![]() Titled “Beginner’s Mind,” it is a fragmentary memoir and a manifesto for a better world through music - an idea that seems frustratingly rosy but is somehow believable coming from Ma, always a persuasive wellspring of comfort and hope. ![]() And McQueen conducts his interviews with disarming candor like many conversations on the podcast, a recent one with the baritone Will Liverman about code-switching in classical music spaces - “You have to tone down your blackness in a way,” Liverman says - is required listening for industry leaders and listeners alike. It’s thrilling, though, to witness their passion, their open-minded and omnivorous approach to music. McQueen and Blankenship are agitators - sometimes recklessly so, with dubious factual claims that can undercut otherwise strong arguments. (Last September, McQueen was fired from his job as a radio host for American Public Media when he broke rules in an effort to diversify the programming of “Music Through the Night.”) But its mission was freshly urgent as the field was forced by the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement to face its failings in racial representation. ![]() “Trilloquy” has always cast an eye on classical music that’s both critical and caring. Thomas, after feeling as if her piece is coming together, abandons a section of it after about 80 hours of work later, she shares that when she is writing something, “it takes over my whole self,” and that it is done when she can finally sleep through the night. The first episode is suspiciously optimistic, a spirit which doesn’t entirely change in subsequent installments but is complicated by the natural ups and downs of creation. ![]() Thomas, known as Gusty, describes her practice as a kind of captured improvisation, while Bryan emphasizes the importance of collaboration and Balter describes his work as nonlinear, which he admits might be in conflict with the linear narrative of a typical podcast. They introduce themselves in the first episode, accompanied by samples of their music. The composers on the podcast are Marcos Balter, Courtney Bryan and Augusta Read Thomas - artists with enough differences in temperament, style and location to demonstrate that no two paths to a premiere are the same. In a way, the concept is an extension of the Miller’s invaluable Composer Portraits series, which devotes an entire program to a single artist, often with interludes of onstage conversation. But this Miller series, which began on April 13, follows three composers over the course of six weeks as they create short pieces that will premiere on the finale, May 18. Most classical podcasts tend to take an anthology approach, with each episode focusing on a specific work or recording. One even breaks new ground: “Mission: Commission,” presented by the Miller Theater at Columbia University. Others have joined the field, like the Cleveland Orchestra’s “On a Personal Note,” which debuted last April with Franz Welser-Möst wistfully reflecting on the ensemble’s final gathering before the pandemic closed its hall. Classical music has been surprisingly slow to embrace podcasting, a medium ideally suited to illuminate its sounds and stories.īut something changed in the last year, with live performances on hold because of the pandemic and the music industry belatedly exploring new platforms: Classical and opera podcasts have begun to flourish.Įstablished ones have evolved “Aria Code,” hosted by the cross-genre luminary Rhiannon Giddens, has found new depths of poetry and resonance, and the conductor Joshua Weilerstein’s “Sticky Notes” is experimenting with approaches to score analysis.
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