I really enjoyed my conversation with the inspiring multi-style violinist Gina Burgess. During the episode she plays a couple of her original tunes, and at the end we did an improv back-and-forth across our Zoom call. It was really inspiring hearing about her journey through a severe overuse injury as a Classical violinist through to re-learning the violin in different styles, learning to improvise and compose, and also how she teaches improvisation to children.

Gina is a founding member of the Iqaluit-based Arctic rock band The Jerry Cans, is a four-time ECMA award winner with the band Gypsophilia, she fronts her own klezmer band Der Heisser, and is a regular collaborator in flamenco and Arabic music ensembles. Gina has toured Europe twice over with Tim Crabtree’s atmospheric ensemble; Paper Beat Scissors, and with folk-pop artist Gabrielle Papillon. Along with The Jerry Cans, Gina has performed and conducted youth workshops in Canada, Australia, Greenland, New Zealand, and Europe. https://www.ginaburgessmusic.com/ Instagram @ginaburgess.violin Facebook Gina Burgess Music

Peggy Lee is an innovative cellist, improvisor and composer who is a band-leader and sought-after collaborator in Vancouver, Canada.

She opens the episode with a wonderful solo cello improv. We discussed her career, creative process, her studies with cellist Martha Gerschefski, and so much more. In a separate bonus episode you can hear my improv with her that we played back-and-forth across our Zoom call.

Peggy collaborates frequently with Ron Samworth and Tony Wilson and with her husband, drummer Dylan van der Schyff, as well as with many other longtime musical associates including Dave Douglas, Wayne Horvitz, Robin Holcomb, Veda Hille and Lisa Miller. She also leads or co-leads a number of musical projects: The Peggy Lee Band, Film in Music, Waxwing (with Tony Wilson and Jon Bentley) and Beautiful Tool (with Mary Margaret O’Hara).

She has also collaborated extensively in theatre and dance with companies and artists such as Ruby Slippers, Rumble Theatre, Presentation House, David Hudgins, Peter Bingham and Delia Brett.

In 2005, Peggy received the Freddie Stone Award for integrity and innovation in music and in 2010 she was awarded a Jesse Richardson Theatre Award for outstanding composition. http://www.peggylee.net/

Jack Everly is well-known to audiences throughout the United States and Canada for his Symphonic Pops programs, conducting and charismatic storytelling during which he imparts his wealth of knowledge. In this lively conversation we discuss his distinguished career and perspectives.

In Episode 15 of this series was honoured to speak with one of the world's foremost Klezmer musicians. Alicia was a founding member of the Grammy-winning Klezmatics, she also played a major role in the revival of klezmer fiddling, which had been on the brink of extinction until she recorded her debut album Fidl in the 1990’s. Alicia is so engaging both as a player and conversationalist, and she's full of stories from her life and career. In two separate bonus episodes, you can hear my improvisations with her.

Subhadra loves to teach people about the Indianisation of the violin, and in this conversation we get to hear her beautiful playing quite a bit, as she plays and demonstrates some of the guiding principles of the Carnatic style. She teaches both online and in her studio in Mississauga (in the Greater Toronto Area) Canada.

To study or perform with Subhadra, and for more information about her:

https://www.rcmusic.com/bios/subhadra-vijaykumar

Radha Academy of Carnatic Violin | Facebook

In this wide-ranging conversation with Ellen Waterman we discuss her career and perspectives, both as a creative improvisor with flute and voice, and as a scholar. At the end treats us to a solo improv. During the interview she talked about how she has taught improvisation, mentors and collaborators R. Murray Schafer, Pauline Oliveros and her work on the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument project. Dr. Waterman was appointed to the inaugural Helmut Kallmann Chair for Music in Canada at Carleton University in 2019 where she is developing a research program committed to investigating issues of diversity and decolonization of music in Canada through scholarship, research creation, and experiential learning. It was really fascinating talking with Ellen about her many projects, and her perspectives on the music industry and the nature of creativity. In a separate bonus episode, we played an improvisation together.

Episode 12, Season 1 of "Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman" the wonderful jazz guitarist and composer Roddy Ellias talks about his current projects, creative process, artistic development, and lots more. He begins the episode with an improvisation on My Favourite Things by Rogers and Hammerstein. We talked about his puppet opera Sleeping Rough. He collaborated on this with his wife the writer Sandra Nicholls, who also wrote the poetry for the lyrics for the songs in the 2022 album Not This Room. Both of these projects feature the amazing singer Kellylee Evans, who is the featured guest in E4 S2 of this series. It’s really interesting hearing Roddy’s stories of getting into the business, and his days on the road with a rock band while he was learning jazz. He talked about connections between martial arts and music, and his compositional process. He talks about his Peggy White guitar, and his experiences performing on Syncspace Live. In a separate video, we play an improvisation.

I was honoured to speak at length with James Ehnes about his career, collaborations, current projects, and his approach with practice and preparation for concerts. He spoke about his teachers Francis Chaplin and Sally Thomas and other mentors including Bramwell Tovey. He talked about the joys and scheduling challenges of the Ehnes quartet, of his long-time collaborator and friend the pianist Andrew Armstrong. He’s also Artistic Director of the Seattle Chamber Music Society and he talked about his ideas for good programming. He described some unique recording challenges during the pandemic and how he manages his many projects. Ehnes has an extensive discography of over 40 CDs and has won many awards for his recordings, including a Gramophone Award, two GRAMMY Awards and 11 JUNO awards. He began violin studies at the age of four, made his orchestral debut with l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal at age 13 and graduated from The Juilliard School in 1997, winning the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music. James Ehnes plays the “Marsick” Stradivarius of 1715.

All links to his performances and recordings are linked on his website: https://www.jamesehnes.com/

Aaron Schwebel currently holds the positions of Concertmaster with the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra and Associate Concertmaster with the Canadian Opera Company. Schwebel is a member of the LARK ensemble and Rosebud String Quartet, and is founder/artistic director of Echo Chamber Toronto, a series that merges chamber music and contemporary dance. We talk about his many and varied experiences, in terms of his development and his career. In separate bonus episodes you can hear him play some solo Bach, and we also do a little improv back and forth.

Karen Donnelly is the Principal Trumpet player of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada, and a well-known educator. In this episode, we get to hear Karen's beautiful playing, and I talk to her about her background, her work with the Canadian Women's Brass Collective , some of her unique outreach work and her resilient practice routine!

It's really interesting to hear about Theo Marks' unique upbringing in a family of musicians, and his personal journey to become a violin-family maker. This was recorded when luthier Theo Marks was still living outside of Amsterdam. He now lives in Wakefield Quebec

I was thrilled to have this fascinating conversation with virtuoso violinist Kerson Leong @Kerson Leong , who is as eloquent in his musicality as in the way he talks about music and violin playing. I trust that a broad audience will take inspiration from this wide-ranging discussion. At the beginning, we are treated to an impromptu performance of Ysayë's Allemande from Violin Sonata no. 4.

Episode 6 Season 1 of Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman features violinist Veronica Thomas. She speaks about some of the incredible outreach the unique Préville Fine Arts Centre is doing, of which she is General Director, her experience being on the jury of the Canadian Music Competition, playing in different styles, her unique childhood and more.

We get to hear some beautifully realized traditional tunes from Québec from traditional fiddler Alexis Chartrand. He talks about both groove and ornamentation in different traditional styles of fiddling. He talks very thoughtfully and about his background as a son of dancers, his explorations of tone colour with baroque violin, and some of his musical influences and inspiration.

Patty Chan, erhu player, educator, author and Music Director of the Toronto Chinese Orchestra demonstrates different types of erhus, and talks about different aspects of Chinese traditional music and Chinese orchestras. She performs The River of Sorrow and other well-known tunes.

I speak with Yosuke Kawasaki, the wonderful Concertmaster of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Canada . He talks about the challenges of staying grounded during this pandemic, his experiences studying with Dorothy Delay at both Julliard and Aspen festival, the inspiration he found in many of his peers growing up, and the conversation circles around to his role as concertmaster, and advice for young colleagues playing auditions.

In my very first interview, E1 S1 Kirsty Money introduces us to the nyckelharpa and we learn how she started playing this beautiful and unique instrument. The full transcript is published here, and there are links to both video and podcast, along with bonus episodes. Kirsty performs solo Bach, a traditional Swedish tune and one of her original tunes The Grind Polska during our conversation.

Carissa Kloupoushak is a violinist, singer, Artistic Director of Chamberfest, member of the Ironwood quartet and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. She’s a dynamic, multi-faceted musician who performs a couple of traditional Ukrainian tunes during the interview.