Hi everyone, this is Yukimi, host and producer of The Piano Pod. In this special bonus episode, I am honored to welcome back Dr. Nena Ogwo, the brilliant pianist, educator, and founder of Juneteenth LP. Juneteenth LP is more than a concert series. It's a movement that reclaims space for Black classical musicians by centering history, celebrating legacy, and creating a future rooted in liberation
and joy. As the organization marks its 10th anniversary this year, Nena reflects on the journey from its beginnings at Joe's Pub to becoming a powerful platform for education, performance, and community. We talk about what inspired her to launch Juneteenth LP, what audiences can expect from this year's milestone concert, and why honoring Black voices in classical music is essential, not just in June, but all year round. So, let's dive in.
Thank you so much for being here. And first of all, I want to express my heartfelt appreciation to you and your organization, Juneteenth LP, for sponsoring the final episodes of The Pianopods Season 5. It truly feels like the perfect way to wrap up this season, dedicated to authenticity and joy with your support and vision. Thank you for having us. And it's our honor and our pleasure to sponsor the last two episodes of what has been a stellar, stellar season. We have been.
enthralled by the guests they have been absolutely spectacular oh yeah thank you so much i appreciate your really support now we're featuring two remarkable guests this last month and dr leah clayborne on june 3rd and our season finale would be with dr maria thompson corley both conversations were deeply inspiring and it's all thanks to you nana for bringing us together You give me too much credit, but they are wonderful people. And we were very fortunate to have that all come together
in the way that it did. And I'm so glad that you got to, I'm glad that you personally got to meet them, but also I'm glad that the larger community is going to get to meet them and know them as the people that they are, but the musicians that they are and the educators that they are. All together. Oh, incredible people. And I'm
just feeling so fortunate. So now for those who may be new to Dr. Ogwo Nena's work, if you haven't heard our full conversation with her from last season, season four, episode four, where I got to invite and interview Nena. Was it season four or was it season three? Season four. The only last season. I know. Oh, my gosh, you're right. Yeah, but the thing is, it was toward the early season four, so it feels like a really long time
ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I encourage you, my friends who are listening and tuning in today, to go back and listen to her episode. You can find the episode link in the description. Today, I just wanted to take a few minutes to highlight Juneteenth LP, Dr. Ogwo's amazing, amazing organization, The Ensemble, and then her passion project. that grew out of her first Juneteenth concert celebration 10 years ago at Joe's Pub, a cornerstone of New York's creative music scene. So let's start with
the basics, Lena. For anyone just discovering the Juneteenth LP, what does that organization do and how does it carry out its mission? Well, this ensemble was born out of this concert that I gave. In 2016, I was invited to be a part of Toshi Reagan's Good Folks series at Joe's Pub. And it was originally supposed to be the preceding year, but my mother passed away in that year in the spring. And so, of course, I didn't do it that year. And it was a very hard thing because
I wanted to do a Juneteenth show. And so the following year, my mother and I were very close. So that hit me very, very hard. And, you know, Toshi's a really sort of intuitive and compassionate person. And so I was talking to her about it and she just sort of said in a very kind way, do you want to share the show? You know, sort of not have to carry the whole thing yourself. And I kind of just said, you know, yeah. And so. I shared the set with Juliet Jones, a fabulous
violinist, arranger. And at the time she lived in New York. Now I think she's based in LA. And so we put on this show and it was an amazing experience. And what was significant about it, aside from it being great and great fun, was that in Juliet's set, There was a cellist performing named Eric Cooper. And the following year, I came back and I shared this show with Tarek El Sabir, a fabulous singer -composer. And so I asked Eric if he would be on my set that year.
And he agreed. He was really into it. And so he was on my set that second season, that second year. And we had a great time again. And he said to me, I think that what you're doing is really special. And I just want you to know that whatever you decide to do, I want to support you. And, you know, he's younger than I am. And I don't know about how old you are, but, you know, my generation did not actually work collaboratively.
Right. And and we definitely we were we we were raised to sort of hoard our resources and not share opportunities. And, you know, if you if you found out about something, you didn't tell other people about it. You just sort of kept it to yourself and you, you know, sort of a scarcity mindset. And his generation is a little bit different. And they're very much like, we support our friends and we see someone doing something really good
and we support them. And we, you know, we sort of like put our backs to the task together and collaborate. And so I didn't really respond to him saying that right away. Right. And he had to say it to me a few times for me to say, okay. You know, like I really couldn't respond to that. And so then when I finally, and we had worked with a singer, we brought in a singer and she
said the same thing. And so then I finally, so then all of a sudden I had a little bit of a team and we were like, oh, I think we're doing this. And so the next season, we were basically an ensemble that. So the third season was when Juneteenth LP was basically an ensemble that presented that concert. And we weren't official
that year. We weren't official until 2021. But that was basically the year that we came together in this sense of we present Black music and we present Black music with this focus on... introducing the audience to black classical composers and then also playing all kinds of genres so that the space is welcoming to anybody who happens to come in and they aren't intimidated by a classical space like I don't know what this music is and I feel intimidated and I don't know when to clap
none of that so if you feel moved to clap that's fine if you don't know when to clap and you clap at the wrong place that's fine and we acknowledge that you know if you if you're moved and you clap in the middle of you know in between a movement and that's not the right place the right time and place to clap that you know we let we acknowledge that and we um we express appreciation and we put people at ease you know that that whole um the classical elitism is something that we try
to dispel and we try to make black and brown people feel as welcome as possible so our mission is to grow the classical music audience by meeting people where they are. So if you did not grow up hearing classical music, you can come to one of our concerts and hear music by Stevie Wonder and hear music by Lizzo and hear music by musicians that you're probably hearing on Spotify or whoever's, you know, on your playlist rotation, as well as music that your grandmother's listening to
or music that I might be listening to. But then we're also going to introduce you to music by Burley and we're going to introduce you to music by Courtney Bryan and we're going to introduce you to music by Nkiru Okoye. And you're going to start to hear a through line of like, what? what Black classical composers are writing and their influences that are very much the same as, you know, your influences and what you're
listening to. And we're trying to put everything into a historical context so that you understand that all of this music actually belongs to you. And that there's none of the, you know, that classical music has always been popular music. And just because we rarefied it and put it in spaces that feel intimidating to you, that we don't believe that that actually. is real. We
think that that's a construct. And so that's the mission of Juneteenth LP, to play music of all of the African diaspora, regardless of genre. And in doing so, grow the classical music audience. Because the fact of the matter is that classical
music audience is shrinking. And if we don't do something radically different, we're going to sort of, you know... lead ourselves out of jobs and an existence and it doesn't have to be that way at all absolutely yeah that's true and what's great about is those music that you're going to play but performed by mainly classical Musicians. Classical musicians. Exactly. That's amazing. I attended last year. It was fantastic. I attended the one that you hosted. You were
hosted by Metropolitan Museum last year. You were presenting the composition by Samuel Coolidge. Samuel Coleridge -Taylor. Taylor, right? And then also a few days later, of course, I attended the June 19th last year, the Juneteenth concert at Joe's Pub and with your group. So basically, how do you carry out this mission? So you have several different events in a week of Juneteenth, right? Yes, a week, sometimes two weeks, depending on, you know. when we can get things scheduled.
But the events range in scope. So for example, last year, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to present a Met expert talk. And what I did was I selected an instrument to focus on, and I got to play a beautiful a beautiful period piano, um, an arcade piano. It was gorgeous. And, um, what was amazing about it was that it was a piano. Um, it was a French piano from 19. Oh, I want to say, Oh, four Oh five. Yeah. Something
like that. I remember. Yes. My memory is not so great on that, but the point is, is that it was, um, it was a French piano, but they had a factory in London. So it's actually entirely possible that that piano could have existed in, you know, that, that, that was a possible intersection
point of Samuel Coleridge Taylor's life. Like he could have actually, not that he could have played that piano or own that piano, but it's entirely possible that he could have, he could have played, you know, one of those pianos right um because you know those pianos were being sold and made in london you know and that's where he lived um and um and he was writing these pieces these opus 59 um 24 negro melodies around that time and so it was it was a wonderful um opportunity
to be able to i cannot believe that i cannot remember the name of this french piano it's it's this medication start with e yes erard erard oh my gosh i could not believe i could not remember it thank you so much so this erard piano anyway and it's a beautiful um art case piano with a swan on it it's it was absolutely stunning um But what was amazing was to be able to present about Samuel Coleridge Taylor's music, this particular collection of pieces. I've played a couple of
them. And to talk about him, the composer, and his sort of his musical inquiries about his life and his history, you know, his African father and his explorations into his personal and cultural identity. As he wrote these pieces. So it's his cultural history and to be talking about it in the context of Juneteenth and our cultural history in this nation and to be playing it in the Met in this sort of, you know, institution that houses, you know, cultural history on this historical
instrument. And it was a, it was a really. rare moment, right, to be able to give that lecture on that instrument in that space at that time, you know, for Juneteenth week. So that was sort of special. But this year, we're doing date night at the Met, right? And normally, you know, date night at the Met, that's a gig. But what's really special about this date, these two date nights at the Met, is that the Met has been working
to sort of reimagine its Africa wing. And so it's doing a renovation and there's going to be a special exhibit. And if you're someone who pays attention to the Met Gala, you know, there's this exhibit, you know, super fine about Black Dandyism. And so that was the theme of the Met Gala. It was great. Right. Fantastic. Right. And so June 13th is going to feature Sterling Strings and they're going to do a lot of Afropop, which is going to sort of lean in to the African
wing and Afropop and Afrobeats. So that's going to be the music that they're going to be playing on Friday the 13th and on Saturday the 14th, Violinist. Edward Hardy and I are going to be playing a show that leans into Black Dandyism. And so we're going to be playing some beautiful, we're going to be playing summertime and, you know, some jazz and it don't mean a thing if
it ain't got that swing. We're going to be playing a little bit of Edith Piaf and we're going to be playing a little, you know, just really wonderful things that sort of lean into that sort of suave, elegant, joie de vivre, you know. that kind of programming. And so it's going to be a lot of fun to explore this idea of elegance and flair and style, but sort of explored in a sonic framework. Yeah. And then you also have some other events as well in Harlem also. We do. Well, not quite
in Harlem. I guess it's Morningside. The Interchurch Center, we're going to be giving a concert, cello and piano music, music by Shostakovich, Samuel Coleridge -Taylor, and Evan Williams. And it's going to be this interplay of composers, how they treat melodic material. Right. So it's the Shostakovich Cello Sonata. Evan Williams is Cantigas for Cello Piano. And then Samuel Coleridge -Taylor, we're going to revisit the Negro Melodies. And that's a noonday concert. And so that's, I think,
108th and Claremont. I'm not quite sure the exact address, but we're really excited to do that.
The noonday concert. at interchurch are a long -standing tradition and we're so happy to be a part of it and be a part of their juneteenth programming there and then our portrait of the artist series that we've just started we love this thing that we've created where we take an artist that's um established and we invite them to come and perform something that they really love that they're emotionally attached to that they've performed for a long time and um talk
to them about how playing a piece for a long time and the ways in which they've changed as an artist and they've noticed that they've changed as an artist and how that's reflected in their interpretations over time. So this fabulous soprano Indira Mahajan is going to come and she's going to do two songs that focus on the headiness of summer. One is Gershwin's Summertime, and the other is Valerie Caper's Summer from Songs of the Seasons. And it's not about so much a heavy
lift in terms of performing. It's going to be about the performance, but then the discussion that we have afterward about their life in music, but also this process of interpretation and how it changes over time and so it's like looking through a kaleidoscope and you see it shift and change and shift and change shift and change and it's something that we really wanted the audience to get to experience getting to know the artist in a very specific way as reflected
through you know beloved pieces of music so I'll be interviewing her but then the audience gets to ask questions oh wonderful so basically Juneteenth LLP events start nearly two weeks earlier and then just two weeks full of events that showcase black artists and composers and then uh compositions and just to that geared toward up to the point of june 19th where the iconic concert happens every year at 6 30 uh that's time yeah get your tickets now yes get your tickets now You can
get your tickets at publictheater .org or you can find the link in the show notes. So thank you, Dana, for sharing your vision and for all the incredible work you do. You are such an inspirational person. And to really center Black voices in classical music, it's so, so important. The inclusion is so important. You have no idea what incredible work you're doing. You are very, very kind. And thank you for encouraging the work that we do.
I do want to say that while the performance element is definitely important, we are, it has been a, as you know, you know, establishing anything is a steep learning curve, right? If you've never done it before. And we are, we sort of finally have gotten our footing and we are now sort of.
moving into the educational component where we're creating educational modules that we are designing to be able to be used for early grades from like kindergarten up through high school and into college, because we do feel like, you know, I had this, I had this interesting conversation with, with a clarinetist who said, you know, she said, I, I wish I knew, I wish school was
taught differently. You know, if you had been taught in chemistry about the ways in which chemical compounds applied to like, for example, like the lacquer that, that is used on your instrument and like how the discovery of certain compounds changed, like, you know, lacquers and on, you
know, clarinets or whatever, you know. Like you would have been much more engaged, for example, in chemistry, or you would have been much more engaged in science if you had understood how like science is used in everything, in every way in which we engage in our world. And it takes like, it's a heavy lift. It's a lot to ask, you know, overworked public school teachers to find all the ways in which to engage in like. a class with 40 students who probably have different
interests. But I think that there might be a way in which different organizations might be able to find ways in which to engage students who have different interests. You know, like, isn't this fascinating? This is what Black composers were doing at this particular time in history. And maybe it's not talked about in your class, but we can bring this, we can bring these educational modules in. That might make history more interesting or that might make science more interesting or
that might make whatever more interesting. And that's something that we can do to facilitate making school more fascinating for children without having to overburden the teachers who are in the classroom every day, just trying to, you know, wrangle 25 to 45 students. you know, in an overburdened classroom situation. So we're trying to figure out ways in which we can, you know, create modules that are interesting and dynamic and engaging. So that's our next step.
Great. There's so many opportunities waiting for you with your organization. So friends, do not miss Juneteenth LP's 10th anniversary celebration in New York City, kicking off on June 8th with Portrait of an Artist featuring soprano Indira Mahajan. And wrapping up with the iconic Juneteenth LP concert at Joe's Pub on June 19th at 6 .30 p .m. featuring the full Juneteenth LP ensemble. Get your tickets now at joespub .org and for the full lineup of events, visit juneteenthlp
.org. Thank you, Dana. Thank you so much.