This week’s episode is with the brilliant cello-piano ensemble, Cheng² Duo, with siblings Bryan and Silvie Cheng. They have performed to great acclaim worldwide and have released to date four fantastic albums, the most recent Portrait which was nominated for a JUNO award. Portrait features music by composers from diverse Asian heritages, and in this podcast, Bryan and Silvie reflect on some important personal experiences related to this. We are featuring some of the music from Portrait and some ...
May 11, 2024•1 hr 19 min•Season 4Ep. 19
This podcast strives to inspire you through the personal stories of a diversity of musicians worldwide, with in-depth conversations and great music, that reveal the depth and breadth to a life in music. This week’s episode is with the wonderful harmonica player and composer Ariel Bart. I first started listening to her music with her debut album, “In Between” in which she presents a unique approach to the harmonica and all her albums feature her original music which is inspired by the European ja...
May 04, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 4Ep. 18
Dr. Gail Archer is a GRAMMY-nominated internationally touring concert organist and trail-blazer for women organists. She has fantastic advice on not only approaching a career in music, but in living life to it’s fullest. We talked about learning languages, some fascinating history, the magic of choirs and much more. This episode features music from several of her acclaimed recordings, and we discuss women composers, and the challenges facing women organists. We also speak about Musforum the inte...
Apr 27, 2024•1 hr 36 min•Season 4Ep. 17
Gerry Bryant is a brilliant classically-trained pianist, composer, and arranger. He came from a poor inner-city Cleveland neighbourhood, and was givin an opportunity to attend the prestigious Phillips Academy, then Harvard university. He went on to get an MBA and a law degree, all the while continuing the expansion of his knowledge of different styles of music, and forming his jazz group Pocketwatch. This episode partly focuses on his Composers album, with music of Florence Price and Thomas Wigg...
Apr 20, 2024•1 hr 57 min•Season 4Ep. 16
This week’s episode is a Catch-Up episode with the renowned film and televison composer and multi-instrumentalist Pat Irwin, and we are featuring lots of Pat’s music for you today in different styles from many of his projects. In my previous episode with him from 2023, Season 3 of this podcast, we talked about his days with the B52s and composing the score for Dexter: New Blood, and we also talked about his band SUSS and his work mentoring graduate students, and so much more . I encourage you to...
Apr 13, 2024•1 hr 45 min•Season 4Ep. 15
This week I’m highlighting an episode from the archive, with the engaging and talented Leslie DeShazor who is a multi-style violist, violinist and composer based in Detroit. She teaches students both through the Sphinx Organization and the Detroit Symphony as well as privately. She was named one of thirty Professional Movers and Shakers in the Performing Arts by Musical America in 2019 and in 2022 she released her jazz and R&B album “Journey With Me” which features herself as soloist, bandle...
Apr 06, 2024•1 hr 43 min•Season 4Ep. 14
Thomas Cabaniss is a wonderful American composer of works for opera, theater, dance, film and the concert stage. He’s been a member of the faculty of the Julliard School since 1998, and leads the Lullaby Project at Carnegie Hall, serving young parents in shelters, hospitals and prisons with collaboratively created songs for their children. We talk about all this and much more, inluding his work creating Carnegie Hall’s Link Up. I was curious about these many facets to Thomas’ life as both a comp...
Mar 30, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Season 4Ep. 13
Avi Kishna is a Dutch sarod player based in Amsterdam, of Indo-Surinamese heritage. You’ll get to know the sarod as an instrument and hear Avi’s perspectives on Dutch society and his interesting collaborations. Among his mentors is his inspiring father, Ramdew Kishna, a multi-talented musician, director, and painter, who played a pivotal role in shaping Avi's musical journey along with his guru, Koustuv Ray. As a young man, Avi embarked on a successful career as in sales and marketing, but durin...
Mar 23, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Season 14Ep. 8
Pierre Chrétien is a Canadian bandleader, multi-instrumentalist and composer who has had international success with his bands The Souljazz Orchestra, Atlantis Jazz Ensemble and his project Cinephonic, and in this episode you’ll learn about all of these and hear highlights from some of these albums on the Marlow Records label. http://www.marlowrecords.com/artists.html Pierre shares how left his career as an Engineer to devote himself to a full-time career as a performer. He also demonstrates some...
Mar 16, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 4Ep. 11
This week’s guest is the British guitarist Edison Herbert, who plays melodic and soulful groove-based music that will lift your mood. We are featuring his compositions from a couple of his albums and you’ll learn about his personal journey in music that has led to his career as a full-time performer. He talked to me about some of his mentors and influences including George Benson, and his perspectives as a Black artist navigating the music scene in the UK. I found him to be warmly engaging and c...
Mar 09, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 4Ep. 10
This week I’m highlighting an episode from the archive, with the brilliant multi-talented Diane Nalini who is an incredibly nuanced jazz singer, and composer. She performs in 4 languages and teaches jazz ukulele as well. I hope you’ll join me in my fascination with the incredible range of Diane’s interests and expertise. Besides being a phenomenal musician she also is a Rhodes scholar with Phd in Applied Physics from Oxford university and presently works in environmental science policy for the C...
Mar 02, 2024•1 hr 47 min•Season 4Ep. 9
This week’s episode is a special Catch-Up episode with the Dutch guitarist and composer Marc van Vugt, who was previously featured in Season 2 with his album The Lonely Coyote. Today you’ll hear a selection of highlights from his new solo guitar album, The Curious Badger. We caught up on some of his recent projects, and he also shared some wonderful insights into his creative process, and different ways for independent musicians to find audiences for their music. Like all my episodes, this is av...
Feb 24, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 4Ep. 8
This week's episode is unusual because 4 musicians are featured, the members of the Euclid Quartet. They are a world-class string quartet celebrating their 25th anniversary with a fantastic album of short pieces, entitled Breve, and we are featuring several pieces from that album as part of this episode. Breve album: https://breve.hearnow.com/ You’ll get to know each member of the quartet, which is in residence at Indiana University South Bend: Jameson Cooper, violinist and founding member origi...
Feb 17, 2024•1 hr 31 min•Season 4Ep. 11
Chuck Copenace is a Winnipeg-based Ojibway musician and we talk about Chuck’s excellent album Oshki Manitou, which expands his work as a trumpet player, arranger, and composer. He’s woven together ceremonial sweat-lodge melodies with jazz, funk, dance and electronica and this episode features tracks from that album. He’s such a powerfully lyrical trumpet player, and you’ll be deeply touched to hear his inspiring story of moving through trauma and addiction to helping others through counseling an...
Feb 10, 2024•1 hr 39 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Frank Horvat is an acclaimed Canadian composer and pianist whose music has been featured on over 20 albums. In this episode you’ll hear how he has forged meaningful collaborations with a wide range of musicians internationally, and found and given solace to audiences through his focus on themes of mental health, the climate crisis, and social justice. We start this episode with his Arctic Circle Residency. Frank Horvat is so prolific and involved in so many diverse projects, with music in many s...
Feb 03, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Guy Donis grew up in Belgium, where he had fallen in love with the banjo and proceeded to dedicate his life to it. In this episode, he describes how he taught himself 5 string banjo, learned about Bluegrass, and expanded his musical horizons by collaborating with jazz and classical musicians. He immigrated to Canada many years ago, and is well-known in the Montreal music scene. He has toured Canada extensively with Notre Dame de Grass and other bands, and in this episode he talks about his newes...
Jan 27, 2024•1 hr 40 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Jeeyoon Kim is a very special concert pianist who has opened meaningful connections to new audiences through her innovative concerts, albums, podcast, and now her book “Whenever You’re Ready”. You’ll learn how she sold out her Carnegie Hall debut recital without knowing one person in New York, without an agent or winning a competition. She’s generously shared 3 tracks from some of her albums that punctuate this episode. Her website is linked here: https://www.jeeyoonkim.com/about I was so honour...
Jan 20, 2024•1 hr 36 min•Season 4Ep. 3
J. Walter Hawkes is a 4-time Emmy-winning composer for the PBS series Peg + Cat and Wonder Pets, is a renowned jazz trombone player, and also performs as a jazz vocalist, ukulele player, and pianist. As a young man, he survived a horrible accident which changed the course of his life. We talk about this and his mentors including the legendary Slide Hampton, how he got into composing for Blues Clues, and many hilarious and heart-warming personal stories. Those of you who listened to my episode wi...
Jan 13, 2024•1 hr 49 min•Season 4Ep. 2
Welcome to Season 4 of Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman. For this first episode in 2024, I welcome the violinist, author and coach Jennifer Roig-Francoli. We talk about her newly released book, Make Great Music with Ease!: The Secret to Smarter Practice, Confident Performance, and Living a Happier Life, and her Art of Freedom Method which incorporates the mind-body skills of the Alexander Technique. This episode also features excerpts from her solo violin album, Solo Con Spirito, ...
Jan 06, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Season 4Ep. 1
This podcast is also a video on my YouTube and the transcript is also linked to my website: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/mohamed-assani Today’s guest is the genre-defying sitarist and composer Mohamed Assani. In this conversation a couple of compositions from his album Wayfinder are featured. Wayfinder incorporates a range of stylistic influences, including South Asian Classical, Middle Eastern, jazz, funk, Western Classical, ambient & electronic music. It was produced by Juno and Em...
Dec 16, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Season 3Ep. 43
Ceara Conway is an Irish contemporary vocalist and visual artist, and this episode features music from her album CAOIN as well as excerpts from some of her other projects. I find Ceara’s curiosity about so many important topics around arts and culture really inspiring and this conversation circled around to her explorations of different languages and cultures as well as her rootedness as an Irish speaker. She has had many interesting commissions dealing with history, illness, grief, and the natu...
Dec 09, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Season 3Ep. 42
Like all my podcast episodes, you can watch the video on my YouTube and the transcript is linked here as well: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/emmolei-sankofa EmmoLei Sankofa https://www.e-sankofa.com/ is a an American composer, producer, musician, and artist whose work spans music, visual media, and fine art. Detailed show notes below with timestamps! You can sign up for my weekly newsletter https://mailchi.mp/ebed4a237788/podcast-newsletter to get access to Sneak Peeks for upcoming gues...
Dec 02, 2023•1 hr 24 min•Season 3Ep. 41
Welcome to Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman: This podcast is available wherever you listen to podcasts, or as a video on my YouTube. This week’s episode is with the award-winning GRAMMY-nominated harpist and composer Kirsten Agresta Copely. The video and transcript are linked on my website: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/kirsten-agresta-copely Kirsten has had a really diverse career, starting with rigorous classical training as a young child, an illustrious career as an inte...
Nov 25, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Season 3Ep. 40
This week’s episode is a special double episode with the jazz piano duo of Peter Hum and Steve Boudreau, who have recently released their album Nonlinear Blues. Peter and Steve performed three of their original tunes for this podcast and we’ve also included some of their other compositions from their respective discographies, and in terms of the conversation, it was a wide-ranging dialogue with interesting insights from their contrasting careers, Peter primarily as a music and food journalist, a...
Nov 18, 2023•1 hr 42 min•Season 3Ep. 39
There’s such a fascinating variety to a life in music; and this series features wonderful musicians worldwide with in-depth conversations and great music, with over 100 episodes to explore. For this week’s episode I was able to add some additional music to a special re-release with fiddler Alexis Chartrand who has shared 3 tracks for you to listen to. His Bandcamp and socials are linked below; so please go buy the tracks or albums if you like what you hear! Alexis talks very thoughtfully and abo...
Nov 11, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Please consider signing up for my weekly newsletter , which will give you access to Sneak Peeks for upcoming guests: https://mailchi.mp/ebed4a237788/podcast-newsletter Did you know that all episodes are also available as a video on my YouTube, and that I publish the transcripts to my blog? I'd like this to be accessible to everyone which is why I put this extra work into this. Complete catalogue of over 100 episodes : https://www.leahroseman.com/about Follow me a my socials: https://www.instagr...
Nov 05, 2023•27 sec
Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman is available wherever you listen to podcasts. The video and transcript are linked here on my website, where you can check out my episodes catalog and sign up for Sneak Peeks for upcoming guests: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/jeremy-mastrangelo This week’s guest is violinist Jeremy Mastrangelo, who’s a wonderful colleague of mine in Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra. He’s known in our greenroom as a great storyteller, onstage as an excel...
Nov 04, 2023•1 hr 32 min•Season 37Ep. 3
Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman is a weekly podcast with in-depth conversations featuring a fascinating variety of guests worldwide. Michael Bridge is an accordion virtuoso who performs in many styles on both concert accordion and digital accordion. In this wide-ranging conversation, Michael spoke to me about how best to engage with audiences, the subtleties intrinsic to programming digital accordion sounds, and how to forge lasting relationships. Michael was awarded his Doctorate...
Oct 28, 2023•1 hr 41 min•Season 3Ep. 36
This week I’m highlighting an episode from the archive: the charming and engaging Jack Everly, who is well-known to audiences throughout the United States and Canada for his Symphonic Pops programs and storytelling. We recorded this in 2021 when concerts had been mostly shut down for a year. It was so much fun having this opportunity to sit down and speak in depth with Jack. We had a lively exchange discussing his varied and distinguished career on Broadway, for the American Ballet Theatre, the ...
Oct 21, 2023•54 min•Season 3Ep. 35
Today’s guest is the Emmy-winning songwriter, singer, producer and composer Kat Raio Rende. Together with her husband JP Rende she has a successful songwriting and production company Earworm Music company. This episode is a fascinating window into the world of music for children’s tv shows, jingles, working with celebrities, and music production in general. We talked about writing for Sesame Street, including “Friends with a Penguin” featuring Billy Porter and “We Don’t Walk Alone”, Baby Shark, ...
Oct 14, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Season 3Ep. 34
