The thing that's most important to me is making sure that people feel seen. What I try to do with my work, with my scholarship, is making sure that people have perhaps a different perspective of what classical music is and what it sounds like, and then kind of challenging those perspectives too. So broadening our scope and challenging perspectives through music. That would be probably
my mission. In our upcoming episode, I sit down with Dr. Leah Claiborne, pianist, educator, and visionary for a powerful conversation in celebration of Juneteenth month, proudly sponsored by Juneteenth LP. Dr. Claiborne shares her groundbreaking project featuring 10 Black concert pianists performing historic works by Black composers alongside newly commissioned pieces by living and emerging voices to honor and expand the legacy of Black artistry.
We talk about what real change looks like. in classical music, education, and society, and how inclusion is built, not overnight, but through daily intentional work. I always put musician and activist or activism together. I thought that that's just what artists did. So because that was my foundation, I just thought, you know, being a musician must be the best thing that you could aspire to be. Real change is not something
that's going to happen overnight. You know, I think real change is something that's going to take generations after generations to really have the change that we want, where it's something so rooted within us that that now becomes a new makeup, like new identity, new DNA, right? And I think what we're aiming for is that we are able to normalize many different voices in classical music. that we can celebrate Bach and Beethoven,
who have stood the testament of time. But along with that, we can also celebrate Margaret Bond and Florence Price and Nathaniel Dead and William Grant Still at the same level as the other standard composers. Join the premiere of this uplifting conversation with Dr. Leah Claiborne tomorrow, Tuesday, June 3rd at 8 p .m. Eastern Time on our YouTube channel, or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Don't miss this powerful episode celebrating visibility, legacy, and the future of classical music.