Cut and Paste

Syrhea Conoway isn’t a DJ, and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis isn’t a dance club. Yet Conoway — in the guise guide of her solo project, Syna So Pro — is CAM’s new DJ-in-residence. She’ll fill monthly, two-hour sets with instrumental pieces she’s writing in response to the art on display at the museum, beginning with Christine Corday’s cosmic-minded sculpture collection “Relative Points.”

Justin Phillip Reed published his first collection of poetry (“Indecency,” Coffee House Press) earlier this year — and it won the National Book Award for poetry. “Indecency” is in large part a product of the 29-year old’s time in St. Louis. His work foregrounds his identity as a queer black man in America, and examines the complex social calculus he’s navigated as he earns literary accolades and is celebrated by traditionally white institutions.

We talk with Dino Taca and Adrian Gough, who ran the Upstairs Lounge in its final months, after a run that began in 1991. The Upstairs was home to various forms of underground electronic music. 

Rising-star conductor Gemma New talks about her approach to working with an orchestra, and the increased demand for conductors to be the public face of their organizations. We also hear an excerpt from St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's rehearsal of Elgar's "Enigma Variations." 

While shooting his documentary on an encampment of homeless people living near the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Paul Crane set up his own tent and moved in.