Mother! starring Jennifer Lawrence. We discuss her work and more on this episode, including her new album, Out of the Tunnel, featuring PUBLIQuartet. -- Classical Post explores the intersection of classical music, style, and wellness, diving into meaningful conversations with leading artists from an array of different backgrounds. Based in New York City, Classical Post is a touchpoint for tastemakers. Visit our website for exclusive articles or subscribe to our monthly newsletter to be notified of new content.

Welcome to Lubbock, Texas! We have the honor to talk with composer and cat lover, Jennifer Jolley. We discuss being Korean but cooking poorly, musical security blankets, learning from Frank Ticheli, composing for band, finding your voice, and celebrating all your fails! You'll love the message that she shares and feel the encouragement that we could all use.Guest:Jennifer JolleyJennifer Jolley's website: www.jenniferjolley.com   Music Included in this Episode:The Eyes of the World are Upon You by Jennifer Jolley. Performed by the University of Texas Wind Ensemble, conducted by Jerry Junkin. © Jennifer Jolley 2017Symphony No. 3 (Circus Maximus) by John Corigliano. Performed by University of North Texas Wind Symphony, conducted by Eugene Migliaro Corporon. © John Corigliano 2005Ash by Jennifer Jolley. Performed by St. Olaf Wind Ensemble, conducted by Timothy Mahr. © Jennifer Jolley 2018Blog posts with Jennifer Jolley:“5 Questions to Jennifer Jolley” by Brianne Matzke on I Care if You Listen: https://www.icareifyoulisten.com/2020/09/5-questions-to-jennifer-jolley-composer/“How it Happened (Said John Cage): A Moment of Silence by Jennifer Jolley. https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/how-it-happened-said-john-cage-a-moment-of-silence/New Music USA on Trimpin: https://www.newmusicusa.org/profile/gtrimpin/Trimpin article: https://www.mightytieton.com/trimpinHosts:William F. Montgomery - www.williammontgomerycomposer.comHillary Lester - www.thehealthymusiciansite.comBecome a Patreon:Patreon Link - https://www.patreon.com/soundsoftheworldpodcastLinks for social media:Website – www.soundsoftheworldpodcast.comHost site link - https://redcircle.com/shows/sounds-of-the-worldInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/soundsoftheworldpodcastFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/soundsoftheworldpodcastApple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sounds-of-the-world/id1532113091YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsaZzOWvr_VaPQ_6_sB3Oow© Sounds of the World Podcast 2020Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/sounds-of-the-world/donations

Tom Service presents the latest news from across the classical music industry. He speaks with the French soprano Sandrine Piau about her new CDs of music by Handel, Haydn and Strauss, and to cellist Steven Isserlis about his latest projects, including CDs of music by John Tavener and the music of Proust's salons. Tom also profiles Scottish composer Geraldine Mucha, who lived most of her life in Prague, with contributions from Mucha's son John, Chris Vinz of the Geraldine Mucha Archive, and Prague-based American pianist Patricia Goodson, who has played many of Mucha's works. Plus, a preview of the 2021 conference of the Association of British Orchestras this week with its Director Mark Pemberton, Vanessa Reed of New Music USA on programming new and underrepresented voices, and Sarah Derbyshire, Chief Executive of Orchestras Live, on a new UK report Orchestras in Healthcare.

Ep. 137: Joseph Young, conductor. "Don't wait for people to open doors for you." Let's Talk Off The Podium with Tigran Arakelyan. In this episode Joseph talks about his early career as a high school band conductor, studying with Marin Alsop at the the Cabrillo Festival, attending the Peabody Conservatory and working as an assistant at the Baltimore Symphony. He also speaks about New Music USA, Amplifying Voices, conducting competitions, running, yoga, working with Robert Spano, stepping in to conduct at last minute, life changing moments (one of which is becoming an uncle) and much more. Praised for his suavely adventurous programing, Joseph Young is increasingly recognized as “one of the most gifted conductors of his generation.” Joseph is Music Director of the Berkeley Symphony, Artistic Director of Ensembles for the Peabody Conservatory, and Resident Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra–USA at Carnegie Hall. In recent years, he has made appearances with the Saint Louis Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Colorado Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Bamberger Symphoniker, New World Symphony Orchestra, Spoleto Festival Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, and the Orquesta Sinfonica y Coro de RTVE (Madrid); among others in the U.S. and Europe. © Let's Talk Off The Podium, 2020

Ep. 136: Vanessa Reed, President and CEO of New Music USA. Let's Talk Off The Podium with Tigran Arakelyan. Vanessa Reed is excited to be joining New Music USA as President and CEO following just over a decade with PRS Foundation, the UK’s leading funder of new music and talent development. During her time at this specialist new music agency, Vanessa significantly increased support available to diverse music creators at critical stages in their careers and repositioned the Foundation as international advocate and go-to partner for major new music collaborations. Her leadership of strategy and outreach resulted in the launch of an array of transformational funding programmes including the Momentum Music Fund, Women Make Music, Musicians in Residence China and the New Music Biennial which help music creators of all backgrounds to realise their potential. More recently, she also founded, with European and Canadian partners, the award-winning international Keychange initiative which invests in female talent and raises awareness of the gender gap in music.

Juan Pablo Contreras is a composer who unapologetically celebrates the sounds of Mexico in his music, and with the help of New Music USA, he'll be doing even more of it, with a commission from the Las Vegas Philharmonic. He talks with Garrett about writing with a Mexican sound, and how orchestras can do more to engage America's Spanish-speaking communities. Scott unpacks some of his latest feelings about growing older, and Garrett draws on a quote by Nicki Minaj to remind people to respect the work (and time) of Black creators. Playlist: It It - "Jath" John Williams - The Imperial March DaBaby - "Rock Star" (arr. Ezinma) Valerie Coleman - 7 O'clock Shout Florence Price - Child Asleep, Down a Southern Lane Kyle Gann - Going to Bed (Homage to Philip Glass) William Grant Still - Summerland Jose Pablo Moncayo - Huapango Arturo Marquez - Danzon No. 2 Juan Pablo Contreras - Mariachitlan, Silencio en Juarez More: Demarre McGill: https://www.demarremcgill.com Jeri Lynn Johnson/Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra: https://www.blackpearlco.org Katie Brown: http://www.rochesterwomanonline.com/index.php/2019/02/27/queen-of-arts-katie-brown/ Boulanger Initiative: https://www.boulangerinitiative.org Youth Orchestra Los Angeles: https://www.laphil.com/learn/yola/youth-orchestra-los-angeles Lara Downes: http://www.laradownes.com New Music USA: https://www.newmusicusa.org Juan Pablo Contreras: https://www.juanpablocontreras.com "Commentary: In the Time of COVID-19, a Plea for Classical Music": https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/entertainment/classical-music/story/2020-07-26/commentary-in-defense-of-classical-music Robert Komaniecki tweet: https://twitter.com/Komaniecki_R/status/1287417010968834050?s=20

Danielle Eva Schwob is the leader of new cinematic, experimental alternative band Delanila. The acclaimed composer, arranger and guitarist has assembled an amazing array of talent for Delanila's first release, Overloaded, including Grammy-winning engineer Emily Lazar (Sia, Coldplay, Haim), top beat programmer and producer Pearse MacIntyre, drummer Aaron Steele (Portgual. The Man), Nick Semrad and Adam Agati (Cory Henry & The Funk Apostles), Jim Orso (Hot Chip), Jennifer Choi (John Zorn), Cornelius DuFallo (FLUX) and more. The album is co-produced by three time Grammy winner David Botrill (Muse, Tool, Peter Gabriel) and features complex electro-pop arrangements overlayed by Danielle's elegant and haunting soprano vocals. Known for her classical compositions and film scores where her work has been featured at Lincoln Center, National Sawdust, BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn!, Chamber Music America, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the MATA Festival and earned honors from The Aaron Copland Fund, New Music USA, The American Composers Forum, ASCAP, CMNY and BMI, Delanila is a welcome exploration into the alternative pop music scene for Danielle Eva Schwob.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/back-story-song/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Episode 120 of ADJ•ective New Music's podcast, Lexical Tones. #ADJCC members Robert McClure and Jamie Leigh Sampson interview New Music USA CEO & President Vanessa Reed. https://www.newmusicusa.org/ | https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/ Visit www.adjectivenewmusic.com for more information about ADJ•ective New Music, the ADJ•ective Composers' Collective, and Lexical Tones.

In this episode, we cover updates from California Chapters and interview Ju Ping Song, founder of the NakedEye Ensemble. On June 9th, 2018, Song led the premiere of Time's Illusion, Stories in Sound, a collaborative commissioned concert in partnership with The National Watch and Clock Museum, New Music USA, and Rivertownes, PA USA. The performance was held at the National Watch & Clock Museum consisting of six composed pieces of music, each written by a different artist, using recorded live sounds from the timepieces in the museum, electro-acoustic instruments, video, text, and narration.

Episode 117 - Eric Segnitz. Dan Sterenchuk and Tommy Estlund are honored to have as our guest, Eric Segnitz. We also extend our sympathy and thoughts to the family and friends of Ben Johnston. We recorded this episode in June prior to Ben Johnston's death. We appreciate Eric talking about Ben Johnston's work and we appreciate Eric generously allowing us to share some pieces composed by Johnston with our listeners. Eric Segnitz has had an extensive career in music reaching both local and international audiences through performance, composition, education, and a wide array of music recording and producing projects. Segnitz is a charter member of the Present Music Ensemble, the Kepler Quartet, has played with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Ballet Orchestra, and written scores for film, theatre and television. Segnitz has been the recipient of several music awards and grants from national New Music organizations such as the Aaron Copland Fund, the Argosy Foundation, the Fromm Foundation, and New Music USA. Websites: Present Music: http://presentmusic.org Kepler Quartet: https://www.keplerquartet.com/index.html New World Records: http://www.newworldrecords.org Musical pieces in episode used with permission from Eric Segnitz. You can skip to them by clicking on the track and choosing the specific time listed below: (11:00) Crossing The Bridge · Eric Segnitz · Kim Robertson. (19:22) Sinatra Shag, Michael Daugherty, University of Iowa Center for New Music Ensemble, David Gommper. (28:02) String Quartet No. 10: Sprightly, not too fast – Ben Johnston, Kepler Quartet: Sharan Leventhal, Eric Segnitz, Brek Renzelman, Karl Lavine. (40:06) Quietness - Ben Johnston, Kepler Quartet: Sharan Leventhal, Eric Segnitz, Brek Renzelman, Karl Lavine. (46:16) String Quartet No. 7: Prelude - Scurrying, Forceful, Intense - Ben Johnston, Kepler Quartet: Sharan Leventhal, Eric Segnitz, Brek Renzelman, Karl Lavine. (1:06:37) Partita in E Major: III. — Kamran Ince, Eric Segnitz, Carl Storniolo. (1:17:01) Curve - Kamran Ince Present Music, Sharan Leventhal, Eric Segnitz, Brek Renzelman, Karl Lavine. (1:33:42) In White - Kamran Ince, Present Music, Kevin Stalheim, Eric Segnitz. (1:53:39) Ukulele Serenade - Aaron Copland, Eric Segnitz, Jayne Latva. (1:59:43) Todo Buenos Aires - Astor Piazzolla. arr. & orch. by John Adams) Miramar Sinfonietta, Henri Pensis, Eric Segnitz. (2:07:09) Study in Sonority, Wallingford Riegger, Eric Segnitz. Note: Guests create their own bio description for each episode. The Curiosity Hour Podcast is hosted and produced by Dan Sterenchuk and Tommy Estlund. Please visit our website for more information: thecuriosityhourpodcast.com The Curiosity Hour Podcast is listener supported! To donate, click here: thecuriosityhourpodcast.com/donate/ Please visit this page for information where you can listen to our podcast: thecuriosityhourpodcast.com/listen/ Disclaimers: The Curiosity Hour Podcast may contain content not suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion advised. The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are solely those of the guest(s). These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of The Curiosity Hour Podcast. This podcast may contain explicit language.

"Young teenagers will be having some of their most formative experiences at a big festival in a field somewhere in the UK. And they deserve to be able to see themselves on one of those stages, whichever gender, background or ethnicity they might come from" Since joining the Performing Rights Society's charitable foundation as Chief Executive in 2008, Vanessa Reed has repositioned the organisation as the UK's most pioneering and effective funder of new music and talent development, significantly increasing support available to diverse, talented UK songwriters and composers at critical stages in their careers. She has launched an array of transformational funding programmes including the Momentum Music Fund, Women Make Music and the New Music Biennial which help music creators of all backgrounds to realise their potential. Vanessa is also founder of the international Keychange initiative which invests in female talent and raises awareness of the gender gap in the UK and across the world. Vanessa is Chair of Sound UK Arts and on the Board of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic where she Chairs the organisation's diversity group. Before joining the Foundation, Vanessa worked in various funding, arts and music development roles in Amsterdam, Brussels and London. In 2016 Vanessa won the music category in the Hospital Club's 100 Awards for UK creative industry influencers. In 2017 Vanessa was awarded a Fellowship by Leeds College of Music and accepted Music Week's Outstanding Contribution to Charity Award on behalf of the Foundation's team and Board. In 2018, Vanessa was recognised on the BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour Power List as the 3rd most influential woman in the global music industry after Beyonce and Taylor Swift. This interview is from a series of events, blogs and discussions exploring both The Future of Work and The Future of Gender - you can find loads more stuff added each week on these themes at www.thepossibilityclub.org. Richard recorded this conversation with Vanessa in February 2019, a few weeks before she announced that from August she will be leaving the UK to run New Music USA - further cementing her world-wide influence on the future of the music industry. They talk leadership, power, investment, creativity and why gender equality is so core to her mission in music. --- Useful links: Performing Right Society https://www.prsformusic.com/ PRS Foundation https://prsfoundation.com/ Woman's Hour Woman In Music Power List 2018 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3WWSL8B88gS1sCRYrgC1ZTy/power-list-2018-top-40 Momentum Music Fund https://prsfoundation.com/funding-support/funding-music-creators/next-steps/momentum-music-fund/ Keychange https://keychange.eu/ and the Keychange manifesto (PDF link) https://keychange.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/1052-keychange-A5-v15-web.pdf Independent Venue Week (UK venues) https://www.independentvenueweek.com/official-venues/ --- What do you think? Do you agree with Vanessa's mission for the music industry? Come and join the debate by joining The Possibility Club for free, find a community of thinkers and find out about our monthly events. You can also find lots of commentary, expertise and other interviews on the theme of The Future Of Work - at www.thepossibilityclub.org

Eric Wubbels is a a New York based composer and pianist who for the past several years has been co-director of the world renowned Wet Ink Ensemble. His music is intense, meticulous and an utterly thrilling listening experience. Eric has been awarded grants and fellowships from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Chamber Music America, MATA Festival, Barlow Endowment, Jerome Foundation, New Music USA and others. He is a great cat with a lot of insight.

Rina Mehta is a co-founder and principal artist of the LeelaDanceCollective. Described as “regal” and “brilliant” by critics, her original works include SPEAK, Chandanbala, and Son of the Wind. Her works have been featured at prestigious venues such as The Broad Stage, Green Music Center, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, National Center for Performing Arts (Mumbai), and have been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, New Music USA, and the Zellerbach Family Fund. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theindustryshow/support

Joel Harrison is one of the first artists to have bridged the worlds of jazz, classical, Americana, and traditions from India and Africa. Born in Washington D.C. the guitarist, composer, arranger, lyricist, vocalist, and songwriter began his search for new sounds in the early 1980’s with stints in Boston and the Bay Area. Named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2010, Joel has long been recognized as a risk taker, someone who never stands still. Harrison is a two-time winner of the Jazz Composer’s Alliance Composition Competition and has received support and awards from Chamber Music America, Meet the Composer, the Flagler Cary Trust, NYSCA, New Music USA, and the Jerome Foundation.  He has released 17 CDs since 1995 as a leader and has appeared high up on the “Rising Star” Downbeat Magazine poll for many years. Podcast Highlights Being authentic gives you access to your most powerful self Always be learning, that's how you get better Get a mentor it's that fastest way to improve your craft Connect With Joel Website facebook twitter

This week, our guest on STL is Nick Disabato. Nick is a designer & writer from Chicago. He currently runs an interaction design consultancy that focuses on research-driven A/B testing. Nick graduated from Northwestern University in 2004, majoring in applied math and pure math with a minor in English. After undergrad, he received a master’s in information science with a concentration in human-computer interaction from The University of North Carolina. He has previously worked for clients such as The Wirecutter, New Music USA, Double Your Freelancing, and Chicago Magazine. In his three years running Draft Revise for dozens of customers – planning, executing, and analyzing hundreds of A/B tests in the process – he’s learned everything possible about optimizing sites so it captures more wallet-out customers in their target market.

This week, our guest on STL is Nick Disabato. Nick is a designer & writer from Chicago. He currently runs an interaction design consultancy that focuses on research-driven A/B testing. Nick graduated from Northwestern University in 2004, majoring in applied math and pure math with a minor in English. After undergrad, he received a master’s in information science with a concentration in human-computer interaction from The University of North Carolina. He has previously worked for clients such as The Wirecutter, New Music USA, Double Your Freelancing, and Chicago Magazine. In his three years running Draft Revise for dozens of customers – planning, executing, and analyzing hundreds of A/B tests in the process – he’s learned everything possible about optimizing sites so it captures more wallet-out customers in their target market.

In this episode, we get a chance to talk about the evolution of culture with Jesse Rosen, the President and CEO of the League of American Orchestras. Mr. Rosen has been a leading voice for change, empowering the League’s more than 2,000 member organizations and individuals with knowledge and perspective to navigate their own paths through a rapidly changing environment. Under Mr. Rosen’s leadership, the League has advocated for orchestras’ reinvigorated and deeper engagement with community; greater discipline and understanding of fiscal health; increased use of data to inform decision-making; and widespread engagement with composers. He has increased the League’s impact by building partnerships with organizations such as New Music USA, Board Source, the Thornton School of Music at USC, and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and has given voice to America’s orchestras through his Huffington Post blog, Symphony magazine column, national media interviews, and international appearances. To hear all the episodes in the archives, visit http://creativeconfidential.net Keep Building the Future.

To say that Frank J. Oteri has a multi-faceted career in music is a gross understatement. In addition to his own work as a composer, he has been the Co-Editor for NewMusicBox since it was created in 1999, where he writes and reports on all manner of topics relating to the realm of new music, and he bears the unique title of Composer Advocate at New Music USA. He works tirelessly on behalf of composers in the US and abroad, and has a breadth and depth of knowledge of living composers and their works that is, quite simply, staggering. I've been friends with Frank and his wife Trudy Chan (Ep. 25) for years, and it's always a joy to hang out and chat with either of them. So for this week, Frank and I sat down with a bottle of wine, and talked for over two hours! Rest assured, I've split the conversation into two parts so that the second half will come out next week. In Part 1 of this lengthy conversation, we talk about pushing artistic boundaries, the nature of “originality”, and what it means to be an advocate for new music. Links: Frank J. Oteri Frank's writings at NewMusicBox Andrew Norman: On Being Named Composer of the Year by Musical America

For this week's episode, I sat down with Scott Winship, the Director of Grantmaking at New Music USA to talk about the organization's Project Grants, and answer a few listener questions. It was a great conversation with a lot of really great tips for making your application the best it can be. Some of the things we talked about were: The American Music Center & Meet the Composer merger, which created New Music USA How the NMUSA are a reaction to the ways that artists make their art today The grant application process The panel process The general breakdown of the awards Effective work samples Making use of collaborator profiles Narratives & project descriptions Giving yourself time to put together a compelling application Getting feedback Question: When is the music “not enough”? Your budget The private description Question: Why does it seem like the “usual suspects” seem to get awarded every round? Question: Is there a weight to individual, ensemble, or organization applications? The new grant deadline for 2016/2017 Links: New Music USA American Composers Forum

Today we're talking with Nick Disabato of Draft, a small interaction design consultancy in Chicago. His previous clients include Gravitytank, New Music USA, Chicago Magazine, The Wirecutter, and too many other attractive, intelligent people to count. We spent quite a bit of time talking about his work designing a delightful user experience for Cards Against Humanity. We discuss... Cards Against Humanity marketing strategy Split-testing Conversion rate optimization And more Links: Cards Against Humanity - http://cardsagainsthumanity.com/ Cadence & Slang - http://cadence.cc/ Draft: Revise - https://draft.nu/revise/ Nick's newsletter - http://eepurl.com/vqJgv Visual Website Optimizer - https://vwo.com/ PS: Be sure to subscribe to the podcast via iTunes and write a review. iTunes is all about reviews! Transcript Recording: This is the Unofficial Shopify Podcast with Kurt Elster and Paul Reda, your resources for growing your Shopify business, sponsored by Ethercycle. Kurt: Welcome to the Unofficial Shoplift Podcast. I'm your host, Kurt Elster and with me today is Nick Disabato from Draft. Nick, how are you doing? Nick: Doing fantastic. How are you, man? Kurt: I'm well. Where are you at? Nick: I live and work in Logan Square, a neighborhood in Chicago and have been here for the past seven years. I've been independent for the past 3-1/2. Kurt: That's good. I'm about right miles from you in Park Ridge. It's funny we're doing this over Skype but we're like a bus ride apart. Nick: We are. We're probably a short L ride apart. Kurt: Tell me, who's Nick D? Nick: Nick D is me as I exist on the Internet and I run a small design consultancy called Draft as you mentioned and we do a lot of things. I publish books. I do monthly A/B testing for people. I run the world's stupidest newsletter but what I think we're here to be talking about is my one-off interaction design product, just more typical client work, more consulting work. I've done it for a variety of e-commerce clients and solved a lot of really interesting problems for both mobile and desktop and I think about these sorts of things a lot. That's kind of ... Kurt: For the lay person, what's interaction design? Nick: Interaction design, it's the process of making something easier to use and it involves hacking out the layout and behavior of a product. That can range from prototyping something and running it by users to see how they enjoy using it or whether they're successful at completing goals within it. It can range from promoting certain design decisions and hacking out functionality. It can involve figuring out edge cases like if you type in a really long response that doesn't belong in a certain form field, what happens? If you click here, what happens? It's figuring out to choose your own adventure capacity of going through a technology product of any type. I've worked... Kurt: It sounds like you're a problem solver for your clients. Give me a good example of a problem you solved with interaction design. Nick: We'll talk about e-commerce stuff. One of my biggest clients over the past few years was a board game company called Cards Against Humanity. Kurt: I dearly love Cards Against Humanity. Tell us about it. Nick: For your audience, if you do not know Cards Against Humanity, it's similar to a card game called Apples to Apples where I'm a person judging a card and everybody else plays another card only it's usually quite inappropriate. You have weird poop jokes or [scathalogical 00:03:03] things. Kurt: The favorite combo I ever got, the winning combo I ever got out of Cards Against Humanity, I will never forget. It was "Santa gives the bad children genital piercings." That was genius. Nick: My personal favorite is 'What's the last thing Michael Jackson thought about before he died?' and somebody played Michael Jackson. Kurt: That one is layers on layers. Nick: Oh my God, I still think about it. It's amazing. I've worked with them to define all of the layout and behavior for their e-commerce system. They now have, in addition to Amazon, you can buy stuff directly through them. You go through and they run through Stripe. It's not through Shopify but it's entirely independent and entirely custom. What they wanted was something that worked pretty well on mobile and they wanted something that was a little more unconventional to fit their business's needs. Cards Against Humanity, for those of you who don't know, they're a relatively unconventional business just in terms of their tone and in the way that they carry themselves and the way that they deal with their customers. Kurt: That has totally differentiated and set them apart. Nick: Yes. I think a large part of Cards Against Humanity's success is their marketing and their outreach. They do a terrific job of both of those but they do a very ... Kurt: I've seen their marketing and it's amazing. They do one-off promo cards. I've got their House of Cards promo set that they did co-branding with Netflix. What kind of outreach do they do? Nick: They do a lot of ... They'll reply to people on Twitter. They'll follow along with people's activity. They'll pay attention to what people are talking about and they'll try and be a little bit proactive about it. As far as their site is concerned, their tone is very distinctive. It's ... Kurt: Absolutely, it irreverent. Nick: Yes, it's irreverent. It's a little bit standoffish, a little bit jerk but fun jerk. It's like [inaudible 00:05:09]. Kurt: Yeah. You love them for being mean to you. It's like Ed Debevic's.. Nick: [Crosstalk 00:05:10]. Yeah, it is like Ed Debevic's a little bit which is a diner in Chicago that ... Kurt: Right, [inaudible 00:05:15]. Nick: It's definitely one of those things where they own their voice and they know how to do it. If you go through the prompts on their Website, if you go to ... I believe it's store.cardsagainsthumanity.com. You can go there and buy stuff and they ask you what country you're from right away. We can go to a UX teardown of why that is but I'll give you the high level. They go to country [crosstalk 00:05:40] right away. Kurt: I'm already there. Nick: If you choose I live in the rest of the world like not US or Canada or UK or something like that, they'll be like, "Begone foul foreigner" or something like that." They'll just make fun of you. "Send us an e-mail for when Cards Against Humanity is available in your inferior country" or something like that. They're just totally blanked up. UI Copy was definitely an enormous component of it. It's part of why I'm getting to this because I wrote a fair amount of the UI copy that is still on there right now. Another thing that you'll see on the page if you go through it while you're listening to this podcast is you'll see a row of information at the top of it. You'll go and buy something, you'll hit Pay Now and you'll see country recipient, e-mail and shipping and what it says is ... It says USA. It'll try and geolocate you and then it'll say, "Not right." You can tap back to that and two things are happening there. You can edit your order as you're going and it reads the order back to you. One thing that you see in Shopify in particular or in e-commerce in general like Amazon or anything like that, it reads your order back to you before you hit Place Order. That's an extra click that you don't necessarily need because you could get this kind of inline feedback. There's no reason why you couldn't get inline feedback. I built the interaction model to fit that and people liked it. There were two things that people called out – the way that the feedback was being read back to you and the way that it was auto-correcting as it goes. If you type in your zip code, it autocorrects to your city and state and is usually accurate. That's pretty cool and it does have for both USPS and Canada Post. It requests little information from you, moves you through the process as fast as possible at the minimum of clicks. I wrote a book that called about interaction cycle, Cadence & Slang. One of the things I say is reduce the number of steps to complete a task. I tried to make this kind of exemplar of that principle by making it as efficient as humanly possible. The other thing that people talk about is when you actually go buy something, which I see you're tapping through that right now, Kurt, that I would ... Once you finish the transaction it says, "Now, go outside" and makes fun of you about the fact that you're on the Internet and it links ... Kurt: It shames you for your order. Nick: It already has your address and if you click "Now, go outside," it searches on Google Maps for parks near you. Kurt: [Crosstalk 00:08:07]. This is incredibly clever stuff. Nick: It's thinking like, okay, I'm on a computer and I'm refreshing it whenever an expansion comes out or I'm doing all these other things and it just wants ... It's like, "Oh, by the way, you're on the Internet. Now, you don't have to be on the Internet anymore. You gave us money. Just go away." That's most of the design decisions behind this. I feel like a lot of people just reinvent the wheel with e-commerce. They want to do something safe. One of the great things with Cards Against Humanity is they don't want safe. They don't care. They want to get the orders okay but if you're messing it up, it's not their fault. It's your fault for this particular organization. [Crosstalk 00:08:56]. Kurt: Yeah, like the whole ... the entire experience ... Like it's easy to use and it's great but at the same time the game ... It starts with a product. You've got this incredibly irreverent game and then that gets extended to the messaging and the copy and the positioning. Then amazingly where everyone else would have stopped, they moved it into the actual user interface. The interaction itself is irreverent. Nick: There are a couple of people at Cards that handle a goodly amount of the logistics in getting the cards printed and shipped and everything. To use a developer term, they are a full-stack operation. They deal with the printer. They deal with Amazon. They deal with the warehouse. They want to build a vertically-integrated system for [crosstalk 00:09:40]. Kurt: I was going to say that sounds like a vertical integration. Nick: They're a good enough business and are popular enough that they can get away with it. They could ... If I did that ... Kurt: It's a great product. People love it. It's a catch-22. People love it because of these irreverent decisions but at the same time, are they able to make those irreverent decisions because people love it? It's like where do you start with that? Nick: I would be putting words in their mouth but I suspect it's kind of a feedback loop. They make these decisions and they realize they're getting rewarded for it by having more business and so, they end up making more irreverent decisions in more irreverent ways. Kurt: Why, yes. You're right. It does. It rewards itself. Anyone could start trying this and if it doesn't work out, you shouldn't do it. Nick: Yeah. I run a large part of my design practice as A/B testing. You could build this and run half of your users through it and if your conversion rate drops, either try and tweak it or throw it away. That way you're not losing an insane amount of sales on your testing idea. You're vetting whether it works for you. I suspect at least certain conceits of these like auto-complete and providing this feedback. I don't see any personal reason why that couldn't exist in other e-commerce context. I really don't. Kurt: Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned split testing. Tell us briefly, what is split testing? Nick: It's essentially you have an idea and rather than fighting about it internally about whether it's a good idea, you let people decide and you're letting real customers decide. This can be anything. This can be a call to action button. This can be a headline. This can be a person on your homepage selling the thing. It can be whether a video autoplays or not. It can be any design decision you want and you have a control page which is your original page. You send that by 50% of your users and then the other goes to the other 50%, whatever you're varying and you're measuring success in sales, signups for your mailing lists, whatever have you. It can be anything that you want. Kurt: As long as it's a measurable goal. Nick: You have a goal, right. You can do this with multiple variations. Most of my A/B tests are in fact A-B-C-D-E tests where I'm vetting many different variations of something and many different permutations of something and testing it with real-life people. It reduces risk because you're running many variants. You're optimizing the page slowly and you're throwing away what doesn't work and learning what does work and where you want to be putting more of your efforts. Even a failure, which is a plurality of your tests are failures or inconclusive, you're still learning where you don't want to be putting your efforts, like you don't need to be fighting over that link, that sort of thing. I always try and frame it in a very positive way. Kurt: It's interesting. The way you brought it up is you don't have to fight about it internally. It's a great way to talk about it because in our design practice that's generally how I bring up the idea of split testing is when the client pushes back on something or they attribute some loss in sales to a change and I say, "Actually, we don't have to guess about it. We could split test it and know for certain." It's usually how I introduce that concept. Nick: Yes. Kurt: As soon as you say, "We can know for sure and we can know scientifically," then people become very interested in it. What's your favorite tool for split testing? Nick: I give all of my clients ... I have a monthly A/B testing tool or a service called Draft Revise where you pay me a certain amount every month and I run tests for you and write up reports and that's it. You never have to worry about the practice of doing this. I use something called Visual Website Optimizer. It shortens to VWO. You can go to vwo.com. For a few of my clients, I use something called Optimizely, if you go to optimizely.com. Both of those are terrific. They have very small differences at this point. It's like Canon and Nikon. They're just snipping at each other and it's making both of them much better. Kurt: I've used them. I've personally used VWO. I really liked it. I used the Google split testing tool. That thing's a nightmare. Nick: Yeah, it's changey. I would pay the money for V. If you have enough scale to get statistical validity out of the A/B tests which typically you need at least 3,000 or 4,000 [uniques 00:13:53 ] a month to be doing that for whatever goal you're measuring, usually it's more, you're probably making enough money that you can afford Visual Website Optimizer, no question or Optimizely. Don't do the free Google stuff. It just sucks. Kurt: The amount of time I wasted messing with that wasn't worth it. VWO is so much easier. Nick: Yeah, don't bother. Kurt: The support is really good. I'm not condemning Optimizely. I've literally just never used Optimizely. That's a good way to get into it for our listeners. If it's confusing or they don't want to deal with it, your service is great. I've seen the reports you run and I'm not even plugging it. It's just genuinely good stuff that you do. Nick: Thank you. It's one of those things where a lot of people don't know how to start and they don't know how to do it and I have two different offerings. One of them is a one-off like I give you a guide and I give you a lot of suggestions for what you can test and what you can change things to, things that I would change. You're getting a UX teardown and a write-up of how to put into practice but I find that a handful of those come back to me and they're like, "Can you just do this for us?" Kurt: Essentially, what you've said to them is like, "Here's a plan for immediate success based on my vast experience and you could do whatever you want with it." I imagine a lot of people are going to be, "All right, fine. You know what you're doing. You just take care of those for me." Nick: Yeah, and they're already used to paying me and I give them a discount on their first month. If they pay me $900 for Revise Express Report and then they sign up for a 2000-dollar plan for Draft Revise, you're paying only $1,100 for the first month which at that point you're not getting charged twice. You're able to hit the ground running. I signed up a Revise Express client recently for Draft Revise and it's been going well. We went from not having anything together to contract signed and A/B tests running on their site in three days because I already knew it. Kurt: That's good. Nick: I wrapped my head around it. It was great. Kurt: When you're wrapping your head around it, how do you approach optimizing a site? Nick: It depends on the site. Let's say it's like a typical SaaS business. I look at the things that I know changing them will yield a lot of fruit and that can be common elements to optimize like your headline or your call to action or testimonial quotes, stuff like that which is very optimizing 101 type stuff. Or I'd look at things that I see are clearly bad like if you have an e-mail list signup form and the button says Submit. Unless you are [crosstalk 00:16:39]. Kurt: I look for the stuff that just like, "This is painful. This goes against every best practice. Let's fix this first and get our baseline back to zero." Nick: Yeah. I break things into two categories. One of them is one-off design changes which are beyond the need for testing. Things like if you make your button Submit. Unless you're an S&M site, you have no business making your buttons Submit, all these other things. Then I also look at things and suggest "Let's test this because I'm not sure." The difference between those two is confidence. I'm still changing things. I'm changing elements on the page but I'm not fully confident that changing your headline to this one thing is going to speak to your customers effectively especially because I've been working with you for only three days if I'm doing these teardowns. It's very like intuition at that point. I will check everything within ... If you're a SaaS business, call your conversion funnel like your homepage to your pricing page to your signup page to your onboarding to all that and then you get converted from a trial into a paying customer eventually. There are a bunch of pages that you have to go through in that flow to actually figure that out. I try and vet all of those and figure out if I were building your site and figuring out your marketing page and trying to figure out a really good way to speak to people, would I do this? I bring in my experience working with dozens of SaaS businesses and e-commerce sites to bear on that and eight years of interaction design experience. That's often something that they can't get internally because I don't know any actual fulltime UX employees who've worked for as many individual clients as I have. Kurt: They couldn't possibly. Earlier you had mentioned to me the other day that you're working on something with Harper Reed. Nick: Yeah. I did it for six weeks. It was a one-off project with Harper Reed. For those who don't know, he elected the president at the beginning of ... starting at the beginning of last ... No, two years ago. It was 2012. Kurt: The way I view it is Harper Reed personally defeated Mitt Romney. Nick: His tech team certainly did. He built the team that ... It almost feels like that. If you read the teardowns of it, they're amazing but he has a startup now which is essentially a mobile e-commerce startup called Modest. It's at modest.com and first project that he did was a storefront for a toy and game manufacturer called [Choonimals 00:19:04], if you go to Choonimals Website. He's a friend of mine. He works and lives in Chicago. He works in Fulton Market. They had me come on and just be another pair of eyes on their UX. They already had a lot of interesting UX ideas there. I'm not going to take remote amount of credit for some of the most novel and fascinating parts of it but I agree with the conceit. A lot of the things were already coming together like scanning your credit card with the iPhone's camera is one of them and Uber does that. There's a JavaScript library called card.io that lets you do that where it just turns on your flashlight and lets you take a photo of your credit card and it scans your number in so you don't have to manually type it and reduce the error [inaudible 00:19:52]. He has a thing where you can buy stuff and it's basically buy with one touch and then if you ... You get a grace period where you could undo that. You can un-buy something and then ... Kurt: The easier you make something to buy, if people aren't used to that standard yet, I think there is a lot of that ... I wouldn't call it cognitive dissonance. Nick: I think you're just thrown off expectations-wise. There's a mismatch. Kurt: Yeah. Or it becomes too easy and suddenly, it's frightening. You have to have that grace period, that undo. Nick: I did not come up with these ideas to be clear. I helped refine them and offer my own ideas about them which is just like fit and finish. The idea of un-buying, you might tap something and it says Buy. It's very clear you're buying something but you don't even get an undo button in the app store if you buy something. You tap it on your iPhone. Kurt: Yeah. I bought a lot of silly things. I wish there was an undo button in the app store. Nick: I don't let myself check the app store while I'm drunk anymore because I just threw up and buy some 30-dollar application that's just ill-advised but this is like they're not going to ... It's a physical good usually. They're not going to ship it for another day at least or five hours if it's [overnighted 00:21:08] or something like that. At which point, you have a chance to take back that notion and edit your order. You barely get the chance to edit your order or merge orders on Amazon as it stands. Kurt: With Amazon, it's a scam. You could cancel an order while it's in progress but once you put cancel, it says, "We're going to try to cancel it" and it's like less than 50% of the time that it actually manages to cancel it. Nick: Right and if you're Prime, they probably already have it sent on a drone to you so you don't even know. It's one of those things where it just seems obvious that you should have an undo button when you're buying something. Kurt: Absolutely. You've got a lot of experience with this. Give me one tip for – obviously this is tough because it's general – one tip for an e-commerce store owner who's looking to grow the revenue. Nick: I'm going to drill down into this tip. You need to make it as easy for the person to buy the thing as possible and easy for them to back out of it and so, cutting down the number of steps. If you're asking for any extraneous information, if you are deliberately asking for both billing and shipping address, if you're splitting the person's name into three different fields, if you're not supporting auto-complete, those are all different forms of the same problem which is you're making the person enter more data than is necessary. Make the person input les data. Nobody likes to fill out a form. You don't want to feel like you're in a doctor's office buying a product. That's the one tip that I've got. Kurt: I guess it's pretty common with Shopify store owners. They want to do less work personally. They want like or go, "Can you make it ask them X, Y and Z thing?" and we'd say, "Sure, we could build out these product options for your products." Then when we do it, their conversion rate plummets and they're like, "Why did that happen?" Well, because you just made it really hard to buy from you. Nick: Yeah. Doing this auto-complete ... Going back to Cards Against Humanity, doing the auto-complete for your address and address validation and making it as fast as it is on that site is tremendously difficult. It is not easy programming to be putting in. Doing this focus is really hard but their sales bear out how they're doing. It justifies that decision. It almost says the amount of work that you put into the site and making it smarter, making the defaults easier and making it easier for the person, that's hard work but it directly connects to your conversion rate and if you're delighted about it ... I can't tell you how many positive twits happened when the first storefront came out that talked explicitly about the user experience and shared that out. It said, "Oh, you have to buy something." Who says "Oh, you have to buy something" about an e-commerce store? Kurt: You have to experience this. Nick: You have to experience getting sent to a park nearby you. That's very unexpected. Kurt: People are just ignoring the product itself. They'll just buy it for the sake of the purchasing experience. Nick: Right. Kurt: People don't think ... They would never think twice about someone making the interior of a retail store nice, making it easy to buy something there but as soon as it comes to e-commerce, then suddenly it's like the strange thing that no one wants to spend money on. Nick: It's funny because Apple's retail stores are beautiful and amazing and their UX is incredible. If you go in person, they swipe your card there in front of the computer and somebody walks the computer out to you and ... Kurt: Have you ever paid with cash in the Apple store? Nick: I have not. Kurt: It's same deal but the cash register is hidden inside one of the display tables. Just like the face of the table pops open. The cash box was in there the whole time. It's clearly on remote. They still use their iPhone and then the thing pops open. Nick: Right. Their UX is amazing but I bought an iPhone. I bought the new iPhone from the Apple store online the other day. Kurt: Did you go with the 6 or the 6-plus? Nick: I have 6. Kurt: You don't have monster gorilla paws is what you're telling me. Nick: No, I have normal human being hands and I don't need a Phablet. I have an iPad Mini. Anyway, I was going on it and I was on the Website, not the app just to be clear. I think the app is better but it was not fun. It sucked. It was really flunky and weird and it could be better. You're selling ... You're the biggest company in the world. You can fix that. Kurt: I noticed that they do one clever thing. You can choose multiple payment methods. I don't think I've seen that anywhere else. Nick: Amazon ... Kurt: If you were to max out your credit card and then finish up with a second credit card, they will let you do that. Nick: Or if you have one of those crappy gift cards that you get from the grocery store, like somebody gives you 100-dollar gift card and you have 18 cents left on it and you feel bad wasting that 18 cents, you could put that on the card. Kurt: You could do it. Nick: Right. That's edge [casey 00:25:58], feasible. Kurt: That's an argument I have with people is about edge cases where it's like, okay, we could fix this problem that one of 100 people have but what's that impact on the other 99 out of 100 people? I think Apple has walked themselves into that. Nick: Yeah. They can accommodate edge cases. I know that Amazon used to accommodate that sort of edge case and then they got rid of it for whatever reason. They probably saw that it wasn't diminishing returns or something but anyway. Kurt: That's a thing you could split test. Nick: Right, yeah. I'm sure Amazon does. Amazon A/B tests everything. I get bucketed into A/B tester of their pages all the time. I find it redesigns itself and I refresh it and it goes away [crosstalk 00:26:42]. Kurt: Or open an incognito window and it's a different site. Yeah, I've had that happen. Nick: Yeah. Kurt: If I wanted to learn more from you, the best way would be to do what? Nick: You should subscribe to my mailing list because it's funny. Kurt: I subscribe to it. I enjoy it, lots of good Chicago references in there. Nick: There are a lot of good Chicago ... Kurt: Like the hotdog story. Nick: There was a story ... It's a dog stand that's very popular here. It's closing this week. That is a very good way to get to know me as a person. If you want to know more about interaction design, I would go to cadence.cc which is my book, Cadence & Slang, and grab a copy. It is generally considered one of the more important texts on interaction design by people far more famous and important than me which is terrifying. Kurt: I have read it. It is genuinely good. Nick: Awesome, thank you. That's the best way to get to understand the kind of stuff that I'm talking about with e-commerce. It's applicable to any technological project but the ultimate goal is just to make things more efficient and pleasurable to use. Kurt: Fantastic. That's great. Thank you, Nick. Thank you for joining us and have a great day. Nick: Thank you so much. Take care.

Q2 Music celebrated the launch of its inaugural podcast, Meet the Composer, on Tuesday, June 24 at 7 pm with a music party and live video webcast in The Greene Space at WQXR.  Hosted by Nadia Sirota, the evening included interviews with all five members of Season One of Meet the Composer, including the two most recent Pulitzer Prize winners, John Luther Adams (2014) and Caroline Shaw (2013), as well as fellow innovators Andrew Norman, Marcos Balter, and Donnacha Dennehy. The concert featured a star-studded array of dynamic, award-winning performers: flutist and International Contemporary Ensemble artistic director Claire Chase performs Balter's Pessoa; Hotel Elefant performs Adams's Red Arc/Blue Veil; Attacca String Quartet performs excerpts from Norman's Peculiar Strokes; Cellist Hannah Collins performs Shaw's in manus tuas; and Bang on a Can All-Star pianist Vicky Chow, cellist Ashley Bathgate and violinist Todd Reynolds perform Dennehy's Bulb. Watch video of the entire show: Q2 Music’s Meet the Composer pays homage to the landmark show of the same name hosted by Tim Page for WNYC in the mid to late '80s. Thanks to New Music USA for their flexibility with the use of the “Meet The Composer” name, which became famous though their legacy organization founded by composer John Duffy.

Barber’s Violin Concerto, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Copland’s Appalachian Spring are among a small handful of American works that have become staples of the orchestra repertoire. Since the United States has nurtured a good century-and-a-half of orchestral compositions, there are those who feel that this is not just an oversight, but a disgrace. Earlier this month, a group of composers and academics decided to confront the issue where it starts: with the major orchestra in their city. They wrote a letter to the Cleveland Plain-Dealer accusing the Cleveland Orchestra of “blatantly ignoring music of its own country” by programming only one work by an American composer next season. “We looked at this and said, this is approximately one percent of the programming and really, we have to say something about this,” said Keith Fitch, head of the composition department at the Cleveland Institute of Music, who was one of the letter’s co-signers. Fitch argues that the problem is not limited to Cleveland, nor is it even confined to living composers. There is a wide swath of “diverse and compelling” American repertoire, he says, that is seldom represented on orchestra programs, including pieces by William Schuman, Howard Hanson, Roy Harris, Walter Piston and even Charles Ives – “the music that has defined us as a culture.” The Cleveland Orchestra did not respond to invitations to participate in this segment, nor did it respond to the letter, which has been widely circulated on social media. Ed Harsh, the president and CEO of the advocacy organization New Music USA, notes that a number of orchestras are making an effort to program American works, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic and Albany Symphony. The upcoming Spring for Music festival of American orchestras at Carnegie Hall is due to feature major works by Hanson and John Adams (WQXR will broadcast the six-concert festival live). "It’s by no means a blanket problem,” Harsh said. “But in some ways this is such an old, agonizing story.” In 2011, the League of American Orchestras, a national service organization, reported that just two out of the top 20 most-performed composers were American that year: Barber and Leonard Bernstein (at numbers 17 and 20, respectively). A ranking of the top 20 works performed did not bring up a single American piece. Harsh believes that living American composers should be essential to orchestras' community outreach and audience-building efforts; they can personalize and talk about the music in a way that long-dead composers can't. “It may seem expedient to become a museum of immutable masterpieces that everyone loves,” he said. “That’s long-term suicide.” To some extent, orchestras must persuade audiences to try unfamiliar music of whatever era or nationality, said Simon Woods, the executive director of the Seattle Symphony, in the second part of this podcast. Seattle has recently launched an in-house record label with an album of music by Ives, Gershwin and Elliott Carter. But Woods also believes there are no absolutes. "I start getting nervous when I hear discussions about whether there should be some kind of moral imperative to play American music," he added. "What's interesting about orchestras in this country is this huge diversity of repertoire that they play, and each one has a different personality." Listen to the full segment above and share your comments below: should orchestras program more American works? Why or why not?