The Second Street Dreams Audio Network

There are so many musical works that have been lost to history.  Joshua Conyers and the faculty and students at the Eastman School Of Music in Rochester, NY has recorded over 40 of them in an album called In Plain Sight, The Black Anthology. In recognition of the nation’s 250th, there’s the first part of a three-part series about the musical lives of the colonists during the Revolutionary War.  Mu...

The Many Deaths Of Laila Starr is historic.  It’s one of the few operas covering South Asian themes.  It centers on Laila Starr, the avatar of Death living as a mortal in Mumbai, India. It was created by composer Kamala Sankaram, and  the librettist, Minita Gandhi via the New Works Initiative at the Minnesota Opera.   Hear how their backgrounds, talents and curiosity shaped The Many Deaths of Lail...

Now that Gustavo Dudamel is holding the baton for the New York Philharmonic, the classical music community is all atwitter.  He says he’s not coming in to make changes, but changes will most likely come.   And on the west coast, from whence he came there’s Dale Dale Hikawa Silverman, a violist and the first Asian American woman at the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  She tells stories of her 40-year car...

When you go to a beerfest, like the one coming up in Munich are you expecting to hear any form of classical music?  If the answer is no, then patrons attending the Munich Oktoberfest are going to be quite surprised when the Cellist Anna Rehker and her string quartet start playing music from Bridgerton along with some classical music hits.

Many of you were not alive or were babies on the horrible day, September 11, 2001.   Those of us who were will NEVER FORGET it.  That includes the thousands of reporters who covered the events of that day and in the days ahead. Judlyne Lilly was a news anchor at WTOP Radio in Washington, DC at that time. Here's how she remembers it. 

Morgiane, the opera by Louisiana native Edmond Dédé got national and international attention when it was performed and recorded earlier this year.  This 1887 opera was finally included in the opera canon after 138 years and a 12-year effort by Givonna Joseph, Artistic Director of Opera Creole in New Orleans.  This opera company continues singing about historical events in the Black community of Ne...

Heartbeat Opera in New York has a reputation for modern reimagining’s of classic operas. They did it earlier this year with their production of Manon by Jules Massenet.  Now they’ve done something they’ve never done before.  They called back the cast to record a cast album of the show.

Since 2021, the Catalyst Quartet has released albums of the music of Black composers.  The series called Uncovered featured the works of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Florence B. Price,  Coleridge-Taylor, Perkinson, William Grant Still, and George Walker.   The latest and last album features the works of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges.   The National Symphony orchestra won’t be performing a...

Since the 21st century started in earnest, there’s been some discussion about opera.  New operas versus the standard repertoire and how it’s measured against the prevailing views about race and attitudes.  Now comes One Ounce Opera out of Austin, Texas.  They are seeking to throw the old views out about everything that opera represents with their annual show Fresh Squeezed Ounce of Opera.

A soothing album as a balm for the ICE infested people of Minneapolis.  Mozart’s newly discovered jam, Elaine Andrews found an undiscovered Ralph Vaughn Williams piece and there's a pianist who likes to perform his concerts outdoors. 

Some ideas nag at you over time.  That is until something happens and you have to act.  This is what happened to Ruby Ortiz who finally decided to start Houston’s first LGBTQ+ symphony orchestra. It’s called the Houston Pride Orchestra.

We are just days away from the actual 250th birthday of America.  The music developed for this event just keeps coming.  Perhaps none as expansive as the Declaration Project from pianist Lara Downes. She created it to get various takes from anyone about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This national program will end with a concert at Lincoln Center in New York.   

Many classical music groups have released new music or albums about the 250th birthday of America.  Some are straightforward, others take a diverse view, like the Apollo Chamber Players. Founder and Director  Matthew Detrick says the  album, We The People, features music from composers with disparate American experiences.  

We have been inundated with new music and performances of old patriotic music because of the 250th birthday of the United States. On this June 8th podcast, I’m starting a series on music composed and performed specifically for the big bash next month. This time it’s Karen LeFrak’s American Promise.  You’ll also meet Dawn Carroll who was inspired to compose Songs for Mary.  It’s about a woman who c...

There aren’t many musicians, classical or otherwise who aren’t presenting their own versions of a birthday song for America’s 250th.  On this episode, we hear from Min Kwon, a pianist with a little activist nature on the side. Back in 2021 she started a project called America/Beautiful.  Since then she’s commissioned over 70 composers to come up with their musical versions of what’s beautiful abou...

Hundreds of people are expected to  voluntarily step outside of their musical genre mode this weekend and hear something new, and different and maybe even odd. It’s time for the annual HERE BE MONSTERS, Austin’s Indie-Classical  music festival.  Co-director Michael Zapruder of Tetractys says this is a growing movement within the classical or near classical genre of new music.

Many orchestras and chamber groups are celebrating the 250th anniversary of America’s founding this year.  While most of the music is a positive portrayal of the United States there is at least one musical work telling the tale of the horrific treatment of Native Americans and their lands. The piece is Requiem For America  by Mohican/Munsee-Lenape composer Brent Michael Davids.  He describes it as...

Even though operas from long ago are still being performed, there’s a movement afoot to freshen them up or to do new 21st century operas. In the case of the 1958 opera Vanessa, a production by Heartbeat Opera is doing a stripped-down version of the Pulitzer Prize winning work. It’s directed by RB Schlather.  At The Met, they are about to premiere a  true 21st century opera by first-time opera comp...

Sometimes when someone makes a suggestion to you, it kind of sticks with you.  That’s what happened to jazz artist Darrel Grant.  He decided to act on this suggestion from a friend by composing Step by Step, the Ruby Bridges Suite.  It is a piece about the 6-year-old girl who was the first African American student to integrate the New Orleans public schools in 1960. It was not without protests, or...

In honor of April, Earth Month, more than a few composers have released albums about their love of our home planet, and their anxiety about climate change. This week’s episode features three of those albums.  

There have been several studies on the effect of music on mental health.  This is especially true with the elderly.  A long running study out of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia is finding that dementia may be delayed in the over 70 set if music is in their lives.  

Welcome to my latest podcast.  It’s called Feeding Thespis.  I’m picking it up again after more than a few years and some tears. This one is called NEW TIMES.  It takes place in 1967 on the campus of a prestigious women’s college when a Black woman is hired to run one of the dormitories for the first time in the school’s history.  Her various conflicts come from students, management and another Bl...

Composer Chinary Ung has been composing music for 60 plus years.  His compositions are heavily affected by his childhood in Cambodia and the deadly events that happened  there back in the mid 1970’s.  But he says he’s blessed that he was able to come to America in the 1960’s to study the western style of music. Many of his compositions will be performed at the Miller Theatre at Columbia University...

It took pianist Rebeca Omordia 8 years to create the African Concert Series in London.  She was even told that African classical music wasn’t really classical at all, nor would anyone want to listen to it. The series is very popular now.  So much so that Wigmore Hall in London has gifted Omordia a residency at the world class venue. 

Conductor and Music Director JoAnn Falletta of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra has fulfilled a dream.  She’s released A Hero’s Life.  The album has two pieces, one from Richard Strauss and another that’s a world premiere recording of Behzad Ranjbaran’s  Concerto for Violin and Orchestra.  Falletta is also releasing another edition of her book of poetry, Love Letters to Music. This is in additio...