For this episode, I talk with Matthew Wardell, the Music Director of the Ocala Symphony, about what inspires him in his work, how he programs for the Ocala Symphony, and how new music plays a role in his programming. In particular, we talk about how he engages this audience in this process by humanizing the composers.

In this episode, I talk with Jeffrey Biegel, an extraordinary pianist who champions the work of living composers. He has performed as a soloist with hundreds of orchestras and has performed 25 commissioned projects by living composers. In this interview, we talk about what inspires him in his work, his commissioning projects, and how commissioning projects with composers, pianists, and orchestras have developed and will continue to evolve.

In this interview, I talk with Maestro Toshi Shimada, music director of the Eastern Connecticut Symphony, The Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes, and the New Britain Symphony, about what is inspiring to him in his work, and he shares how the best contemporary music for him is new music that speaks to his heart. We also talk about how the best music combines both the emotional content and craft, and we discuss his diverse background and experiences, and how that informs his own views on programming music of composers from diverse backgrounds. Please join us!

Please join me as I interview conductor Andrew Crust, Music Director of the Vermont Symphony and Lima Symphony Orchestra (Ohio). We discuss what inspires him in his work and cover how he programs new music along with the classics. As we talk, the concept of keeping programming "relevant" for audiences arises, and Andrew goes into depth about the meaning of "relevance."

Check out my website and music at www.danielperttu.com

On this episode, I talk with Jessica Satava, the Executive Director of the Greenville Symphony in South Carolina, about the process of co-creation between orchestras, composers, and audiences. We cover how orchestras have to balance fulfilling audience demand for the classics while introducing new music, particularly contemporary music that is relevant to the region of the orchestra.

Check out my website and music at www.danielperttu.com

In this episode, I talk with Nate Bachhuber, the Vice President of Artistic Planning at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) in 2022-23 and earlier, about his approaches to artistic planning at the CSO, particularly as they pertain to the music of living composers. We discuss where the field of orchestral music might be heading and the extent to which orchestras are now striving to make their programming more relevant to their audiences. Nate talks specifically about what the CSO has been doing to this end.

Check out my website and music at www.danielperttu.com

In this episode of my Muse in Music Podcast, I talk with Keitaro Harada, the Music and Artistic Director of the Savannah Philharmonic and Permanent Conductor of the Tokyo Symphony, about his multicultural background that includes both America and Japan and how he incorporates new music from both American and Japanese composers into his programming in the various cities in which he works on both sides of the Pacific.

Check out my website and music at www.danielperttu.com

In this episode of the Muse in Music Podcast, I talk with Carlos Izcaray, the Music Director of the Alabama Symphony, on what inspires him about his work; how important the concept of "balance" in the arts is to creators and audiences; how to find new music for audiences that is the "right kind of challenge"; and the increasing diversity of composers in the present and what "diversity" means, including diversity of origins and diversity of paths in life.

Check out my website and music at www.danielperttu.com