Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman

Yann Passabet-Labiste is a French violinist with a beautiful warm intensity to his playing, and in this episode we’re focussing on his album “Robert Schumann et son univers” with pianist Bertrand Giraud. Yann talks about some of his mentors in France and Switzerland, many interesting and inspiring musical highlights and his perspectives on how music has helped him through some difficult challenges...

Ida Gillner is very special musician based in Sweden, and in this episode you’ll hear the powerful story of her personal journey, embracing different cultures, and also the comforting power of music.  Ida is a multi-instrumentalist and composer; her main instruments are soprano saxophone, piano and voice.  In the first part of this episode we focus on her project Shtolstse lider, her songs set to...

DeWitt Fleming Jr. is a multi-talented and brilliant performer, renowned for his tap dancing, choreography and acting, and is also a singer and drummer. As he said to me in this interview “when I’m tap dancing I’m drumming”. You’ll hear about his experience growing up in the Projects, the importance of attending an Arts high school, the usefulness of theatre training for musicians, and insights in...

I was honored to be able to record this wide-ranging interview with violinist Yale Strom, who is the leading ethnographer-artist of Klezmer music and history, and also has done many years of research among the Roma communities. He speaks to us about some of his many inspiring experiences during over 75 research expeditions to Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. To prepare for this episode,...

Nimrod Borenstein is a brilliant composer, who was a child prodigy as both a composer and performer. His often complex music is beloved by performers and audiences alike, and has been widely recorded and performed internationally. He is also a renowned conductor, and he spoke to me about his difficult decision to cut short his career as a violin soloist in order to find alternate career options as...

Mark Growden is a brilliant, curious, and expressive American multi-faceted musician.  He’s a multi-instrumentalist, composer, singer, music educator, conductor, and visual artist. In this episode we focus on his large and varied instrument collection and he demonstrates several unusual instruments, including different jaw harps, biclycle handebars, and overtone flutes. He shares his unique journe...

Omo Bello is an acclaimed French-Nigerian operatic soprano , and in this episode we are focussing on her newly-released album “African Art Song” on Somm recordings with pianist Rebeca Omordia. Many of you heard my episode this past summer with pianist and curator of the African Concert Series, Rebeca Omordia, and I’ll be linking that episode below for you.   Omo talked to me about overcoming shyne...

Gilad Weiss takes us on a visit to his music studio and improvises on several of his instruments, including the fretless guitar, and some of the instruments from Turkey and Central Asia, such as the kopuz, the baglama and the Turkmenistani dutar. He also spoke to me about his duo project with the Anatolian kamanche player Melisa Yildirim and we’re including a track from their beautiful album, whic...

I was honoured to have this opportunity to record this conversation with the phenomenal violinist Sara Caswell, who is a GRAMMY Nominee for the Best Improvised Jazz Solo. We focused on the recent 9 Horses album, Strum with mandolinist and composer Joseph Brent, and she also spoke to me about some of her other collaborators including esperanza spalding, Chuck Owen, Nadje Noordhuis, and mentors incl...

Mark Deutsch is a brilliant and unique musician who has devoted the last 3 decades of his life to his instrument the Bazantar, which is unique to him. There is only one Bazantar, which is a double bass hybrid with elements of the sitar:  it has 6 main strings, 4 drone strings, and 29 sympathetic strings. Mark grew up as a multi-instrumentalist, but primarily a classical, jazz and rock bass player,...

Trumpeter, composer and conductor Stephen Burns is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Fulcrum Point New Music Project in Chicago. He has been acclaimed on four continents for his virtuosity and interpretative depth in recitals, orchestral appearances, chamber music, and multi-media performances. In this interview you’ll hear him talk about some of his mentors including Arnold Jacobs, and Pie...

This episode is a special short Catch-Up episode with the Klezmer violinist and composer Alicia Svigals. I first spoke with her in 2021 in Season 1 of this podcast, and that wide-ranging in-depth conversation is here: https://www.leahroseman.com/episodes/e15-s1-alicia-svigals-klezmer-violinist-and-composer Today we are focusing on Alicia’s new album Fidl Afire https://borschtbeat.bandcamp.com/albu...

Meg Okura is an award-winning Jazz composer and brilliant Grammy-nominated violinist, and the leader and founder of the  Pan Asian Chamber Jazz Ensemble. This episode features several excerpts from Meg’s wonderful recent duo album “Lingering” with the Grammy Award-winning jazz pianist and composer  Kevin Hays. This  was a wide-ranging conversation, including Meg’s musical tribute to Ryuichi Sakamo...

I have known the Canadian cellist Julia MacLaine for many years in her role asAssistant Principal Cello of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, of which I am also a member. In this episode we’re highlighting her gorgeous album Preludes which pairs the Preludes of J.S. Bach for Cello solo and with newly commissioned works for solo cello by Canadian composers.  Julia and I talked about many thin...

This special Catch-Up episode with the Dutch singer Ineke Vandoorn focuses on her album with Jasper van ’t Hof, “Dancing on Water”, with lots of music from the album. You’ll also get to hear of her inspirational experience learning from Betty Carter.  When Ineke Vandoorn won the prestigous Edison Jazz Award for her album ‘Love is a Golden Glue’ the jury wrote:"Ineke Vandoorn distinguishes herself...

Joe K. Walsh is an acclaimed master of bluegrass mandolin and a professor at Berklee College, and in this episode you’ll hear about many of his inspiring collaborations including with Darol Anger, Mike Block, Grant Gordy, Alex Hargreaves and Mike Marshall. We are also featuring some music from some of his albums inluding “If Not Now, Who?” We talked about Joe’s approach as an educator, the challen...

This episode features Bad Snacks, a producer and multi-instrumentalist known for the use of violin, with lofi and dance influences. We talked about her experience when she went viral on Andrew Huang’s “4 Producers Flip the Same Sample” challenge with over 4.5M views, dealing with online boundaries, with sexism, finding inspiration, and  enjoying the learning process. Bad Snacks is also an educator...

This is a special stand-alone bonus episode featuring the the inspiring Australian artist, educator and author Maryanne Moodie who’s woven art graces the cover of the Collected Strands album Volume 1, which is being celebrated in the main episode connected to this one. I decided to release this stand-alone bonus for those listeners who are passionate about weaving and want to dive into the intervi...

This is a special episode of my podcast, celebrating Volume 1 with my improvising ensemble Collected Strands. The other musicians in the group have all been featured previously on this series, and you’ll find the links to those episodes below, with cellist Raphael Weinroth-Browne, pianist James McGowan and drummer Mike Essoudry. I’m also delighted that you will get to know the inspiring Australian...

Hillary Simms is a virtuosic Canadian trombone player with the esteemed American Brass Quintet and is on faculty at the Julliard School. Hillary’s warmth and love of music comes through in this candid interview, from her childhood in Newfoundland to playing on the world’s biggest stages, and also the unusual situation she found herself in when  her engagement to her husband became a viral sensatio...

Concert pianist Rebeca Omordia, has just released her second African Pianism album, volume 2, which was just named Editor’s Choice in the Gramophone Magazine,  and it is a fascinating and beautiful kaleidoscope of piano works from West Africa, North Africa, South Africa and East Africa. Rebeca spoke to me about her extensive research about these composers, varied styles, and the different traditio...

Sarah Jeffery is a wonderful and versatile recorder player based in the Netherlands, known worldwide for her outreach with her YouTube project Team Recorder, which at the time of this podcast release has well over 205,000 very engaged followers. She is the Recorder Professor specializing in Contemporary music at the Royal College in London, and we talked about her work teaching recorder technique,...

Lisa Pegher is a brilliant American percussion soloist and drummer. She is also a composer, improvisor and software engineer.  She is known for pioneering percussion as a solo instrument within the orchestral realm and beyond, making it her life’s work to present percussion to larger audiences by commissioning, collaborating, and creating new works and performances that bring percussion to the fro...

Cliff Beach is an award-winning singer, songwriter, author of “Side Hustle and Flow”, podcast host, record label owner and also works fulltime as VP of digital and operations in the beauty industry. This episode focuses on his recent album and tribute to Ella Fitzgerald “You Showed Me the Way”, we also got into his funk hit “Confident” and the last part of the interview we talked about some of his...

Jessica Cottis is an acclaimed orchestral conductor, and in this wide-ranging interview you’ll gain insights into the special world of orchestral conductors and also some of Jessica’s interests in the natural world and the arts. She spoke to me about her musical path, from how she made her first trumpet, to life on a sheep farm, to her transition from a career as a concert organist, to lessons lea...