The Second Street Dreams Audio Network

There’s nothing like getting a running start and then hitting the COVID wall. Now after 2 years, the Ishida Dance Company is finally able to embrace a live audience (with safety precautions) with their performance, in Austin, Texas of “Faraway, So Close”. Company founder Brett Ishida has included a wide swath of music from Bach to Richter to Nina Simone to illustrate the choreographed story of an...

This is the first in an informal series on What’s Coming Up This Fall in Central Texas and beyond on Staccato on KMFA 89.5 Austin. We start in New Orleans at the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra. They’ve hired Anwar Nasir, as their Executive Director. He’s the first Black American to hold the job. Nasir says he wants the orchestra to be a little more like New Orleans and he has a digital season in...

This episode of Classical Music In Color shows just how rich and colorful our classical music world can be. Composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate reveals the history and culture of the Chickasaw Nation in the soundtrack to Lowak Shoppala' Fire and Light. Daniel Bernard Roumain revels in the sunshine after the storm with They Still Want To Kill us.

The Independence Day holiday is often the kickoff for family vacations, road trips and the like. Especially this year. One pianist, Min Kwon, decided to celebrate the holiday with a premiere of works composed on the theme of America The Beautiful. She marshaled 75 composers to write their own take on the patriotic tune in what she called the America/Beautiful project, now on You Tube.

This may very well be the first time families can celebrate the July 4th holiday week together in over a year. Those traveling with children may need something to keep them occupied during a long trip. Two animated programs may help. Let’s Make An Opera from the Bergen National Opera in Norway is a fun music drenched animated program all about making an opera. There’s also Classics Explained, a si...

It’s been a tough year and a half for just about everyone. Classical music organizations are no different. The League of American Orchestras recently held its 2021 virtual conference to take a look at the orchestral landscape after the trials of 2020. So how does it look for the Austin, Texas Symphony?

Juneteenth is no longer a day celebrated by people in individual states without federal attention. Now it’s a federal holiday signed into law by President Joe Biden. There are many events honoring the day Black Americans were liberated from slavery. Hear about a few of them including my own experience celebrating Juneteenth in my hometown of Houston, Texas.

Get ready for a summer opera camp that takes it to the next level. The Discover Opera Virtual Summer Camp from the Houston Grand Opera is enticing students with promises of a TikTok like experience. Alisa Magallon, Senior Education Manager at the Houston Grand Opera says this is the second, and hopefully last year the camp will be completely virtual.

Those of you who create, whether it be music, art or prose, know that it can be a mental exercise in either futility or joy. Two women from very different parts of our world were winners of the 2021 String Quartet Smackdown from Golden Hornet in Austin, Texas. Melika Fitzhugh and Jimena Palma de Gyvés used unusual methods to create their award winning work.

Bass-Baritone Ryan Speedo Green says he’s happy to talk about his background as a juvenile delinquent before he started singing opera. He gets the opportunity every time he’s engaged as an Artist In Residence. This time it’s for the Texas Opera Alliance. There are many classical music groups all over the country trying to up their Diversity Quotient. We focus on Oregon's Eugene Symphony in their p...

Many people suffer from depression, made worse by the pandemic. One young composer from Mexico used it to propel her to write a piece naming her mental illness and putting it to music. Jimena Palma de Gyvés’ work, Distimia, won the 2021 String Quartet Smackdown from Golden Hornet.

When astronauts return to the moon in a few years, they won’t be alone on the barren satellite. There will be a disc of music there created by The Earthling Project from SETI. The creator of the project, composer and conductor Felipe Perez Santiago calls it the sounds of humanity.

A new album released last month seeks to offer relief to those who've had to endure this terrible pandemic. Composer Richard Danielpour wrestled with the pandemic himself. In this inaugural edition of COMPOSER'S CADENZA, he talks about his struggles, how Pianist Simone Dinnerstein got him through with the result being their collaboration: An American Mosaic. The album honors those who have been an...

Many classical music organizations have voiced support and change because of last summer’s racial reckoning. Opera Theatre Of St. Louis acted fast to put action in their words with their Clayco Future Leaders Fellowship. Three people, including Lyanne Alvarado, were chosen and are learning how to manage an opera company. General Director of Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Andrew Jorgensen says their p...

There’s more new music coming borne of the pandemic. This time it’s in the form of a podcast from the Miller Theatre at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Mission: Commission paired a composer with a musician to write a new piece but they had to talk about their progress every week. Melissa Smey, Associate Dean of Columbia University’s School Of the Arts and the Executive Director of Miller...

It looks like being outside may be one of the places to enjoy the arts during this pre-post-pandemic period. The Austin Opera got creative when finding a venue for live performances of the opera Tosca by Puccini. They’re inviting audiences to the racetrack, the Germania Insurance Amphitheater at Circuit of the Americas later this month. In this extended edition of Staccato hear how General Directo...

As we move closer to the end of the pandemic, there’s hope that live, in person, performances will start again. When they do happen, many mainstream classical much groups are hoping to show off a little more diversity than in 2019. NIMAN, The National Instrumentalist Mentoring and Advancement Network is one group looking to add some color to the nation’s orchestras when they return from the virtua...

Is it this moment you need to sit down and read a book about a time almost half a millennia away? It’s The Eagle And The Songbird, about two 16th century musicians performing at a big event hosted by Emperor Maximilian. Sara Schneider, an announcer at KMFA 89.5 in Austin, Texas self-published this book and even added a playlist.

For our last report for Black History Month while moving into Women’s History Month, here is the story of an African-American woman who started the nation’s first National Opera Company for African-Americans in 1941. After 60 years of neglect, the National Negro Opera Company House in Pittsburgh is in such bad shape it has been named one of the 11 most endangered places in America by the National...

The Catalyst Quartet, a Grammy Award-winning group founded by the Sphinx Organization 11 years ago, is on a mission. They’ve just released the first of four volumes of music written by Black composers. On Volume one of Uncovered, they focus on the music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. They’re also getting heavy assists from pianist Stewart Goodyear and clarinetist Anthony McGill, the first African-Ame...

On this, the February 2021 edition of Classical Music In Color, we hear from two next/new/now classical music creators. Joseph Phillips about his mono-opera The Grey Land and Will Liverman, Baritone, about his new album, Dreams Of A New Day. Two men who’s work is the personification of the first Black History Month since the death of George Floyd.

The 9th year of the Colour of Music Festival comes amid a promised change in the classical music community. Lee Pringle, the Founder and Artistic Director of the festival says this year, he was especially proud to present the works of African-American composers and musicians performing some of the standard repertoire. He’s wondering what may come in the wider classical music community in the years...

Sometimes closing our eyes and listening, rather than looking at a screen can be the better choice. In this particular Black History Month, Baritone Will Liverman releases an album of songs by Black composers. Dreams Of A New Day features the works of some contemporary composers of color along with the work of an older generation.

Even though 2020 still has a grip on 2021, we are attempting to move in a different direction in this new year. Much of what we learned how to do during the pandemic year of 2020 is now (almost) muscle memory. In this, the January 2021 edition of Classical Music In Color, listen to composer Tyshawn Sorey’s “new age” way of composing music with Alarm Will Sound’s Alan Pierson. Then stay tuned for a...

Early in 2020, two men pushed to give opera librettist as much attention as opera composers. One of the men who started this campaign, Mark Campbell, is now funding the first ever prize just for the men and women who write the words in operas. The Mark Campbell Librettist Prize.