Jeri Lynne Johnson, the founder and artistic director of Philadelphia’s Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, continues to break barriers across the US and Europe as the first woman and/or the first African-American woman on the podium for many orchestras and opera companies. In our conversation about sustaining a creative life, she shares the challenges she's overcome along her artistic journey, what keeps her going, and how to transform grit into grace. 

Learn more about Jeri and explore her work.

Listen to -- and support! -- The Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra. 

Check out these women conductors and composers:

Tania León
 

Marin Alsop

Jennifer Higdon

Learn more about the Taki Alsop Fellowship.

Read poetry by Langston Hughes.

And watch Bugs Bunny posing as Conductor Leopold Stokowski!