Episode 2.21 - Season 2 Recap Part 2
Episode 21 is the second of our two-part recap, where we say nice things about our guests and talk about what we learned this season!
These recaps will end our second season! The third season will drop every Wednesday beginning in February 2022, so catch up on all our episodes and keep your eyes out for new episodes in February!
In the meantime, if you'd like to support us, consider picking up some Diversify the Stand merch or getting yourself a copy of Winds of Change, and following us on Facebook and Instagram!
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. Welcome back to recap part two, Ashley and Carrie say nice things about the guests that we interviewed on our podcast this season. Yeah, we are so excited to talk more about kind of what we learned throughout the season with some super incredible guests. So we are going to start with Episode 10, which was with Ashleigh Gordon, Ashleigh and Anthony Green, who we talked about last week, co-founded Castle of our Skins together. She teaches at Longy in Boston, where Hollyn goes to school. So again, all of these, like, crazy connections, connecting all of our people. And Ashleigh does a lot of work with education on African diaspora, African diasporic composers. She teaches some classes at Longy based on all of her research, builds relationships, both with Castle of our Skins and the work that she does playing viola. Player, educator, activist, performer, a little bit of everything. And so she was someone that we definitely wanted to chat with. And she talked to us a lot about how to best set up a practice, avoiding tokenism, how to make sure that everything, you know, we do as educators and performers is gone about in the best way. So we're not just checking these boxes, we're not just being performative. I think it's a really great conversation that every performer and educator should listen to, to get her thoughts and advice. I think there's really great ways to go about it. And we've seen that in some of these organizations that have popped up. But I also think there are larger organizations that have been very performative. And as we move, you know, hopefully one day move out of a pandemic/make our life, figure out this normal. As we move back into live music, as we move back into programming, making sure we're going to easily be able to tell what organizations are performative and which are not as we see the programming popping up, as we see panels popping up, as we see conferences popping up. And what do those panelists look like? What do the composers look like on our programs? Because through the past year, diversity, equity, and inclusion have been three really big buzzwords that, especially large organizations have wanted to, like, stay in on, stay trendy with. And now it's going to be, you know, do they continue to make the lasting change? Do they continue to make this part of their practice? Or was it just part of a trend and now, we move back into how music always was?
Carrie Blosser 3:01
Ashleigh Gordon, since I guess we have two Ashleigh/Ashley’s that are possible here. But Ashleigh Gordon, I was absolutely so excited and a little nervous to chat with her. I have so much respect for both her and Anthony Green and starting Castle of our Skins. Ashley Killam and I both know how challenging it is to start a group and how to get funding and how to, you know, try and make some change and, you know, create some good connections. And I remember Ashleigh Gordon was talking about how she and Anthony Green were trying to kind of continue to support each other—they had met when they were doing their masters together, I believe. But they, you know, had to collaborate together there. And they wanted to continue to support each other through future projects and Castle of our Skins kind of was part of that outcropping, outgrowing of their relationship, which I think there's a lot to be said when you're doing something and you find someone else that's also passionate about it, you can make a lot of change. And Ashley Killam was talking about, you know, I think we're gonna see in the next few years what, you know, how committed really are, you know, large groups and organizations to diversifying their stands and, you know, making sure that we're not tokenizing composers just because they are, you know, look a certain way or live a certain way. You know, we need, like, that intentional-ness needs to continue because the music is fantastic. And we don't need to keep playing the same pieces that we've played for the last 100 years. No offense, there's a lot of Beethoven out there. Program one, move on, let's go. There's tons of recordings. Not trying to hate on specifically Beethoven, but, you know, just, there's so many great pieces out there and so many great works, and we can make changes right now and continue to make them, so hats off to Ashleigh Gordon and Anthony Green for really making that change and supporting composers. They did a fantastic—not to, like, gush too much of Castle of our skins—but they did this really awesome Black poet miniature challenge last month through their Instagram. And there are a lot of just really beautiful poems and poetry, just very short, you know, very comprehensible really just, like, powerful poems. They're doing a composer, like, a short miniature composition thing right now their Instagram, too. So make sure you check that out too, because there’s just some really great pieces. And some, like those small things I feel like can really create a lot of momentum and change. And again, continuing the dedication to, you know, not just using diversity, equity, inclusion as a token, you know, what, like, substantial change for the future.
Ashley Killam 5:44
And kudos to them because Castle of our Skins, they're in their ninth season now. And apparently, she wasn't able to tell us all of the things, but they have some big stuff planned for their 10th season. So I know we at Diversify the Stand are going to be following along with them and supporting all of the things that Castle of our Skins does, because they're just an incredible group that we are really passionate in supporting and following. And now they're our friends. And yeah, we have friends in really cool places now, which is great. And then hopping the pond back to the UK to talk with Dr. Angela Elizabeth Slater, who we mentioned because she knows Lara Poe. And Angela was another, kind of like Ciara, who was a flute player and then switched to oboe. Angela was a flute player, and then had the decision that many musicians face on do I go into music as a career for university? Or do I go into something “more stable.” And she went the more stable route. And I think it was, like, pharmacy it was in the, like, pharmacy division that she started and she got a semester or so in, and then had a revelation that the one thing she was missing was music. And so she went back and completely changed careers and went into music, which I know a lot of us face, like, do we, did we take the right route? I know I've asked myself that so many times. The what ifs? And the “did I make the right call?” So I think it's neat to hear stories about someone who did go the other route and came back to music. So it was cool to hear her story. She also started Illuminate Women's Music, which is a whole concert series. Now they're back in person where it's creating these inclusive programs that connect historical, like, works by historical women to current women composers. And so I think it's really neat, these programs they've been able to put on and the composer's that they've been able to bring in and support and commission has been really cool to put on across the UK.
Carrie Blosser 7:51
Yeah, I remember Angela talking—well, first of all, I remember she, like, Ashley was mentioning with, you know, kind of as she had started pharmacy school at university, and she came home I think to visit her parents on the weekend, sat down at the piano, played a little bit and, like, burst into tears being like, I can't, like, I miss music so much, like, I can't do this. And I, yeah, sometimes I feel that really hard. I think about that, like, actually maybe, like, once a month, like, sometimes music’s just so powerful when you try and do something else you, like, you know, you get, like , emotions come out because you miss it so much, which I thought was just a pretty powerful thing. And pretty clear indicator, like, this, like, the music path was the path for sure. But I also remember, Angela was talking about, too, and a few other composers have mentioned this before that, you know, she's been super successful and has done a lot of kind of, like, working at Tanglewood and doing a few other kind of, like, seminars and kind of, like, intensive compositional residencies. But, you know, often, you know, she talked on the podcast about she would be, like, the token woman, like, one of the only women that's there, and that's such a challenging, you know, person. I know myself as being a trumpet player, you know, very rarely are there any other, like, women or non-binary people in trumpet sections. Like you just don't have, like, there's always, like, a token person, so that's, I think that was kind of, like, the start and the kind of spark for Illuminate Women's Music. Kind of, like, getting rid of that, like, that trying to support other, you know, women composers, and to not be just, like, the one person that is like this in a group. Again, it's that kind of like, finding other people that match, you know, what you're looking to do in the future and support each other, just like Castle of our Skins did together, just like Illuminate Women's Music. Those are just those collaborations that you can start and really support each other, I think are really, really cool. And Angela wrote a really cool piece for our Winds of Change trumpet solo collection, you should buy it if you haven't already. I am super excited to record Angela's piece for a trumpet and piano live in the future, hopefully soon. I'm really excited for that work. I've been practicing it a ton, because there's some sections that are really challenging that I want, you know, it's sometimes when you have pieces as as a trumpet player, I can play things kind of, like, heavy or something kind of lighter. But for me, like, that lighter style and having that flexibility takes a little bit more time of practice. So I've been enjoying working on that and kind of pushing myself in different styles, too, which is great.
Ashley Killam 10:39
And then next up, we have our Rising Tide panel, which was part of Rising Tide Music Press I'm the General Manager for. We put on a symposium this summer, it was a one day intensive with a variety of panelists and interviews. And it was such a cool day, a lot of amazing conversations around anti-racist practices, building inclusive practices, there were talks with Alonso about gatekeeping in music, and just how to go about making change in the K-12 music scene. And Allyssa, the founder and publisher of Rising Tide Music Press, had me put on a panel for Diversify the Stand called “Diversifying your Stand.” Carrie unfortunately had a rehearsal she had to be at, so she couldn't be there. But I put together this panel with two guests that had been on the podcast before, Estela Aragon and Marcus Grant. And then two guests that hadn't been on our podcast, Ashley Hall and Chloe Swindler. I picked all four of them because—they were all trumpet players, I didn't do that intentionally, but I think each of them really brought a different perspective to this conversation we had. Estela has a lot of background in music entrepreneurship and building practices and through all of her online teaching through Trumpet Headquarters and Music Fit Academy. Marcus has been doing so much with the Trumpeters Multitrack Competition, his own content creation, his own multi-tracking. Ashley Hall is an amazing educator and performer and someone who I know she recently conducted a brass band in Ohio, and reached out to me and asked me for advice on programming. And she's an educator that is making sure her students are programming diverse works. And she is constantly changing up the rep that she plays and that she teaches and that she talks with her students about. And then Chloe is a trumpet player out in LA who has started her own LLC and is now, she's finishing up her first semester teaching adjunct at a couple of schools out there while finishing her doctorate and focusing her research on trumpet music by Black women composers. So all four of them have all of these different areas. And so I focused my chat with them on how they're diversifying their stands and how they're building inclusive practices for themselves and for their students.
Carrie Blosser 13:11
They're all really fantastic human beings and performers and I can't think of five more fantastic humans to be in one thing and I was so sad that I had to miss it. But yeah, they were talking pretty honestly and vulnerably about kind of, you know, what they're doing currently, like, what how we're, like, really, like, digging deep and, like, how, you know, like, how am I diversify my stand and why is that needed? Why is this so important? From, you know, perspectives of a lot of different points of careers, different, kind of, you know, education, composition, coaching, performing, you know, finishing up a DMA, hats off to all five people who put on that. Rising tide is a really fantastic organization. If you are looking for music for your ensembles, or to perform, really go check out the options that are there, the Rising Tide Press has pieces for all instrumentation and by composers in their first 10 years of their compositional careers. So that's being really open and not ageist in terms of when you start your career as a composer, sometimes it makes it more challenging, so please support those composers and buy all the music. Episode 13 of season two was Devin Clara Fanslow. So Devin actually lives relatively close to me. I still need to go meet her in person. It's on my to-do list for sure. Devin does a lot of things in the Chicago area. She's also a composer that we commissioned for the Winds of Change project. So we had a really fantastic time talking with her about it. I love how she's just so intense in, like, the best way. And there's just so much thoughtfulness behind everything she does. We chatted with her about a world building project, kind of creating, like, a mental alternate universe. And then the solo that she wrote for the Winds of Change book is kind of based in that, and it's such a cool story. And there's, in the solo, there's, like, text that kind of takes you through, like, the journey of, like, the people in this alternate world in the solo as you're playing things. It's super cool and really fun. And I love all of our solos so much. And I really, really, really enjoyed working on this one. I thought there's so many cool things I got to explore as a performer. And getting to know Devin through, you know, the podcast, through the commissioning. It's so freakin’ cool. Like, it's just so cool. I love it. But yeah, Devin has a lot of different things in her career. And I'm not sure if we talked about it in the podcast, and I'm not sure if it's released yet, but she was working on some video game music for, like, a video game, like a phone game. So I'm not sure if that's out yet. But I can't wait to hear it because I think it's really fun.
Ashley Killam 16:20
Another episode where Carrie and I fangirled the entire time was speaking to Brandi Waller-Pace, soon to be Dr. Brandi Waller-Pace, the founder of Decolonizing the Music Room, which is another one of our favorite resources and an organization that now we are friends with. And we talk with Brandi a lot about her upbringing, which was really cool. She just announced yesterday that she is now on the board of directors for Folk Alliance International, an organization all about just folk music. And so you get to hear kind of her upbringing with that, and how that's still a big part of her life. And we talk a lot about the background and the creation of Decolonizing the Music Room that started her experience kind of in the education scene, because she was an educator for a while, and is now going back to school doing a whole lot of research.
Carrie Blosser 17:11
I was definitely really nervous and excited to interview Brandi. I was mostly really intimidated just because I think the Decolonizing the Music Classroom is just such a great resource. And, yeah, we talked about in the podcast a little bit, like, when you're first, like, when you first kind of become aware of why we need to decenter whiteness and why, you know, like, why is all of the music that most of the orchestras in the United States only programming straight, cis, het, white men? Why is that still happening? And you know, when you first kind of become aware of, like, we need to make some change. It's kind of like drinking from, like, the firehose, I think Brandi talked about in the podcast, right, it's a little overwhelming. And there's so much, you know, there's a lot of learning to do. But we talked in the podcast, kind of, like, how do you get started? Where do we start making change? Like, you can't go from, like, you listen to this podcast today and say, I'm gonna be, you know, this completely different person tomorrow, and change everything that I do as an educator or everything that I do as a performer, everything that I do, change doesn't happen in, like, a second, and it takes time. And it takes, like, that intention and that long term commitment. So I was so excited to have her on the podcast. And for every one of our guests, we ask them kind of any resources that they recommend. And Brandi gave us a ton of things. If you go to our website and go to our podcast section, you can actually click on each individual podcast and you can see all of the, like, links to things that the guests would recommend. So if you don't already know about that, definitely go check it out. As we are continuing to go through our second season guests—also super cool that we can say that we've finished our second season. Fantastic. In case you didn't know, you can just decide when your seasons are as a podcast person. They can be 10 episodes and then start second season. You can do whatever you want. You have total control. So if you're wondering, start a podcast, make your own decisions, choose your own adventure. I was super pumped to talk with Dr. Kaitlin Bove, who is a conductor, a performer, a teacher I have been following. She started And We Were Heard, which is kind of like a group that matches composers who are looking for recording ensembles. So I was so excited to have her on the podcast. She has such a great perspective on programming. We talked in the podcast about you know, I think we're looking as conductors and educators to, like, add that diversity and what is on our music stands. And she really had great advice in talking about like, find the piece that you want to program. Like, don't program diversity as an afterthought and try and fit it into a program. If you start with the pieces that you really want to program for your students or for your recital or whatever, start with those pieces first, and then fill in the rest of your recital. And I think that's such a great way to, you know, you're very intentionally thinking about your programming, you're like, I need to play this work by Marcus Grant, I need to play this work by Alonso Malik Pirio, or, you know, insert any of the 12 composers that we commissioned in a trumpet solo recital. But if you start with, like, this is the piece that I am really passionate about, it either doesn't have a recording, or it's just I love this work, or I can't wait to get to know this composer more, or learn this piece specifically, start with that in mind, and then fill in the rest of your program. I think that intentional-ness is a really great way to go about looking at your programs.
Ashley Killam 20:46
And then after Kaitlin, we talked with another one of our Winds of Change composers, Rylee Short, and Rylee was so wonderful to chat with, they have a really awesome background in art. And when we chatted, they had just recently moved from Kentucky to Missouri. We got to not only talk about and spend a lot of time kind of unpacking, dealing with a move and restarting your career, but also with the name change and going through transitioning. How as a composer, if you are going to go through a name change, how best to do that, because you don't want your dead name on music that you had written in the past. So there's no, you know, one right way. And so it's all very individual, up to each person. So it was a really great chat to have. We also talked with Rylee about something that had been on Carrie and my minds that had popped up in different Facebook groups we’re a part of, but the idea of binding, using binders for students where there's a lot of restrictions. And so we talked to them just on their thoughts, obviously not as a medical professional, but just their thoughts on how to balance supporting our students while still supporting healthy brass playing habits. And again, there's no right way. But it was great to hear their perspective on this.
Carrie Blosser 22:05
And Rylee’s piece is really cool that they wrote for our commissioning project. I really enjoyed getting to know them a lot more, and just had a really, really fun time. I think we all laughed a good bit in a very, very fun and light conversation, even though we're talking about some pretty, like, intense and personal things, so. And I know people have contacted us after the fact that it was really helpful for them to hear Rylee’s perspective and, you know, kind of gave them a lot of really great, almost advice in as their names are changing and, like, how to move forward. So thanks to Rylee for being a really great inspiration and just being so vulnerable with us and our audience. It's really helpful. So as we closed up season two of our podcast, we got to interview someone who I've not met in person, but I cannot wait until we get to hang out in in real life. Theresa May is trumpet player and just a teacher and educator and teaches at a few universities and is just, like, a super cool person, plays with the group Mourning [A] BLKstar. Theresa’s a trumpet performer who really does a little bit of everything, and I have just, like, the most utmost respect for her, her trumpet playing. She sounds frickin’ awesome in everything that she does, and I just I, like, it was because of the pandemic that I learned who Theresa May was and I am so freakin’ thankful. Theresa is based in Cleveland, and it's just so wonderful to get to meet her. Part of kind of the inspiration of the pandemic of trying to create more musical connections, there are a few groups that kind of sprung out of that, and Estela Aragon did this really awesome, you know, kind of, like, mini session for her trumpet studio and brought in a bunch of artists. You know, her students were looking for and she was looking for, you know, like, Black women who played the trumpet, or played brass instruments, and Chloe Swindler also hosted a few things online too, with really trying to build connections. I think, you know, the classical world is hopefully changing now, but there's still not a whole lot of, you know, gender diversity in “classical”— I'm doing air quotes on my video as I talk with Ashley —“classical” sections, you know, predominantly white, predominantly men. You know, every once in a while there are some changes but I think especially for professional trumpet playing, it looks, it's a pretty similarly looking section. So I so appreciate that, you know, people like Theresa, who started the Chromatic Brass Collective, which is for Black women, non-binary Persons of Color brass players to come together, and they are doing some really wonderful things. Theresa has been commissioning and performing in a wide range of styles, so she's just super cool. Listen to her podcast, go check out her website, support Mourning [A] BLKstar tha, is, like, a really cool fusion group.
Ashley Killam 25:10
And the one thing that kind of connects Theresa, Rylee, and then our last guests Eris, is the fact that they're all so, the three of them, they're so interdisciplinary in who they work with. Rylee does a lot of work as a composer and as a musician connecting with poets, and just other artists of different art styles. Theresa talked a lot about just the spaces that she performs in and the recitals that she puts on, she doesn't necessarily want them to be in a church, which many, especially trumpet players, think of when we think of our recitals. Her, she's putting on her recital in the next couple of weeks at an art gallery. And so it's a space that she realized, you know, wasn't necessarily a traditional space to put on a recital but it fit the vibe that she was going for. Eris is the same way, Eris and I, I've known Eris for a few years, like, two and a half years now. It's just so wonderful. I, I've been following them since they started creating a blog and writing on a lot of different, really, really tough and really vulnerable topics. We talk a lot about how, you know, as someone that is now outwardly non-binary, who came out during the pandemic, what has changed what have been the struggles of now being a big voice in kind of the gender marginalized world, who has, you know, someone who's now done a lot of research on, you know, trans issues and a lot of the issues that trans individuals face that we, you know, cis individuals may not necessarily think of, it's tough and important, and things that need to be said that larger organizations don't necessarily think of, because so many, you know, we think of oftentimes large organizations think of gender marginalized, it's just women. But there are so many more marginalized genders than just women that face so many more struggles and barriers and hoops to jump through. And as, you know, as a nonprofit here, through Diversify the Stand, we make sure that all of our wording is consistent and accurate. And we are trying to support and talk with individuals of all genders to get their perspective, making sure you know, we're not outing anyone, we're not asking for, you know, making anyone uncomfortable, and it's taken a lot of work. And Eris has been someone that I am so, so thankful for. As, you know, educators as performers, we want to make sure that yes, it's okay to ask for help. It is totally okay to ask people who are knowledgeable, but also making sure that with any marginalized people, regardless of gender, race, you name it, when you go to ask someone that's marginalized a question or for help or for advice, making sure that we are not placing that burden on them. That we're not, you know, putting more trauma onto, you know, people of marginalized backgrounds. That we do the work. I'm just thankful that I've had this friendship with Eris and I've been able to just finally triple-check before things go out that everything I'm doing has that intentionality of, you know, truly supporting those that I want to support. Long tangent, but both of these episodes are incredible. That's the TLDR. Episodes are great, Eris is wonderful, and trumpet players, we have a consortium that I'm leading coming up in January, so you should be a part of it because it's going to be super.
Carrie Blosser 28:31
Eris is such a fantastic guest and we had such a great time hanging out for a few hours, and Ashley in editing removed, there was some cats that came on, it's just so much fun. I love getting to know everyone through the podcast and we get to, like, visit with everyone's, like, pets, or like, get a plant tour sometimes, you know, whatever. But yeah, shout out to Eris, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. And I did want to talk, like, Ashley touched on too, like, you know, asking someone who has a different background than you for help, or taking criticism is really challenging in, you know, in work. And just like we were talking about before, if you're really passionate about supporting, you know, gender marginalized composers, you may get feedback from someone that's like, hey, you need to change something or do something differently. I think our reaction sometimes are to, like, get defensive, but if you can really listen, and, like, take in some of that, you know, Ashley and I both, through Diversify the Stand, like, we want to be supportive of any, like, wrongfully marginalized and wrongfully underrepresented persons in our music field. So just being really open, and also being vulnerable. And if you ask a question and you get feedback, a response that you, maybe makes you uncomfortable, being uncomfortable is actually probably good. So try and listen, and don't necessarily need to react and respond, but take it in, think about it, see what you can do in the future, too. So, know that mistakes might happen, and that's okay. You just want to make sure that you're really trying to listen and honor what someone is telling you if you ask a question.
Ashley Killam 30:18
Support our composer friends, buy pieces, share names, learn about them, start to create these relationships.
Carrie Blosser 30:24
Again, thanks to everyone that has been on season one and season two of the podcast. Everyone donates their time we donate our time to make this happen. So thanks for listening and supporting us. We are going to take a tiny little holiday break, winter time break. Ashley's going to do some crazy hiking. I am going to just not do crazy hiking throughout December. And then in January we're starting to record our season three guests, so we have some pretty fun things lined up for the next season and some projects going forward. You know, through Diversify the Stand, we are, our book club is going to start back up in January.
Ashley Killam 31:05
Our book club book this year is, or January book club, is Honoring Trans and Gender Expansive Students in Music Education by Joshua Palikki and Matthew Garrett, only four weeks, starting January 9. So if you go to our website, or on social media, there's a link to just sign up. We are really excited about it. Keep listening.
Carrie Blosser 31:25
I hope you tune in for season three. If you haven't listened to season one, season two, please do. Lots of great stories and information is being shared. So thanks again for joining us and thanks again for supporting us.