Mark Growden is a brilliant, curious, and expressive American multi-faceted musician.  He’s a multi-instrumentalist, composer, singer, music educator, conductor, and visual artist. In this episode we focus on his large and varied instrument collection and he demonstrates several unusual instruments, including different jaw harps, biclycle handebars, and overtone flutes. He shares his unique journey, and how he developed new skills in response to different challenges and opportunities. I was fascinated to hear about his inspiring recent trip to Kyrgyzstan, about many of his mentors and collaborators, and his expressive approach to musicianship training.   Mark has devoted his life to making music for other people and to helping other people make music for themselves, and he is an advocate for openess about respect and understanding for people with neurodivergence and mood disorders. Mark  is the founder and Artistic Director of The Calling All Choir, The Chromatic Community Music Center, SF SingFest, and The SF Jaw Harp Choir. He has released several critically acclaimed albums and has toured the US extensively. He has composed original musical scores for dozens of dance and theater companies and scored several films.

Omo Bello is a French-Nigerian operatic soprano , and in this episode we are focussing on her newly-released album “African Art Song” on Somm recordings with pianist Rebeca Omordia. Many of you heard my episode this past summer with pianist and curator of the African Concert Series, Rebeca Omordia, and I’ll be linking that episode in the show notes  for you.  

Omo talked to me about overcoming shyness and stage fright,  her childhood and university years in Lagos, Nigeria, and some of her mentors including Grace Bumbry and Thomas Quasthoff.  I was fascinated to gain insights from her life as an opera singer, and to learn about many of the composers from Africa and the African diaspora featured on this wonderful album, including Ayo Bankole, Fred Onovwerosuoke,  Ishaya Yaron, Chirstian Onyeji and Shirley Thompson . 

Gilad Weiss takes us on a visit to his music studio and improvises on several of his instruments, including the fretless guitar, and some of the instruements from Turkey and Central Asia, such as the kopuz, the baglama and the Turkmenistani dutar. He also spoke to me about his duo project with the Anatolian kamanche player Melisa Yildirim and we’re including a track from their beautiful album, which is linked in the show notes for this episode along with Gilad’s album Improvisations on Fretless Guitar Volume 1, and the ways to connect with Gilad. He shared his valuable insights about teaching music, and teaching the guitar, improvisation and interesting details about the modes and tuning systems for the various instruments he demonstrates. This episode has a lot of improvised music; Gilad spent much of the interview with an instrument in his hand; please use the detailed timestamps to navigate the episode, which like all my episodes you can either watch on my YouTube or listen to on all the podcast platforms. 

Meg Okura is an award-winning Jazz composer and brilliant Grammy-nominated violinist, and the leader and founder of the  Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble. This episode features several excerpts from Meg’s wonderful recent duo album “Lingering” with the Grammy Award-winning jazz pianist and composer  Kevin Hays. This  was a wide-ranging conversation, including Meg’s musical tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto, her experiences playing for Cirque du Soleil,  some of the challenges she’s faced, and about her search for a new spiritual community.  She shared with me her thoughts on mentorship and the power of music to create real understanding and connection. This 2024 interview is linked here to all the podcast platforms, YouTube, and the transcript.

Joe K. Walsh is an acclaimed master of bluegrass mandolin and a professor at Berklee College, and in this episode you’ll hear about many of his inspiring collaborations including with Darol Anger, Mike Block, Grant Gordy, Alex Hargreaves and Mike Marshall. We are also featuring some music from some of his albums inluding “If Not Now, Who?” We talked about Joe’s approach as an educator, the challenges and joys of the touring life, the importance of innovation and taking chances musically. Joe’s love of music and the mandolin shines brightly in this candid conversation. The podcast, video and transcript versions of this interview are all linked here.

This episode features Bad Snacks, a producer and multi-instrumentalist known for the use of violin, with lofi and dance influences. We talked about her experience when she went viral on Andrew Huang’s “4 Producers Flip the Same Sample” challenge with over 4.5M views, dealing with online boundaries, with sexism, finding inspiration, and  enjoying the learning process. Bad Snacks is also an educator; she coaches fellow producers privately, runs a successful YouTube channel where she posts content related to music technology and beat breakdowns. Due to her love for cutting-edge music tech, she has worked as a key demonstrator with several of the industry’s largest names like Ableton, Roland,  and Moog. She has also taught as an Assistant Professor at Berklee College of Music for Electronic Production & Design. We talked about her unique educational path and choices she’s made along the way to carve out a successful career, and in fact what success really means. She spoke thoughtfully about important topics such as music education, developing creativity, imposter syndrome and keeping a healthy perspective. 

Vahn Black is a vocalist based in Atlanta, and in this episode we focused on her project celebrating Gladys Bentley, including Vahn’s fantastic album Petrichor. Born and raised in Detroit, Vahn grew up in a melting pot of music and this aided her in cultivating her soul-charged, jazz infused sound, marrying her reverence for vocalists like Sarah Vaughn with her love of producers like J Dilla. We talked about her musical education, her career path, her research into Black history and culture, her joy of collecting vinyl and some of her other creative outlets. It was interesting to hear about her contrasting experiences with work, life and music in Detroit, New York and Atlanta. As a composer Black has lent her artistry to various art mediums from short films to interactive performance art. In 2023 she was selected to perform at NPR's Tiny Desk on the Road Tour stop in Atlanta, and for those listeners who are fans of Vahn Black and those who are discovering her, I hope you’ll enjoy this conversation which is punctuated with her music.

2024 Interiew with the brilliant Cheng2 Duo with cellist Bryan Cheng and pianist Silvie Cheng. The podcast, video, and transcript are all linked here. They have performed to great acclaim worldwide and have released to date four fantastic albums, the most recent Portrait which was nominated for a JUNO award. Portrait features music by composers from diverse Asian heritages, and in this podcast, Bryan and Silvie reflect on some important personal experiences related to this. We are featuring some of the music from Portrait and some of their other projects in this episode, with their insights on championing living composers such as Paul Wiancko and Dinuk Wijeratne and reaching new audiences. I asked them about their Carnegie Hall debut when Bryan had just started high school, and some of their individual experiences with concert preparation, touring, and finding a life-balance. Some of what you’ll hear about are Bryan’s reflections on his memorable childhood lessons with Yuli Turovsky, the incredible opportunity he’s had to play the Bonjour Strad, and his experiences with international competitions. Silvie shared her reflections on her mentors and her life as a performer and educator in New York.