Episode 2.15 - Dr. Kaitlin Bove
Episode 15 features Dr. Kaitlin Bove, Director of Band at Pierce College and Founder of ...And We Were Heard. We talk with Kaitlin about her teaching career, ...And We Were Heard, and her current breast cancer journey. Transcripts to all podcast episodes are created by Hollyn Slykhuis and are posted below!
To learn more about Kaitlin and the resources and groups she recommended, check out the links below!
Girls Who Conduct Mentorship program application open through Dec 31
Full Transcript
Carrie Blosser 0:03
Welcome to Diversify the Stand. Together we build a community to listen and learn from the stories and experiences of passionate musicians. I'm Carrie Blosser.
Ashley Killam 0:12
And I'm Ashley Killam. In our second season, we talk with musicians, performers, educators, historians, and entrepreneurs to expand how we think of the music we perform and follow non-traditional career paths. Today for Episode 15, we're joined by Dr. Kaitlin Bove, Director of Instrumental Ensembles and Assistant Professor of Music at Pierce College in Washington. She's also the founder of And We Were Heard, an initiative that matches underrepresented composers with volunteer bands and orchestras to create really high quality recordings.
Carrie Blosser 0:46
Well, thank you so much for joining us.
Kaitlin Bove 0:48
Thank you.
Carrie Blosser 0:49
We wanted to get started and ask how you first got involved with music.
Kaitlin Bove 0:54
I was the oldest of three kids and I did not come from a musical home, but in fourth grade, I think paperwork was sent home to start in band or orchestra. And I remember really wanting to play the violin, but I think my mother thought that would be too screechy to hear practiced at home as a beginner, so she picked flute for me. And I ended up in beginning band. And I was okay the first year and went home over the summer, didn't practice at all, because no one told me to, came back in fifth grade, had completely forgotten everything. I don't recall there being any review, so I faked my entire fifth grade, just holding it up at the right time and putting it down and never actually playing. And for some reason, I just kept with it when I moved on to middle school, and kind of got into remedial band, and had the best time with that just weird group of kids who were all in remedial band together. And I was thinking to myself, I'm having so much fun. How can I still have this much fun even after I graduate from, you know, this experience and I figured, oh, I can be that guy, I can be my band director. So I decided in, like, sixth grade, like I was 11, maybe, that I wanted to be a band director because I just enjoyed the class so much. It all just went from there.
Ashley Killam 2:12
And then now here you are doing that thing and doing all this really great work with a bunch of different groups. I know I heard about your name through Christian Michael Folk and through And We Were Heard, and we wanted to know how And We Were Heard got started, and can you just talk a little bit about the work you do pairing pieces with ensembles?
Kaitlin Bove 2:38
Yeah, so we got started back in 2018. And, you know, as most positive things occur, it resulted from a fight over the internet, where we had a couple friends of mine, it was on a Saturday in the fall—so I was completely outside of the fight because I was, you know, 14 hour marching band day at University of Kentucky while I was in grad school. But I came home and noticed that a fight had occurred on Facebook. And it was between kind of two groups of people on a post where a band director had posted, oh, here's all the repertoire I programmed for my five high school bands for the entire year, I've really got, you know, a good start on this. I'm really excited about the music. And they had posted all of the music. And it was great repertoire. But another friend had just kind of put a little sneaky comment in there. And it just said, “What, no women?” And it was true. If you look at all of the pieces that had been programmed for the entire season for five bands, at a high school, every single piece was by a man, and I can't remember off the top of my head now if it was all white men or not. But it was just, it was standard, great, well-known repertoire that just happened to all be by men. And the fight that ensued was based on just, you know, that that very old back and forth between whether or not the composer's demographic matters in the music, if the repertoire is just quality as it is does it matter? What difference would that make? And the original poster approached me the next day, he’s like, “Hey, did you see that fight?” It's like, yeah, it's like, hey, what’d you think, wasn't the person who came after me kind of mean? I'm like, no, they were right. And he kind of backed it up. He said, well, you know, I really did actually try to find some pieces by women. But every time I'd even locate a female composer, I'd go to her website, and either I couldn't listen to her music or I couldn't see a score, or it was just really hard to navigate. And I just didn't have time to get into it. And I wasn't sure if just buying a piece based off its title and description if it was going to work for my group. And I said, you know what, like, that's true. That's something that's really hard for us as directors. How much time do we have? The answer is none. But how much time do we really have to go out there and discover new music that's not just kind of being force fed to us or recommended to us. And so my whole thought was, well, let's just stop fighting about it and fix the problem, maybe, huh? So if there are groups out there that want to be playing music and repertoire by more diverse composers, and they just can't find it, well, let's make it available. And not only let's make it available, but let's get those recordings made by those very same groups. And it just occurred to me like, if the composers want the music recorded, and the ensembles want to play the music, like, this could just be a free exchange. And I hate money, you know, which is perfect, because I'm a band director. But I just figured if this is an organization that can focus on just a free exchange of labor and materials, where these ensembles are recording the music for the composers that need that recorded, then everybody gets something out of it. And we can, as the organization, also put that music out with the reference recordings on our website and kind of be a little bit of a one stop shop for people who are interested in finding music by diverse composers, because even when you go into those big publisher, distributor websites, a lot of music is not filtered that way, you can't find it, it's not being put on the editor’s lists, it's not being advertised, and it's really, really challenging to find. So our website's not comprehensive by any means. But posting all of our recordings at least does inspire people, get them into, oh, that's a new composer, so maybe now I can go on their website and find more pieces by them. And just getting to know them a little bit better, as well.
Carrie Blosser 6:34
It's a really fantastic resource. And I know Ashley and I both have been steering people your direction. And some of the, like, the resource list, too, has been really good. I play in a military band, so I have been sending pieces to them to diversify the repertoire that we play, because, you know, military bands play a lot of old dead white guy music. So it's nice to be like, oh, you want a Shenandoah piece? Here are, like, five from composers from all different backgrounds, and the meanings are different, which is fantastic.
Kaitlin Bove 7:06
Yeah, exactly. It's something that people don't realize is that, yes, a composer’s demographic does matter, because their experiences are going to inform the music and the program note. Also, when you're programming more diversely, the chances that you're working with a living composer are a little bit higher, and the opportunity to work with them and collaborate on a performance or a premiere or anything like that is really, really powerful.
Carrie Blosser 7:31
Yeah, absolutely. Kind of spinning into the next thing, so you teach at a university and you’re a college professor, could you talk about, as probably exactly what you were just saying, like, the advocacy work that you do with And We Were Heard, how does that translate into the courses that you teach and the ensembles that you conduct, and then the students that you're kind of sending off into the world as the future directors of bands and choirs and orchestra all over the country?
Kaitlin Bove 7:54
Thanks. Yeah, so I actually teach at a junior college, which is, I think, a position that's really challenging, but also really rewarding, because you're working with a lot of students who maybe aren't coming through the system with, like, these perfect steps in place to come out of a university in a four year experience, and have all the resources kind of perfectly in place along the way. So having an opportunity to work with students who are coming from really diverse or even challenging backgrounds, while they're in that that two year setting before they do transfer to a university has been really rewarding for me to not only help them kind of solidify their own ideas of their career paths moving into the future, but also their philosophies about what they want to be doing with their time there and to offer them a lot of resources about contemporary classical music, contemporary academic music, who are we serving? What are we serving? And how are we doing it? So in our school, I work with our band and our orchestra. I also work with a group that I've titled The Hybrid Ensemble, which is essentially just the students out of our band and orchestra since we are a community college, we have community members, adults who come in and play with each of the large ensembles, the traditional groups. But between those, using my knowledge of repertoire that I've gained from just doing a lot of work with And We Were Heard has been great to be able to just diversify our programs but also to get to know the music better and bring the ideas of the composers into the rehearsals, into the concerts more. It's also made me as, you know, a younger director more comfortable with working with composers, so I don't have any qualms at this point about reaching out to composers and trying to set up fun projects or have them come into my classroom, whether that's in person or via zoom, to talk with my students or to talk with our ensembles. I think, right before the pandemic, we had Giovanni Santos doing a zoom clinic with us on his piece Three Latin American Dances. And it was the first time most of my adult community members had ever worked with the composer on a piece before. And so that was really rewarding and valuable. And then in my other classes, I teach music theory, I teach some general elective music courses as well, I'm really focusing on how can we make this as relevant to students as possible? How, when I'm working with those general education students who are maybe only taking one or two music classes in their college career, how can I try to maybe help them to be more intentional and aware about the things that are going on in music and the music they're consuming? And, you know, try to get them to be more passionate about supporting musicians and going to live concerts and, you know, expanding the genres that they're listening to you and things like that. So, yeah, I think in a lot of ways, it's put me in a position where I can be comfortable doing that, because I have, at this point, a lot of knowledge and experience in those areas.
Ashley Killam 11:07
I know the reaching out to composers thing was something I used to get so nervous about, because it was like, oh, composers are this, like, other entity. And after reaching out and just chatting with them, it's like, oh, no, they're actually just people that really like their music played.
Kaitlin Bove 11:23
Yeah, I think the composer—and I apologize if this is not the right person I'm thinking of, but—Viet Cuong said at one point, he's like, composing is very lonely, so we love it when you reach out and say hi, because that gives us, you know, some socialization that we need.
Carrie Blosser 11:39
Ashley started a group chat with myself, her, and Lauren Bernofsky, who, like, I just, I put her on this, like, this person that I would never ever chat with. And we have this group chat in Facebook, and it's the funniest thing ever. She's another person that's really great about kind of, like, looking out in the world and being like, oh, notice, you don't have any non-dudes on your panel for whatever. It's really nice to see, like, if everyone is looking at the programming, not just in the music you're playing, but the clinicians you're bringing in, or the guest artists, like, it's such an impactful thing. We would love to hear a little bit about, I know as someone who is another doctor, that dissertations projects take up a lot of your time. So it's always nice to be able to talk about things that we worked on, so tell us all about your dissertation and how you picked it.
Kaitlin Bove 12:31
Yeah, so I did my doctorate in wind conducting. So part of that is a, some sort of project and dissertation. And most people in my studio tend to select a huge piece to do an analysis on. And so kind of, you're always, you have your eyes on the radar, like, oh, there's a new piece coming out, I'm gonna grab that, that's gonna be the piece that I analyze. And that's really cool and valuable. But for me, like, I don't know, it felt a little bit boring to me? I don't know. That's not, that's a very subjective thing, like, to me, it was just like, oh, I don't want to do that. It's gonna be very boring. So I wanted to do something that felt a little bit more tangible, like something with, rather than just a companion document, sort of an original project. And I've been transcribing and arranging since middle school, and doing that for my high school pep band, my college pep band, all the groups that I worked with when I was a junior high and high school teacher, marching band, things like that. So I thought that wow, well, what if I do a transcription, and knowing in the first year of my doctorate that, you know, there wasn't a whole lot of music out in the wind band repertoire by women, ratio-wise, that okay, I picked a rubric and I said, I want to find a piece to transcribe by a living female composer who did not yet have music in the band repertoire yet, figuring that if I wrote the transcription that might inspire her eventually, at some point, to take a band commission at some point, and, her being living, I could actually get feedback from her and work with her a little bit in the process, interview and things like that. So I started with that rubric. And then I just started listening and I wasn't finding anything for weeks. I was doing lots and lots of listening. Just this doesn't work, that doesn't work, this almost works, ooh, maybe this but not, and finally started focusing on the Pulitzer Prize winning pieces, which if you look back since the Pulitzer Prize has been in existence for music, there's only, like, less than 10 women have ever won it or been runners up. So I just started listening to all those. And when I got to back to 2013, because I was going backwards chronologically, I listened to the Roomful of Teeth recording of Caroline Shaw's Partita for Eight Voices, which is a four movement, 26 minute piece based on a Baroque dance suite, but in eight a capella voices, and the voices are doing some really eclectic, interesting, strange, proprietary, and world techniques to achieve the sounds that they create. And the majority of it does not have lyrics. So it's just mostly sound using a voice almost as an instrument. And when I heard that, I said, aha, we're using the wind of a voice as if it was a wind instrument, that would be perfect crossover. So I emailed Caroline, just, you know, hey, can I do this project? And not really expecting to hear back from her at first, I was thinking like, okay, who would I email next after I don't hear from her? And she got back to me in, like, two days and was like, yeah, sure. Here's the score. It was insane, but that's because of how wonderful she is. She's just this amazing person who has, you know, she's so humble. And she has like, so little pride. She's like the least diva composer you would ever meet. So she was just really excited about the project and let me do it. And I got started that first year, actually just kind of looking at the sketch and everything like that. And then in my second year, I actually completed it, I did a reading session with the University of Kentucky Wind Symphony in January of 2019. Fixed some things, because the biggest issue with that project is, you know, they're doing some strange things with their voices in the original. And so the biggest question was, how do we recreate those sounds using only wind instruments and percussion, and doing so in a way that sounds authentic. So there was a lot of experimentation that was happening. And one thing that I wanted to do to bring Caroline's voice over into the wind band arena, which she had done in some chamber ensemble pieces, is flower pots. She uses a lot of flower pots in various percussion ensemble work or other chamber pieces. So I actually brought the flower pots in to the percussion, and they kept breaking. It was the winter, so I couldn't find any that, like, didn't already have cracks in them, and the minute they would go to hit them, it would, like, explode. Yeah, so that was kind of traumatic. I probably went to the hardware store, I don't know, six or seven times to get new pots. We eventually got started using plates, too, because the plates under the pots, those don't break as much. But yeah, it went great. We had the premiere in March of 2019. Caroline did watch the live stream, and she was very happy about it. And Murphy Music Press published it for us. So it is available for repeat play, although it was published right before the pandemic, so I'm not sure if it kind of, you know, got put in a little mausoleum or not, we'll see if it ever comes back around. But yeah, I'm really proud of the piece and the work that it took to accomplish it. My companion document is just kind of describing the process and also describing what a composer does in their process that maybe a conductor can reflect on, and then vice versa when a conductor is writing a transcription what we can learn through that process that makes us better conductors.
Carrie Blosser 18:14
And we're going to share a clip of your transcription of Caroline Shaw’s Partida for Eight Voices.
Ashley Killam 18:19
A question that was kind of your dealer's choice question that you got to choose here: Through social media this year, you shared your experience with cancer, which isn't an event we hear about all the time, especially with, you know, someone being really open, but it's something that so many people and so many women deal with all the time. We'd love for you to talk kind of about your experience and how it's impacted you and the people around you, you know, with all that you do.
Kaitlin Bove 24:50
Yeah, thanks. I've had breast cancer probably for three or four years at this point, because I actually found a lump myself, again, back in grad school, lots of stuff happened in Kentucky, and went into the doctors at the university there to be like, hey, what's this, and they told me, “Nothing, go home.” Didn't test me or anything. And part of it, I imagine, was that I was a student and 31 at the time. So I believed them, you know. I think I have a little less trust for doctors now knowing that it was actually something, but at the time, I believed them, and I thought I was fine. And I feel great. I've felt great this whole time. So I was always thinking to myself, don't people with cancer feel sick? I don't have cancer, this is fine. So you know, a few years went by and back in January of this year, it felt like it was starting to get a little bigger, the lump that I had felt, that had just kind of stayed the same size for about three years. And so during the pandemic, the process to kind of get in and get tested was extensive. I think it took 12 weeks between me calling for an appointment and finally getting a biopsy result, but biopsy results did come back positive. And I think I was I was like, ha, okay, didn't really feel anything. And they started talking me through the process of what the next steps would be. I think the only time I started to get upset was that certain treatments would risk fertility, because I am 34 and don't have children yet, and would love to someday. So that part stresses me out a bit, but I haven't really been freaked out about anything cancer-related, I suppose, this whole time. And I have had two lumpectomies, at this point, which were three weeks apart, which was pretty major to recover from. The first surgery was fine. Second surgery was actually easier, but two back-to -back like that, ooh, it takes a lot out of you. And so I'm very grateful it happened over the summer, and that my job was convenient enough that I could take the time to recover while still teaching online classes. And yeah, it's a lot going to appointments, I still have radiation coming up, which is supposed to be every day of the week, I think for about a month. And then following that going on some hormone therapy, which may give me some interesting side effects. So my idea is just, you know, I already have this, I already have the disease. And so just trying to stay positive and do the best that I can do a lot of research on my own, which I don't think my doctors appreciate, but I feel more comfortable when I'm doing that. And yeah, moving forward, just logging my symptoms just to keep track of, you know, what's going on for me, especially if they're symptoms that are, you know, more general body or cognitive symptoms, so I can just really try to keep track. I'm sleeping more, which is probably good for myself, you know, I'm just trying to, like, force myself into bed, even if I'm just, like, laying there resting, like in my little comatose position, like, resting, resting, resting, don't get out of bed yet. So I've tried to do that, to focus on just general health, drinking more water, all that good stuff, eating more organic. Potentially, it could have been an IUD, as well, that gave me the cancer, possibly. So just kind of looking at things that in my health in my past that I can change to try to stay as healthy as I can moving forward. But yeah, what I have learned is it's challenging as a woman in the medical system to get listened to, to get told what you're going through. Sometimes I think doctors think, like, oh, you don't need to know, like, everything about what's happening here. But, so just really focusing on advocating for myself. And so that's the advice I would give, is just advocate for yourself, know when there's something wrong in your body, like, don't take no as an answer. And yeah, one in eight women will have some sort of breast cancer diagnosis in their lives. So it's a lot of us and I'm feeling okay, and I'm not worried. But yeah, it's been a kind of pause and put on the brakes and reevaluate my life and my lifestyle, which was really healthy. And probably it's why I had a tumor for three years and I'm fine, was just from being healthy to begin with. But yeah, in terms of looking forward at my career, at music, at And We Were Heard, it hasn't really changed much about that other than just feeling like, okay, what I'm doing is important, so I’ve got to make sure that I can stay healthy to continue doing that.
Carrie Blosser 29:30
I thought it was really amazing too—Well, thank you for sharing all of that with us. And the reason that we kind of came up with this question, and we did give you the option to not, you know, like, we wanted this to be, like, a choice of yours right? This is your personal medical stuff and you don't need to share it with anyone, it is yours, but there's so many people that, like, commented on, like, your Instagram and Facebook being like, oh my gosh, this happened to me too, or oh my gosh, this happened to my friend and no one believed them or like, like so many people. I feel like it resonated with a lot of people because it's not something we talk about. And again, when you're in, like, you know, younger, you're not used to seeing cancer and someone that's young.
Kaitlin Bove 30:06
Right. Yeah. Well, and joining lots of groups now, I'm seeing women in their 20s and women my age, like, there's lots of people out there with it. And so yeah, just know your boobs. It's October, well, it was almost October 1st, but they say check on the 1st, you know, that's a good time to just check yourself, do a manual exam, and go in if something's different, because I did, and I got told no the first time, but I should have maybe followed up with somebody else and would have had been treated a little bit earlier. I don't think it affected my prognosis long-term, but other people that might not be the case.
Carrie Blosser 30:42
Add this to the diversifying our stands and check your boobs. Yep, check your boobs, practice your sales. Everything's great. There's a few things that you have kind of going on right now, too. We'd love to talk about any projects that you're working on currently.
Kaitlin Bove 30:57
Great. Yeah, so I also work with a organization called Girls Who Conduct that focuses on gender parity on the podium, focusing on mentoring young women and non-binary musicians who have an interest or just have questions about what it is to be a conductor. So we have a mentorship program that will be running in February and March of 2022. And the application for that mentorship program is now open on our website, which is girlswhoconduct.org, and that will be open through December 31. Last year, the year we started, we took teacher recommendations, but this year, we're opening it up so anyone can apply. And it's a great mentorship program. It'll feature six or seven mentors working with our participants for six weeks, focusing on conducting basics, whatever level that the mentee is at. Also, career development, focusing on helping their resumes, which that's a huge thing. We're trying to support a really polished professional resume. So that's coming up. I also will be presenting at the Midwest clinic so I have a—Whoo, yeah, Midwest. I’m very excited. We're going to be back this year after a year off. But I will be presenting with my colleagues Cliff Croomes, Ben Lorenzo and Kelvin Jones on creating a student centered music program, so really focusing on getting to know your kids, your students in your program, who they are, what their demographics are, and then making sure that they're feeling reflected in the program, in the repertoire. Lots of just ways to connect with the 21st century music student, that'll be 8am on Friday, if you're up that early. And also happening at 8am on Friday is going to be the world premiere of a piece that I commissioned, that is going to be performed by the Eastern Wind Symphony, which will be—their concert is taking place at the same time I'm presenting—but it's Allison Loggins-Hull and the piece is called The Loop. So we programmed a piece during the pandemic thinking that as we left the pandemic, we still might have need for flexible ensemble music. So the piece is a piece for wind band in five part flex with open adlib kind of percussion, and a electronic track. It's based on sounds of Chicago. So that's why it's called The Loop after the the Metro, the train there. And it also reflects Allison's background and heritage. She's from Chicago, and she had several generations of her family there as well. It's a really cool piece, it kind of has a house beat to it, because house music in Chicago. And so I just think it's hitting a lot of cool boxes that aren't necessarily touched in wind band music with kind of the pop feeling to it, the fact that it's five part flex, and there's two difficulty levels for each of the five parts. So you could play this with a more advanced group, a younger group, a group that has mixed ability levels, or you could put together different groups for, like, let's say, a recruitment concert at a college with a high school band or something like that. So I really like how it turned out. I think it's an awesome piece. And I'm really excited that it's going to be premiered at Midwest. And yeah, those are some of the cool projects coming up.
Ashley Killam 34:27
Great. I think that's one of the biggest positives to come out of the pandemic. It's opening up so many doors for—but especially, like, I think of all the, like, small town groups, like the groups that I conducted when I student taught and it was like you had—
Kaitlin Bove 34:41
Yeah, and I honestly think, you know, when we say “ideal instrumentation,” who decided that, you know, and what kind of privilege you have to have “ideal instrumentation,” and that also generally implies that you're kicking people out of your group to achieve it. Perfect instrumentation, if you will. So what I really love about flex, too, is that it's just not only for the groups that they can never have the perfect number of clarinets or trumpets or percussion, or whatever. But that we can play that type of music with any instrumentation, and it's going to sound good. And that's, I think that is a lot more inclusive.
Ashley Killam 35:22
Definitely. And it's such a cool opportunity for the composers and the arrangers. We talked to Cait Nishimura about this and composing for something that you don't necessarily know, like, the full end result, because it'll be different each time.
Kaitlin Bove 35:36
Well, and we are really bringing things, like, full circle in terms of the before the established instrumentations in the Renaissance era, especially in Baroque era to an extent of just okay, this is the orchestra, whoever showed up. So I kind of like that, hey, we've done this before. And it was great. Let's do it again.
Ashley Killam 35:55
Yeah, definitely. Our final question for you that we ask everyone is what's on your music stand this week? And how are you diversifying your stand, whether it be physical or metaphorical stand?
Kaitlin Bove 36:09
Since I do band, orchestra, and our hybrid flexible ensemble, I'll do one for each. So in band, I am really loving Haley Woodrow’s In Two Places, it's about a grade four. And it's just, it's really sweet and hopeful and uplifting, and has this really fun percolating, optimistic energy to it. So I programmed that for our band, so that we would really just have something fun and optimistic back on our program after a year and a half off, because our community members were sent home until just last week. For orchestra, I’ve programmed Vivian Fung’s Pizzacato for Strings, which is, I think she wrote it in 2001. And it's got a pretty cool contemporary vibe to it. It's got some shifting time signatures, and some back and forth hocketing of the rhythms and the melodic lines, and I'm really loving the energy of that one as well. And for our hybrid ensemble group, I've programmed Roger Zare’s December Lullaby, which I did reach out to him and say, hey, Roger, you have this for orchestra, you have this for flex band, can you add string parts to the flex band, because I have strings in my “flex band”? And he was like, yeah, sure. And he, like, sent it to me an hour later. So that’s again why I just love working with composers. They're so awesome. But it's a beautiful piece. And it's a great secular, non-religious winter, like, holiday, the celebrating of winter kind of piece, which my students actually really appreciate, too. They're like, can we not do all Christmas music. And I'm like, of course, here's December Lullaby. So that's one of our non-Christmasy pieces. And it's just a great piece as well. So those are some pieces that I'm working on right now with my groups. And as far as how I diversify my stand is, I tend to think thematically of programs, what I want to put together, but then I just keep a really long list of pieces on my radar of pieces that I want to be doing by diverse composers. And so when I select a theme, usually based on one piece by a diverse composer that I want to make sure gets on the program, then I start looking through that long list to decide what else will fit. And then when I have, you know, maybe half the program solidified, then I just open it up and it’s just, okay, what else, what other stuff do I know? And I can fill the rest of the program pretty easily. So I have found that programming with diversity in mind first helps you to make sure that it stays on the program. And if you are focusing on, you know, a very rigid theme, or really huge pieces by white male composers, and making sure that you get all of that on your program first, and you only have one or two spots left for diverse composers, it might be really, really challenging to find the perfect thing that's gonna fit, especially if you're not constantly doing the research. So doing that backwards is a great way of doing that. And I think Tonya Mitchell-Spradlin, who's at Penn State, the band director at Penn State, she was the first one that kind of put it succinctly like that. And I was like, oh, yeah, genius. So I do it that way, too, now.
Carrie Blosser 39:29
That's great. Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us.
Kaitlin Bove 39:32
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Ashley Killam 39:35
Thank you for listening to Diversify the Stand. I'm Ashley.
Carrie Blosser 39:38
And I'm Carrie. If you'd like to support us and our projects, find us on social media and visit our website. We now have a store where you can pick up some Diversify the Stand gear.
Ashley Killam 39:47
And as always, a huge thank you to Trevor Weston and Whitney George for allowing us to use their compositions in our podcast. The musical introduction is Trevor's trumpet duet Fanfare for Changes, and the ending music is Whitney Incantations for trumpet and piano. Both composers’ websites are listed in the podcast description.
Carrie Blosser 40:05
Until next week, what's on your stand?