Sound Off with Katy Henriksen Critical Frequency

William Brittelle is a Brooklyn-based composer who enlisted a rock band, a chamber symphony and a children's chorus to create Spiritual America, an elaborate album that delves deep into his roots of growing up in what he describes as a pretty typical North Carolina home. Raised as a Christian and wanting to date the cheerleader, Brittelle secretly created his own worlds, composing songs and poems in his bedroom studio. In this episode I talk to Bill about how he formed what he describes as his genre-fluid compositional style, what it was like to work with rockers Wye Oak and being drawn equally to the Late Romantic stylings of Chopin piano ballads and over-the-top 1980s hair metal. https://www.williambrittelle.com/

Qasim Naqvi is a drummer and composer based in Brooklyn. As the drummer for acoustic trio Dawn of Midi, he’s toured with Radiohead. As a film score composer his sounds have been featured on HBO, The Sundance Channel and at art institutions such as The Guggenheim. He composes for contemporary chamber ensembles like yMusic and for symphony orchestras. He’s also an analog synths wizard. In this episode I talk to Qasim about how his lifelong pursuit of music began with a middle school crush, how composing with analog synths is like working with an improvising performer and so much more. Plus! I get to play some full tracks handpicked from his recordings.

Although British composer Ethel Smyth's The Prison, which premiered in 1931, draws comparisons to Gustav Mahler and Richard Wagner, this groundbreaking composer saw none of their acclaim, thanks to misogyny. A new--and world premiere--recording of this undefinable work for orchestra, chorus and vocal soloists from James Blachly leading the Experiental Orchestra and Chorus with soloists Sarah Brailey and Dashon Burton, released last month on Chandos, attempts to rectify that wrong.
https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%205279

Missy Mazzoli made history in 2018 when the Metropolitan Opera commissioned her, alongside Jeanine Tesori, as the first ever women composers to write for the organization. As a trailblazing woman composer she’s a founding member of Luna Composition Lab, an organization dedicated to giving women and non-binary composers the professional development and mentorship opportunities they need for success in this highly competitive, and highly male-oriented, field. Mazzoli just released her opera Proving Up on Pentatone.
https://www.kaufmanmusiccenter.org/ftm/luna-lab/
http://www.missymazzoli.com/
http://www.pentatonemusic.com/missy-mazzoli-vavrek-proving-up-opera-omaha-rountree-international-contemporary-ensemble?

Despite both growing up in Southern California leading somewhat parallel lives, it wasn’t until a classical music festival that Thomas Flippin and Christopher Mallet formed Duo Noire. In this episode they speak with Katy about the importance of programming women composers, racial representation in their art form and what it’s like to be black classical guitarists as the U.S. confronts systemic racism.

Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Shara Nova releases exquisitely produced unclassifiable music as My Brightest Diamond. Depending on the track, her music sounds at home on the dance floor or the concert hall. In this episode she talks to Katy about embracing dance despite growing up Pentecostal, divorce, and navigating her own terrain as a musician that embraces her training as a classical musician and her fascination for electronic sounds.
https://www.mybrightestdiamond.com/
https://www.npr.org/2014/09/16/348766101/shara-worden-on-q2s-spaces