Jeffrey Silverman snuck into Hollywood film scoring sessions as a teenager. 

Years later, he would go on to orchestrate some of the most iconic concert productions of the 1990s, including Yanni’s Live at the Acropolis and John Tesh’s Live at Red Rocks. 

In this conversation, we talk about what orchestration actually means, how he built a career across Broadway, film, and television, and the unexpected story of how he sold more than 100,000 records under the pseudonym David Raintree. 

We also get into what it’s really like working with world-class musicians, and the one lesson he learned watching them up close. 

About the Podcast: Beyond the Notes is a podcast about the people behind the music — composers, performers, and creators — and how they think about their craft. 

Learn more about Jeffrey on his website: https://jeffreysilvermanmusic.com/

There are some stories that time itself cannot bury. Composer Danaë Xanthe Vlasse transforms ancient Greek myths into music that feels both classical and cinematic, intimate and epic. Her Grammy-winning Mythologies and Grammy-nominated Mythologies II explore beauty, tension, and transcendence through voices that sound as if they’ve crossed centuries to reach us. 

In this conversation with Vonn Vanier, Danaë shares how her Greek heritage shaped her love of myth, how she brings figures like Medusa and the Sirens to emotional life, and what it takes to lead world-class artists toward a single creative vision. Along the way, she speaks candidly about rewriting endings, why she discards large portions of her work, and how she uses recurring musical themes to carry character across long-form compositions. 

This episode is about the stories we inherit, the stories we choose, and what it means to tell them honestly through music.

The internet rewards speed, volume, and constant stimulation. Claire Ritter makes music that does the opposite. Her album "Songs of Lumiere" feels like light painted with sound. Calm, spacious, and deeply intentional, it sits far outside the noise-driven logic of modern culture. In this episode of Beyond the Notes, Vonn Vanier talks with jazz and classical pianist and composer Claire Ritter about the musical lineage that shaped her voice. She reflects on studying with jazz legend Mary Lou Williams, her decades-long mentorship with pianist Ran Blake, and her lifelong search for space, color, and intuition at the piano. They discuss: 

• How jazz and classical traditions can live inside one musical voice 
• The importance of space and silence in performance 
• Why many young musicians lose connection with their instruments 
• The role of mentors and lineage in shaping an artist 
• Claire’s upcoming book on her musical philosophy and teaching methods 

This conversation is about presence, legacy, and the quiet courage it takes to follow a different artistic path.

Mike Post has spent decades writing music to serve story.

Scenes. Characters. Picture lock. Timing. Emotion under constraint. 

In this episode of Beyond the Notes with Vonn Vanier, the legendary Law & Order composer talks about what happened when, during COVID, that structure suddenly fell away — and an entirely different idea took shape. 

While driving late at night and listening to bluegrass, Mike had a question: What if an orchestra and a bluegrass rhythm section could truly coexist? What followed was not a side project, and not a break from television, but a serious compositional challenge. Writing music that didn’t need to follow a script. Music that could grow organically, piece by piece, through collaboration, time, and conversation between classical orchestra players and world-class bluegrass musicians. 

Mike walks through how the album evolved from small fragments into two large-scale works — Message from the Mountains and Echoes of the Delta — blending bluegrass, blues, orchestral writing, and American musical tradition. He reflects on influences ranging from Copland and Randy Newman to bluegrass legends, the role of improvisation and orchestration, and what changes when music is no longer solving a narrative problem. 

This conversation is about craft, collaboration, discipline, and what it means to keep growing — even while continuing to write every note of Law & Order decades into its run. 

If you haven’t watched Part 1, where Mike breaks down his television career, his process, and how writing for story shaped his musical language, start there first: 

▶ Watch Part 1 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pkOdg5fxPE 

Then come back to this episode. 

About Beyond the Notes 

Beyond the Notes is a long-form conversation series hosted by composer Vonn Vanier, exploring how music, identity, craft, and lived experience intersect beyond surface-level credits.

Oh, you definitely know the tunes. You can hum them right now: 

• Law & Order
• The Rockford Files
• Magnum P.I.
• Hill Street Blues
• The A-Team. 

And that's not even all of them! 

But you probably don't know the name of the man who wrote all of them. 

Meet Mike Post. He's defined the sound of television for 50 years. In this interview, we talk about the "obsession" required to write 7,000+ hours of music, why he wrote a hit song in a jacuzzi, and the two specific notes that—to this day—get him out of speeding tickets. 

This is Part 1 of our conversation.

How do you get Gen Z to care about a 400-year-old art form? 

Matthew Shilvock, General Director of San Francisco Opera, has spent his career finding out. The stories he shares reveal exactly why opera still matters. 

In this episode, he talks about the moments that still give him chills, why staging Wagner’s Parsifal next to a brand-new Monkey King excites him, and what it feels like when 20,000 people cheer for opera at a baseball stadium. 

From childhood awe to leading San Francisco Opera—one of America’s great cultural institutions—Shilvock shows why opera is still funny, intense, surprising, and maybe just exactly what Gen Z is looking for.

Imagine you're a professional musician. You've flown halfway across the world for a big concert in Istanbul. You walk out on stage... and there are three people in the audience. The band literally outnumbers the crowd. So what do you do?

That one story from violinist Jeremy Cohen got host Vonn Vanier thinking: In a creative life full of uncertainty, in a business known for being brutal, what is the engine that actually keeps you going?

This special episode pieces together the answer. Drawing from the archives of Beyond the Notes, Vonn traces a journey through the four essential stages of a creative life. It's a path that begins with a private spark of magic in the studio with Grammy-winning sound engineer Leslie Ann Jones; builds into an unbreakable bond on a stage with Jeremy Cohen and his quartet; grows into a hard-won connection with the wider world through the perseverance of acclaimed composer Peter Boyer; and ends with the profound weight of a mentor's final words, in a story from legendary producer John Snyder about the man who discovered Bob Dylan.

This isn't a story about fame or fortune. This is the story of what keeps you going.

Guests in this episode:

• Leslie Ann Jones: Multi-Grammy Award-Winning Skywalker Sound Engineer
• Jeremy Cohen: Multi-Grammy Nominated Violinist, Founder of Quartet San Francisco
• Peter Boyer: Grammy-Nominated Composer
• John Snyder: Grammy-Award Winning Record Producer

Listen to the full episodes here:

• Jeremy Cohen: Jeremy Cohen Owns One of the Most Heard Violins in History
• John Snyder: Producer John Hammond (Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen) Told Him on His Death Bed "It's up to you now."
• Leslie Ann Jones: From Apocalypse Now to Halo and Beyond - the INCREDIBLE Career of Leslie Ann Jones
• Peter Boyer:  How Grammy-Nominated Composer Peter Boyer Is Scoring America’s History
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Grammy-nominated composer Peter Boyer joins Vonn Vanier on Beyond the Notes to share the story of his two most ambitious new works: 

• "American Mosaic", commissioned by the Kennedy Center for America’s 250th anniversary, blending Boyer’s music with the imagery of Americana photographer Joe Sohm. 
• "A Hundred Years On" is an equal collaboration between Peter Boyer and librettist Mark Campbell for the Mann Center and the Philadelphia Orchestra. It's an oratorio that explores the legacy of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition. 

Boyer opens up about the responsibility of writing “American-themed” music, the influence of Copland, Bernstein, and John Williams on his voice, and the challenge of balancing two monumental commissions at once.

Leslie Ann Jones: GRAMMY-winning engineer behind Apocalypse Now, Herbie Hancock, & Halo | Beyond the Notes 

What’s the secret sauce behind the music that stays with us? Legendary engineer Leslie Ann Jones turns session chaos into clarity—whether for Apocalypse Now, video games, or jazz albums. 

In this interview with composer Vonn Vanier, she shares: 

• The studio trick that made bands rethink what's possible 
• Taming chaos during Apocalypse Now scoring sessions 
• The real difference between recording for records, film, and games 
• Why conductors still matter more than high-end gear 
• Building the next generation through mentorship and inclusion 
• What walking offstage with a GRAMMY actually feels like - 
• Subscribe for more conversations with the people who craft the music you feel. 

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"The most rapacious exponent of artist abuse are the major record companies. By far. They steal. It's terrible." 

In this episode, we sit down with legendary producer and founder of the iconic Artists House label, John Snyder. With a career spanning five decades, over 300 albums, and 35 Grammy nominations, John has worked with a staggering list of legends, from Stevie Wonder and Eric Clapton to Paul Simon, Etta James, Ornette Coleman, and Chet Baker. 

John pulls back the curtain on the music industry, sharing the sacred trust passed to him on the deathbed of John Hammond—the man who discovered Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. He reveals the single most important asset an artist has (your copyright) and provides a lifetime of wisdom on how to navigate a business designed to create victims. This is a must-listen for any musician, songwriter, or music lover who wants to understand the battle between art and commerce. 

In This Episode, You Will Learn: 

• The deathbed advice John received from the legendary John Hammond 
• Why John believes major record labels are corrupt and how they exploit artists - The story of founding Artists House, a label built on creative freedom 
• How to protect your work and why your copyright is your "sword and shield" - The crucial difference between the art of music and the business of music 
• Stories from a career working with Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, Ornette Coleman, Paul Simon, and more. 

TIMESTAMPS: 

• 1:36 - The Genesis of a Legendary Record Producer 
• 3:06 - "Be An Entrepreneur": The Advice That Changed Everything 
• 4:30 - How He Met Music's Biggest Legends 
• 6:06 - The Incredible Record That Never Got Its Due 
• 9:11 - The Time He Had to Save an Artist from Losing Everything 
• 13:06 - A Producer's Warning: How the Industry Rips Off Artists 
• 14:13 - The Hidden Danger of Licensing Beats and Clicking "I Agree" 
• 15:30 - Why Recorded Music is a "Dead Issue" for Revenue 
• 17:16 - The Craziest Scams He's Witnessed in the Music Business 
• 25:34 - What Makes a Performance Truly Great? 
• 33:02 - The Mentors Who Shaped His Career 
• 35:48 - The Full Story of John Hammond's Final Words 

Like this conversation? Don't forget to subscribe! 

JOIN VONN AND THE BEYOND THE NOTES COMMUNITY: 

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