Composer Chats

Join Jason as he welcomes world renown, Grammy nominated soprano, Laura Strickling! Two-time GRAMMY® award nominee for Best Classical Vocal Solo Album for Confessions (2022) and 40@40 (2024) – Laura Strickling’s recordings make, “a strong statement about the status of contemporary art songs and her commitment to them,” (Schmopera). Recognized by The New York Times for her “flexible voice, crystall...

Join Jason this week as he welcomes composer Catherine Joy to the podcast! With a passion for music and collaboration, Catherine Joy is a composer for film, media and live performance. She recently won Best Documentary Score for the uplifting feature documentary Gold Balls, and in 2014 won the Independent Music Vox Pop Award for her soundtrack for the film All Things Hidden. Catherine is the Execu...

Listen in as Jason welcomes composer Anne McGinty to the podcast! Anne McGinty is known throughout the world as the most prolific woman composer in the field of concert band literature, having written more than 225 pieces, with more than 50 of those commissioned by bands across the United States. Thousands of people have played her music and discovered the joy and beauty of playing music that is b...

Listen in as Jason welcomes composer Jennifer Jolley to the podcast! Jennifer Jolley (b. 1981) is a composer, conductor, and professor person. Her work is founded on the belief that the pleasures and excesses of music have the unique potential to engage political and provocative subjects. Addressing a range of topics such as climate change, #MeToo, feminist history, and the abuses of the Putin reg...

Listen in as Jason welcomes composer Jim Stephenson to the podcast! Leading American orchestras, instrumentalists, and wind ensembles around the world have performed the music of Chicago based composer James M. Stephenson , both to critical acclaim and the delight of audiences. The Boston Herald raved about “straightforward, unabashedly beautiful sounds,” suggesting “Stephenson deserves to be hear...

Join Jason as he welcomes composer Paul Dooley to the podcast! aul Dooley is one of the most prolific and performed composers in America today. His path has embraced not only his Western Classical heritage, but also a cross-cultural range of contemporary music, dance, art, technology and the interactions between the human and natural worlds. His music has been described as "impressive and beautifu...

Join Jason Nitsch as he welcomes composer Dana Wilson to the podcast! The works of Dana Wilson have been commissioned and performed by such diverse ensembles as the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Formosa Quartet, Xaimen Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, Memphis Symphony, Dallas Wind Symphony, Voices of Change, Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Syracuse Symphony, Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, the trio STRATA, and...

Tag along with composer Jason Nitsch as he spends some time with some of his favorite composers. There will be a little talk about music, a little talk about life, and a whole lot of whatever happens to come up! Find Alex on the web at https://www.alexshapiro.org Composer Alex Shapiro aligns note after note with the hope that at least a few of them will actually sound good next to each other. Her...