George Floyd - Breonna Taylor - Ahmaud Arbery - Sandra Bland - Tamir Rice - Trayvon Martin - Eric Garner - Akai Gurley - Freddie Gray - Stephon Clark - Botham Jean - Atiana Jefferson - Michael Brown - Philando Castile My heart cracks open with grief to say your names. The act of speaking your names out loud has become prayer. Prayers I imagine reach into the imperceivable place where you all rest in power with the ancestors. As we find ourselves managing the surf and wipe-out from waves of sadness and pain, the many words exchanged in this podcast may wade into deep water but it may also lea ..read more

Urban Consulate: Music. Equity. Cities. Creative incubators & accelerators are emerging in cities across the U.S. to support artists and build more equitable ecosystems for the future. In this cross-city conversation, we cover a broad range of topics including how Covid-19 has impacted artists of color, what anti-racist policies are being applied to music accelerator work, how the sustained struggle to dismantle white supremacy making this work more pressing,  and what our experts want to see as the culminating impact of their work.  This discussion was originally planned as a p ..read more

Five months ago, I asked BWAC podcast guest Weston Sprott a question which then fascinated me but today returns with the urgency of a coming storm – “How can we apply antiracist principles to the world of classical music?”.  As the interview unfolds, Weston Sprott, Dean of the Juilliard Preparatory Division and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra trombonist, gives us a master class in all things leadership, DE&I and yes, gives a clarion clear pathway to apply some of the core ideas from Ibram Kendi’s “How to be Antiracist” to the music world.  We also discuss how at Juilliard Prep work ..read more

On Thursday, June 18 on Facebook Live, Bawse With A Cause had an audience of some 2,000 viewers watching a conversation with six dynamic black women leading artistic operations around the nation. Jennifer Arnold, Director of Artistic Planning and Orchestral Operations at the Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Danni Gee, Curator at SummerStage in NYC, Kaisha Johnson, Co-Founder and Founding Director of Women of Color in the Arts (WOCA), Toya Lillard, Executive Director of viBe Theater Experience in Brooklyn, and Taneshia Nash Laird President and CEO of Newark Symphony Hall.  We heard their sto ..read more

This episode featuring Mark Williams, Chief Artistic Officer of the Cleveland Orchestra, is the continuation of our series focusing on black and brown leaders in the performing arts space.  This episode was recorded months ago- long before quarantine - long before our latest encounters with nationwide protests rejecting police brutalism and racism. But Mark Williams, as a man, as a cultural leader holds much meaning in our world. In a time where it’s not uncommon to read about, even in 2020, a black person becoming “the first of something”, Mark’s historical mark, pun intended on the worl ..read more

This episode featuring Mark Williams, Chief Artistic Officer of the Cleveland Orchestra, is the continuation of our series focusing on black and brown leaders in the performing arts space.  This episode was recorded months ago- long before quarantine - long before our latest encounters with nationwide protests rejecting police brutalism and racism. But Mark Williams, as a man, as a cultural leader holds much meaning in our world. In a time where it’s not uncommon to read about, even in 2020, a black person becoming “the first of something”, Mark’s historical mark, pun intended on the worl ..read more

Urban Consulate: Music. Equity. Cities. Creative incubators & accelerators are emerging in cities across the U.S. to support artists and build more equitable ecosystems for the future. In this cross-city conversation, we cover a broad range of topics including how Covid-19 has impacted artists of color, what anti-racist policies are being applied to music accelerator work, how the sustained struggle to dismantle white supremacy making this work more pressing,  and what our experts want to see as the culminating impact of their work.  This discussion was originally planned as a p ..read more

On Thursday, June 18 on Facebook Live, Bawse With A Cause had an audience of some 2,000 viewers watching a conversation with six dynamic black women leading artistic operations around the nation. Jennifer Arnold, Director of Artistic Planning and Orchestral Operations at the Richmond Symphony Orchestra, Danni Gee, Curator at SummerStage in NYC, Kaisha Johnson, Co-Founder and Founding Director of Women of Color in the Arts (WOCA), Toya Lillard, Executive Director of viBe Theater Experience in Brooklyn, and Taneshia Nash Laird President and CEO of Newark Symphony Hall.  We heard their sto ..read more

Five months ago, I asked BWAC podcast guest Weston Sprott a question which then fascinated me but today returns with the urgency of a coming storm – “How can we apply antiracist principles to the world of classical music?”.  As the interview unfolds, Weston Sprott, Dean of the Juilliard Preparatory Division and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra trombonist, gives us a master class in all things leadership, DE&I and yes, gives a clarion clear pathway to apply some of the core ideas from Ibram Kendi’s “How to be Antiracist” to the music world.  We also discuss how at Juilliard Prep work ..read more

George Floyd - Breonna Taylor - Ahmaud Arbery - Sandra Bland - Tamir Rice - Trayvon Martin - Eric Garner - Akai Gurley - Freddie Gray - Stephon Clark - Botham Jean - Atiana Jefferson - Michael Brown - Philando Castile My heart cracks open with grief to say your names. The act of speaking your names out loud has become prayer. Prayers I imagine reach into the imperceivable place where you all rest in power with the ancestors. As we find ourselves managing the surf and wipe-out from waves of sadness and pain, the many words exchanged in this podcast may wade into deep water but it may also lea ..read more