This week’s featured guest is James McGowan, a solo and collaborative pianist at home in jazz, classical and improvised musics. The 14-member James McGowan Ensemble has just released its jazz-classical fusion album Reaching Out, the companion to the previous album Reaching In, and this episode features some of the music from this beautiful project as well as from his jazz-fusion group Modasaurus. Besides James’ work as a composer and pianist, he’s also a Theory Professor, and choral direcctor, and has served as Carleton University Chair in Teaching Innovation in developing experiences in the arts on campus and in the community. James is so passionate about sharing his love of music and I trust you’ll find this an uplifting conversation. Besides my role as a podcaster, I’m a violinist, and last year I founded an improvising chamber group with James, Collected Strands, and we’ll soon be releasing a special podcast episode to celebrate the release of our upcoming album.

Can you buy this independenat podcaster a coffee? https://ko-fi.com/leahroseman Thanks!

You can also watch this on YouTube or read the podcast, everything linked here to my website: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/james-mcgowan

James McGowan website for all the music featured in this podcast, and his current projects: https://jamesmcgowan.ca/

photo: Kelly McDonald

Timestamps

(00:00) Intro

(02:32) Modasaurus jazz ensemble, 4K album, fusing styles

(05:13) clip from Chaconne and Fugue 4K Modasaurus

(06:41) background and clip of Crazy Ceilidh

(09:27) music career advice

(11:42) Reaching Out and Reaching In, tribute to Chick Corea

(16:43) clip from Corean Poultry on Reaching Out

(18:05) intro and clip from Blue Lament, from Reaching Out

(21:10) intro and Elegy from Reaching Out

(26:44) James’ grad school experience, switching from Composition to Theory

(29:31) please spread the word about this podcast!

(30:08) musical dialects, code switching, overtone series

(39:59) teaching music theory

(43:05) Reaching In, spoken word and different art forms

(46:56) Acceptance from Reaching In

(50:50) parenting and music, encouraging children in the Arts

(56:36) dealing with emotions through music

(59:00) voluteer work Discovery Course for Ottawa Mission and Lotus Center

(01:03:27) teaching musicianship, singing, community music

(01:10) dealing with playing injuries, music education, voice and choral direction

(01:18:26) improvisation, Collected Strands

This is a special re-release with cellist Rachel Mercer, with added music from some of her recordings. This was orginally recorded and released in Season 2 of this podcast in 2022, and now in Season 4 2024, Rachel and I are including some tracks from some of her albums in the podcast version of this episode. See more below for some of the many topics covered!

The original video is on YouTube with the transcript, everything linked here: ⁠ https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/e9-s2-rachel-mercer⁠

We discussed the arc of her career so far as a chamber musician, soloist, and Principal Cellist of my orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada. One of the musical selections added to this podcast is from the album “Our Strength, Our Song" with Rachel’s sister, the wonderful violinist Akemi Mercer-Niewöhner. We also talked about and many other chamber music collaborations and unique projects, as well as her way of approaching music. You’ll also hear some of Rachel’s memories of the late Yehonatan Berick who was an amazing violinist and pedagogue and was Rachel’s life partner. As well, Rachel very generously made a special recording of the prelude from JS Bach's fifth solo suite for this episode in 2022, and her heartfelt introduction to the power of this music is right after our conversation, so please keep listening till the end.

Rachel Mercer’s website: http://www.rachelmercercellist.com/

Support link to buy this independent podcaster a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/leahroseman Thanks!

Complete Catalog of Episodes: https://www.leahroseman.com/about

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Linktree: https://linktr.ee/leahroseman

This week, I’m featuring a wonderful episode from the archive, with Linsey Pollak, which was recorded and released in Season 2 of this podcast, 2022. Linsey Pollak is an Australian musician who is known worldwide as a passionate and creative advocate for community music. His life has been full of unusual opportunities to explore different styles of music, and his inventiveness has spurred him to create countless instruments from found objects. In this episode you’ll get to hear him play 4 different instruments in different improvisatory styles, and I’m sure that everyone will be inspired by stories from his life, describing some of his incredibly unusual, fun and beautiful collaborations and creations.

I take care of all the many jobs of research, production, and publicity and I really do need the help of my listeners to keep this project going; please consider buying me a coffee through my support page which is linked to Paypal:

https://ko-fi.com/leahroseman Thanks so much!

You can watch this on YouTube as well, and I've linked the transcript here too: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/linsey-pollak

Linsey Pollak website: https://linseypollak.com/

My complete catalog of episodes: https://www.leahroseman.com/about

Podcast newsletter sign-up: https://mailchi.mp/ebed4a237788/podcast-newsletter

photo credit: Beat Lehmann

Timestamps:

(00:00 Intro)

(01:58) gaida music

(05:10) Rafting trip, discovering Macedonian bagpipes, first trip to Macedonia

(11:35) trip to Greece to study klarino with Stavros Vasthekis

(13:15) discovering the Macedonian community in Australia, establishing Kulcha

(17:36) Linsey’s start making instruments, London and Early Music scene

(23:14) busking in Europe, learning Macedonian dance,

Živko Firfov Group, Destan Destanovski

(31:48) importance of humour in his solo shows

(33:17) duduk design and music

(39:57) Linsey’s early musical education and projects

(41:27) developing live looping in the early 90s, his solo shows

(50:30) rubber glove bagpipe

(54:36) Linsey’s current project going out to record in the forest with ambient sounds (his album of this music is on Bandcamp), also the frog sounds album

(56:53) Dva with Tunji Beier and now Beier-Griffin-Pollak trio with Philip Griffin

(58:23) Humarimba community music project

(01:09:16) Paranormal Music Society Romano Crivici and Blair Greenberg, and QWERTY with Peter Rowe

(01:13:47) MIDI wind controller Dangerous Song project with demonstration using animal sounds

(01:33:26) Linsey’s drive to create instruments and connect people, his creative process

(01:37:20) Linsey’s decision to stop touring outside of Australia

(01:40:07) Linsey’s advice