Episode 19 - Season 1 Recap Part 1
Episode 19 is the first of a two-part series recapping all the amazing guests Carrie and Ashley have had on the show so far! Carrie and Ashley will introduce a new DtS team member and then share some of their favorite moments with and about each guest!
These recaps will close out our Season 1 episodes! We will be taking a "break" in July to focus on editing and building our book, but do not fret!!! We will be back and ready to learn with new music, stories, and guests on August 4th! Catch up and listen to any episodes you may have missed, and get ready for August!
In the meantime, if you'd like to support us, consider picking up some Diversify the Stand merch and following us on Facebook and Instagram!
Huge thanks to Trevor Weston and Whitney George for letting us include their music in our intro and outro! Our recording of Weston’s “Fanfare for Changes” opens the podcast, and Ashley’s recording of George’s “Incantations” closes each episode. Visit their websites to learn more about them and their works below!
Full Transcript
Carrie Blosser 0:01
Welcome to Diversify the Stand, the resource centered around listening, learning and promoting diverse musical voices in music through our podcast, website, commissioning projects, and more. I'm Carrie Blosser.
Ashley Killam 0:11
And I'm Ashley Killam. Join us on our journey as we speak to composers, creators, performers, historians, and music educators about the topics important to them and musics’ betterment.
Carrie Blosser 0:33
We will say a huge thank you and welcome to the end of Season One, we're so excited that we have interviewed 18 awesome people, their podcasts are available through all of the streaming services. So make sure you check out our 18 guests that we've had so far. We wanted to share our end of season thoughts from all of our guests and also introduce a new team member.
Ashley Killam 0:57
Welcome Hollyn! We have added a third person, she just reached out to us to see if we had any opportunities to do things. So Hollyn, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and who you are.
Hollyn Slykhuis 1:14
Hi, I'm Hollyn Slykhuis, I'm a Master's student at Longy School of Music of Bard College in Boston. And like Ashley said, I am just really interested in this mission, I think it's really crucial. And I want to do whatever I can to help this cause. I think this is the way forward if music is going to stay relevant. So I want to help push our field in this direction in any way that I can.
Ashley Killam 1:41
Yeah, Hollyn’s helping with our transcripts, if you look on our Patreon at all, they're free to the public. So she has been making those available, getting those done really quick, and is going to be getting into podcast editing. So it's a good time. And we're so excited to have her with us.
Carrie Blosser 2:00
So we wanted to spend a little bit of time just kind of talking about the 18 people that we've interviewed, because I know personally, I have so enjoyed getting to know all of the people we've interviewed and everyone has such a different perspective on the music that they make, the way that they teach, the way that they go, even just, like, through the world. And I think it's such an important—They're great conversations. And for me personally, I found them really important and really like pushing me in a great direction. And so our very first episode was with Cassie. And it was really great because Cassie and Ashley have known each other for a really long time. So it was the first time that I got to meet her. And she has such a great perspective on teaching and strings. And talking about how she's celebrating her students’ history and heritage while also promoting, you know, anti-racist teachings, and, like, thinking about music equity and inclusion. And she's not very old. And I was just like, so inspired by her teaching and her talking. And it was just really awesome to meet her.
Ashley Killam 3:08
It's been really awesome to see her transformation too, because when we started, she and I met in this, like “teach music to just in a variety of settings”, one of our like music education classes, and it was a class where we had to go do field work at a school with all nonverbal students. So we had to like make lesson plans and do all of that. And we were paired up with a nonverbal student. And I didn't know her before then, I'd like seen her in orchestra. And that was about it. And so from there, our friendship built and stayed. And it's been really cool. And all of her work has been paying off, because she's won all of these awards and been seen kind of in just, like, the Illinois music educator scene. And that's been really really awesome.
Carrie Blosser 3:57
And Cassie too, like, was our first person to practice recording our podcast, so she kind of was our demo and our first trial. So we just came up with some questions and she really helped us shape the way the show looks now just by her being her and joining us. So I thought that was— it's really awesome, and again, everyone's super meaningful to me on the show and to Diversify the Stand because they really helped us shape where we are today and how we're moving forward.
Ashley Killam 4:27
And as listeners you all don't know this, but our entire first season we recorded in January, so all 18 episodes. Okay, Cassie’s we got done in December, but the other 17 for this first season was all done in a month because we both had the time and figured why not push out an entire season so, like, maybe 18 seems like a weird number to end a first season but you know, it seemed like a good point. And that's how it is. So we got all of this done. That's not how we're doing it moving forward, we have grown and are learning that that's not super sustainable to force 18 interviews in a month. But it was really fun. And it got us to meet all of these really, really cool voices that were just crazy inspiring, and people that I would have never known, you know, had I not taken the chance to just reach out to them.
Carrie Blosser 5:25
And speaking of inspirational, so the second guest that we had was Mary Elizabeth Bowden, who like, again, as a trumpet player, I have seen her as a performer, and a soloist, and creating all these ensembles, and just doing all these things, and commissioning works, kind of since I've like, we’re, Mary and I are about the same age, but it's, it's pretty much, it's so awesome to see, you know, someone just like really, really actively commissioning and supporting, you know, she's pretty active in, like, the women's brass, through her work, in Seraph and doing all these educational things. I think I remember growing up and like, oh, well, if she could do it, I can do it. And I think that's such a great way to approach, like, your instrument, or, like, your teaching or education, seeing someone who does something similar, and not viewing as a competition, right, because like, we all do our own things. But more is like someone else to like, either, she's so gracious to like, join our podcasts, or she's international soloists, for pete's sake, like, and she was so happy to join us and just awesome. So shout out to Mary for being the best.
Ashley Killam 6:37
And when we launched the book project, it's kind of, it's really nerve wracking, putting something like this, especially when we started crowdfunding this, because we knew we really loved the idea. But when you have a big idea like that, and granted, you know, $10, or $11,000 isn't like the most amount of money ever. But it's a lot when you don't know if you're going to have the support. And so when we ended up interviewing Mary, we talked a lot about this on the side. And having her support, she helped contribute to the project, and just hearing how much she loved the idea we're doing gave us a lot of, just, reassurance that, you know, we do have this really great idea. And seeing even big-name performers looking forward to using this book and teaching their students these new pieces was really, really cool to see
Carrie Blosser 7:24
And spinning off of the book project, and also another fan of Mary Bowden, Marcus Grant was our third guest that we had on. So Marcus is a trumpet performer and an educator, frickin phenomenal human being. And he is writing one of the solos for the commissioning project Ashley was just talking about, so, Marcus is such a, like a warm hearted individual and has such a great perspective on teaching, again, another trumpet player. But I think his desire to teach definitely transcends just one instrument. And he's really passionate about social media and, you know, building a YouTube presence and being a content creator, which, you know, for musicians, I think that we're kind of thrown into this new, you know, different ways, especially during the last year and a half of getting our music out there, providing some meaningful connections. And I think Marcus is just such a great example of that.
Ashley Killam 8:24
We've said that we're going to be Marcus's super fans. When he gets big and famous, you know, we'll be able to say that we knew him before he was big and famous. And our next guest, I was so excited about, because if you've read kind of how Diversify the Stand formed, it started based on a lot of research that I had started doing while I was in my master's. And so my first project was in a course at UNM, and we had to build a recital for our instrument. So when I realized that I didn't know any works by women, I knew one that I thought was by a woman and that was the Pakhmutava concerto. So the first, like, piece I found was Lauren’s concerto. And that, I ended up building my whole recital around and so I just ended up, like, sending her an email, which I thought was horrifying at the time, because I'm like, oh, gosh, like she's this big composer and I'm like this tiny master’s student that's a nobody. And I just reached out to ask if I could, one, that I loved the piece, but two, if I could cut the cadenzas, if I could change some mutes, make a few adjustments, I can make a recording and send it her way. And ever since then, Lauren has been the biggest supporter of everything I've done, of everything DTS is doing. She is just beyond wonderful. She's helped Carrie and I build contracts for composers and give kind of a composer perspective when we're dealing with royalties and cuts and you know, making sure everything we are doing is not, I mean, not only reasonable, but super helpful from a composer perspective. And so that's been really great. Just having her, and her music for any brass players listening, for any string woodwind, she writes a little bit of everything. And it's all amazing, but specifically her brass works are super hard, in the best way. Her trumpet concerto’s so hard, but it's, I think it's personally my favorite piece ever written for trumpet.
Carrie Blosser 10:26
Yeah, I feel like Dr. Lauren Bernofsky is like the gift that keeps on giving, because I think especially like in her podcast episode, and we shared it as, like, her social media quote that I loved how she talked about no one else can write the Bernofsky, in this case, she talked about the Trumpet Concerto, but you know, as composers, and performers, a lot of times we have that, like, imposter syndrome or like, oh, does the world need to hear another “blah”, but I think it's so important to just keep thinking like, no one else is going to play like you. No one else is going to compose like you. No one else is going to do insert whatever you're doing, like you. And I think that's really important, really valid and to me is really helpful, especially when I'm kind of feeling down, like is this you know, like, am I going down the right path as a performer? Like, am I doing things, you know, that my audience is really gonna like? So again, Dr. Lauren Bernofsky, gift that keeps on giving. She's the best. So another person I feel like is the gift that keeps on giving is Dr. Jace Saplan. And we met Jace through mutual friends. He is such a phenomenal music educator, compassionate human, who teaches at University of Hawaii. And we had such a great talk, in the podcast, we don't get to put everything in because we're trying to not give a two hour long podcast because that's a little challenging to listen to in a car ride, especially during this time, but I loved his talk about just, like, being super inclusive, and equitable in music. Jace is doing ACDA Western, he's been coordinating a lot of diversity and inclusion webinars and virtual clinics. And there's such great content there, not just for choral educators, but I think for all educators, and it's free and open to the public. And I have been watching so much of that and just really enjoyed a lot of that information and content and thinking about things from a different perspective.
Ashley Killam 12:26
And he's just so he's the the first interviewee that Carrie and I both did so much research on ahead of time, just because he is so knowledgeable. And we wanted to make sure that, you know, we were equally knowledgeable when we're bringing our thoughts and experiences and opinions into the space. And it was so awesome to kind of compare and contrast experiences in the choral world versus the band world and how just Western culture has shaped where music is now in both, you know, positive ways and not so positive ways. He's just wonderful. And just being able to talk, you know, gender, and talk support, and just really, you can tell just by speaking with him that he thinks so clearly about the space and the atmosphere and the support that he wants to provide in his own, you know, in every rehearsal and every class and he wants to make sure that his students feel supported, and know that they can make decisions for themselves and that everything they choose is valid. And he's got other podcasts. I know he does. I think he's done one or two with the Choral Commons podcast and I highly recommend those. He goes more in depth on certain topics and you just gain— he's a wealth of of knowledge and information. And our next guest —completely different from all of the others. Another one of our composers that we commissioned for the book project. I didn't know Zoe, I came across her name. It was on some Facebook post saying she had written works for brass or trumpet. I just reached out asking if she'd be interested in you know, having this talk. I don't think I have laughed so hard in a podcast. And she was just awesome. Zoe’s a trombone player, but in the podcast recording, we include a chunk of her brass quintet, which she recorded all of the parts and talks about that whole process, and she is just wonderful and just a unique and amazing human being.
Carrie Blosser 14:45
I was really surprised when I listened to Zoe’s recordings because the trumpet parts were, like, really good. And again as a trumpet player, like, they were like really, really good. And I was like, I mean, I could probably get close to that in a recording but it was pretty spot on and then we find out that she was able to record it on trombone and work some digital magic. So that was like super, super cool. But things to me for Zoey that really, like, kind of stuck out is I loved how just absolutely knowledgeable she was about, like, composing in terms of like, copyright, website, and like getting your music out there and doing all this stuff. I think she's such a, like, a savvy business person in the way that she's thinking about things. And I, again, a lot of, I feel like she's a young, younger composer, but she's so knowledgeable and active, and I love her music that she's written so far. And I'm so excited for her trumpet piece that she's written. And I know Ashley and I both have been in contact with her to talk about more works too, because her writing is really cool. Another trumpet friend that we met over COVID, I found all of these, I feel like I have all these million new best friends since like, the last year and a half just because I've had more time to try and really reach out and build some community and find some more people that are doing cool things. I saw on YouTube, Estela Aragon a few months ago, maybe the beginning of COVID, I was trying to think about what I wanted to do, like projects that I wanted to take on, I was like, maybe I should do a YouTube series. And then I look online and I see the Trumpet Headquarters. And Estela has made all of this amazing music education content. And I first saw her there. Then I saw her again promoting a panel of Black women brass players and bringing a bunch of these amazing performers into her personal studio just to kind of, you know, give perspective and talk with her studio, and I thought that was such a meaningful way to bring up some good conversations, to bring together some people, and I knew I was meeting new trumpet players and brass players from around the US that I had never heard of before. And I was so happy to have stumbled upon Estela. She's just a wonderful person and lovely trumpet player and great teacher and just like cool person that I'm so glad to know.
Ashley Killam 17:15
Estela, you're the best. She's also teaching me Spanish now. Yeah, she's just wonderful and Trumpet Headquarters, if you're looking for lessons at all, I highly recommend. She's got such an amazing, well put-together program for all levels of learners and all ages of learners. And another composer I reached out to, I think during COVID, yeah, during the quarantine, but I'd heard about for about a year or so now is Cait Nishimura. And she's a composer known in the band scene a lot, because she's got a lot of work that are those more educational pieces that are great for middle schools, for high schools that, you know, make exciting parts for all of the instruments. And we had an awesome chat with Cait about just sustainability and mental health and flexible pieces and her composing. And she is just wonderful. And a lot of her pieces, she donates a portion of the proceeds back to organizations that really matter to her. And so that's really, really awesome to see and just, you know, makes you feel good about where your purchase is going towards. So Cait was so awesome. And her music is so great. Both Carrie and I have been recommending her Golden Hour, which is a French horn piano piece. She recently arranged it for trumpet and piano. We've been recommending it to every single trumpet player ever that we know to buy it and listen and share it with their students.
Carrie Blosser 18:47
Yeah, and her band works too, are really, really great. And you know, I think she's becoming a pretty well known name in Canada, and I know she's presenting at Midwest this coming year too, which is really awesome. So hopefully, like, more the word will get out about how great a composer she is. And she talks about, like, kind of writing fun music for all the parts that normally get the boring stuff. So I thought that was really nice. When I was teaching middle school, high school band, like my tubists or bass clarinetists, or, you know, the low people always end up with like, just not the most fun parts, especially in like, you know, younger works or like lower, quote unquote, grade level pieces. So yeah, Cait talked a lot about you know, she really writes in this really meaningful way. And like the pieces that she's commissioned to do, and now she takes, you know, she really finds this like, great way to show her voice in the composition and still, like, the performer still has, like, you know, that kind of almost like a relationship with her as a composer while she's playing. So check out her music. Check out her website. I have her stickers. They're amazing. They're super cute. So, Dr. Elizabeth Peterson is someone that I have known her name for quite a while. So Beth does, she has been such a, like, a kind of a pioneer, music educator and band person. And I didn't realize how similar she and I were. She spends her summers in a place that I used to live in Colorado, she grew up in a town where I live now, like, we were surprised, she played the trumpet, I played the trumpet, she was a band director, I was a band director. So it was so funny to finally get to, like, meet her in person, I feel like I'm meeting some of my heroes through the podcast, which is a great way to do it. And I loved kind of hearing about, you know, especially, like, looking in a perspective, she is like, constantly trying to think about, like, how am I, like, shaping and molding and helping the next generation of music educators, which is something I'm really passionate about, too. So thinking about programming, thinking about, like, who is being represented, the music that is being played, how to handle, you know, scenarios where, like, we're finding a lot of pieces have maybe melodies or counter melodies that are woven into pieces, like band pieces, especially, that have history, you know, in minstrel tunes, or like the background is a pretty, you know, oppressive, and not, you know, not something that promotes diversity, and definitely not inclusion, and definitely not equity and not fair treatment. So, it was really great to listen to her talk about how she programs what she's thinking about. And she's just constantly dedicated to that next generation of band director, the current generation, her generation, which is really cool.
Ashley Killam 21:45
I just love seeing, you know, these directors, like, I do a lot of work speaking to colleges and universities and high school classes now. And it's really great to see directors, both, you know, at the high school level and the collegiate level, willing to continue to do the work, realizing that, you know, not all of this was, not all of the resources, not all of this information, the language, not all of that was available, you know, as they were going through school. So they learn one way, and instead of continuing to teach that way, they, you know, evolve their own practices to just make things better for music, and teach in a way that they show their students to have an awareness and to start to question things and know that you don't always have to go about everything the same way. And I'm super thankful that Dr. Mrs was one of my professors at U of I, and both her and Dr. Mr were so wonderful in just providing us a range of pieces, of composers to learn. We always, you know, read through the works and learned about the composers, but it was never this idea of tokenism. It was just, you know, we're gonna play great music. And that's been one thing that's been awesome to see that their program at U of I, and at Ithaca before that, it was always keeping the music first and centering that, but when there were the hard conversations, to have those hard conversations, and that those are necessary to continue moving music forward. And after Dr. Mrs., we interviewed my current boss, Allyssa Jones, who I met while doing some volunteer work for the Institute for Composer Diversity. And she and I ended up both leaving to start Rising Tide Music Press, she asked me to help her found a music publishing company. And I was like, I have no idea how to do that, but great! Can't be that hard, we'll make it happen. And Rising Tide is all about publishing works of emerging Black, brown, Indigenous and Asian composers and creators in their first decade. So some of the times this may be, you know, composers just out of school, sometimes this may be composers that had a career change, because Allyssa had spent so many years in the education field, and she took what she calls her “leap of faith” to get back into songwriting and get back into performing and composing and doing the things she loved, but that she felt, you know, as someone further down in their career, there wasn't a space for her, publishing-wise, a space to hold her music. And so she wanted to create that space. And so by the time this podcast launches, the following month, so it's Wednesday, July, 14th. Yeah, July 14. Rising Tide is hosting our first summer event. And I invite anyone listening to this to check that out. And we'll link it in the podcast description too. It's just a one day, little retreat all day that includes four or five different panels to just unpack these topics that as a Black woman, she has been dealing with her entire life. Topics like, you know, how do you have these tough conversations when people don't want BBIA voices in their music. I know I'm moderating a panel about diversifying your stand and about creating this inclusion in your classroom. There's a panel with all of the current composers for Rising Tide, who are, you know, they're on a wide range of backgrounds, and I think we've got four different countries of composers represented. They're at different stages in their careers, different ages, and they all have some really great music, and Allyssa is putting on a few presentations that she's giving. There's a couple concerts throughout the day. And so Rising Tide is a really, really cool space. And she does this alongside consulting and alongside, you know, having her own podcast and doing all of these amazing things. And she actually just won the Sphinx Tank grant, which gives her as the founder of Rising Tide $15,000 to continue to expand and grow the program, and connect to more educators and put on more opportunities. So you get to hear about all of that by just registering, checking out the event, and being a part of that, that she puts on.
Carrie Blosser 26:27
I remember during our podcast episode with Allyssa she wanted listeners to be inspired to take a leap, no matter how small, and I think that's such an important thing. We again, I've talked about imposter syndrome and like how, you know, like, we are our own voices and we are important. And I think Alyssa is a really good example of someone who took a leap. And I think the work that she's doing is really meaningful. And starting a publishing company, because you see the need, right? Like we're in a time where there are like, you will see a gap either—not to sound overly market-y, but in the market, you know, you see either your voice not being there, or you see something that needs like change that needs to happen or something that you want to do personally. And I think she kind of issued that challenge to us as Diversify the Stand, as both Ashley and Carrie, and also to everyone listening. So take her up on her on her offer. Take a leap.
Ashley Killam 27:22
Thanks so much for listening to Part One. This was kind of our first half-ish of all of our guests. Make sure you tune in next week to hear the second half of our season, kind of what we thought of all of our guests and, you know, our recap and where we want to take all of our projects in the future for DTS. Thank you so much for listening to Diversify the Stand. I am Ashley.
Carrie Blosser 27:47
And I'm Carrie. If you'd like to support us and our projects, check out our Patreon www.patreon.com/diversify_the_stand. Also, the link is in our podcast description.
Ashley Killam 28:03
And 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's Incantations for trumpet and piano. Both composers’ websites are also listed in the description.
Carrie Blosser 28:21
Until next time, what's on your stand?