On Coming Home is finally back! It has taken me a long time to feel prepared to speak with you all in the midst of a difficult personal season and a challenging collective season, so I finally sat down at the mic and asked myself: What is the truest thing I can say to you?

In this episode, I share:

• How I'm approaching trump's second term differently than I did his first.
• The role I hope this podcast plays in rallying all of us.
• Why I'm curious about the entire notion of "business as usual."
• My thoughts on the importance of divesting from perfectionism, especially moral perfectionism.
• How ardently I believe in our capacity to build the more beautiful world we all know is possible.

I am currently committed to decentering social media, so if you'd like to stay up-to-date with On Coming Home, I recommend following the podcast on your favourite listening platform and signing up for my artist newsletter.

Welcome to part two of On Coming Home's artistic end-of-year round up! I knew I had to invite on my inimitable friend and colleague Caitlin Berger, host of Watched It! pod, for this conversation of the art that most moved us in 2024. Think of it as a classic Best Of episode, only without any rankings or morality -- just two artists sharing the art that most affected them personally throughout the year. We don't even limit it to art that was released in 2024, as On Coming Home believes in the power of rediscovery and the longevity of art that remains relevant for years.

In today's portion of the conversation, you'll hear us discuss our favourite books, music, podcasts, and live performances of 2024, as well as what we're most excited for in 2025!

The podcast will be on break until January 21st so please consider checking out old episodes during these coming weeks.

And please follow ⁠Watched It! Pod⁠ and ⁠Caitlin⁠ on Instagram and ⁠listen to the podcast⁠ for more incredible TV conversations!

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On Threads:

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The Patreon is currently on pause.

Welcome to part one of On Coming Home's artistic end-of-year round up! I knew I had to invite on my inimitable friend and colleague Caitlin Berger, host of Watched It! pod, for this conversation of the art that most moved us in 2024. Think of it as a classic Best Of episode, only without any rankings or morality -- just two artists sharing the art that most affected them personally throughout the year. We don't even limit it to art that was released in 2024, as On Coming Home believes in the power of rediscovery and the longevity of art that remains relevant for years.

In today's portion of the conversation, you'll hear us discuss our favourite television and films of 2024. Come back next week for Part 2, wherein we will discuss books, music, podcasts, live performances, and what we're most excited for in 2025!

And please follow Watched It! Pod and Caitlin on Instagram and listen to the podcast for more incredible TV conversations!

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Follow along with the pod on Instagram:

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On Threads:

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The Patreon is currently on pause.

This week’s episode features my conversation with artist and entrepreneur Clarise Fearn. Clarise is committed to creating spaces where all people can explore their own creative inclinations and intuitions. In our conversation, we talk about the role of third spaces, the importance of ease, and the way that centering desire and asking ourselves what we even want can help us to unlearn perfectionism and find deeper joy and satisfaction in our lives. 

Clarise’s Bio:

Clarise Fearn is a Pittsburgh based artist and entrepreneur. Clarise has been serving the local community through her mindful creative offerings since she moved here in 2020. This past august she opened her brick and mortar War Streets Art Salon an Art & Craft Studio located in the heart of pittsburgh's northside that offers mindful art events and experiences by candlelight. Her mission behind starting the studio was to provide a supportive and casual environment where adults can explore their creative side without feeling pressured to be "good at art." The studios motto is "follow your curiosity"reminding us all that to live a deeply creative life is to follow our curiosity more than our fear.

Clarise's Website

War Streets Art Salon Website

Follow War Streets Art Salon on Instagram

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On Threads:

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The Patreon is currently on pause.

This week’s episode features my conversation with composer Matthew Kennedy. Inspired by his punk and garage-band background, Matthew is committed to creating spaces where artists feel safe to question, to stray from tradition, and to stay curious. We talk about the paradoxes of being a teacher creating nontraditional spaces within traditional institutions, about how to better support artists in this time of rising fascism, and about Matthew’s incredible project of composing ten symphonies before his 40th birthday. 

Matthew’s Bio:

The music of composer Matthew Kennedy (b. 1987) contains disarming simplicity, often seeking out dark places with an uninhibited wonder and spirit of exploration. His work has been performed on five continents and received critical acclaim including honors and commissions from ASCAP, BMI, Opera on Tap, Boston Musica Viva, New Music on the Bayou, Hartford Opera Theater, bassist Robert Black, Dynamic Music Festival at NYU, as well as residencies at Marble House Project (VT), Atlantic Center for the Arts (FL), Hambidge Center (GA), and Crosshatch Center for Art and Ecology (MI). Recent activities include performances and lectures at Bowling Green New Music Festival, Indiana State University Contemporary Music Festival, College Music Society National Conference, New Music Gathering at Boston Conservatory, Northwestern University New Music Conference, and the North American Saxophone Alliance International Conference. Matthew is currently the Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at Heidelberg University, having previously taught at University of South Florida and The Hartt School. He currently resides in Tiffin, Ohio with his wife, studio artist Erin Kennedy, and four children.

Follow Matthew's work on his website and on Instagram.

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On Threads:

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The Patreon is currently on pause.

This week’s episode features my conversation with artist and community organizer Amanda K. Gross. We talk about fiber arts, social justice work, integration, and Amanda’s new book, White Women, Get Ready: How Healing Post-Traumatic Mistress Syndrome Leads to Anti-Racist Change. This is a powerful conversation that suggests we already have the tools we need to build the more beautiful world; we just need the courage to put them into practice. 

Amanda's Bio:

Amanda was born in the heart of Atlanta, Georgia, to two white Mennonites. Raised in the social justice legacies of Dr. King and her Anabaptist ancestors, she was also raised to be a good little white girl in a system built for her advantage. Over the past two decades, she has committed to the life, study, and embodied work of social justice, including studies in Restorative Justice, Conflict Transformation, and Sociology, apprenticing with YogaRoots On Location’s Anti-Racist Raja Yoga School and the People’s Institute for Survival & Beyond’s Undoing Racism Workshop, and organizing with Youth Undoing Institutional Racism and the American Friends Service Committee. Amanda has a PhD from the European Graduate School examining the role of arts and culture in sustaining white settlers in long term decolonization and anti-racist efforts. 

Amanda is the author of White Women, Get Ready: How Healing Post-Traumatic Mistress Syndrome Leads to Anti-Racist Change. Inspired by Dr. Joy DeGruy's work on Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome—and used with her blessing—White Women, Get Ready tells the story of how white ladies have been groomed to uphold overlapping systems of oppression, the harmful multigenerational impact, and how we can use our unique positioning to help upend and heal from these violent structures. 

White Women, Get Ready is one part of a larger body of collaborative work that emerged from the call within Black-led multiracial and multicultural spaces for white people, and white women in particular, to organize our own. Conceived out of multi-racial organizing community, this book has been nurtured, edited, and critiqued within relationships, and is now being birthed, read, and discussed as one interconnected part of ongoing movement work.

Find White Women, Get Ready at https://www.mistresssyndrome.com/book. Follow Amanda on instagram, facebook, wordpress, and patreon. Find out more about Dr. Joy DeGruy's work at https://www.joydegruy.com and go to the book's Resources for Further Support to find out more about other BIPOC-led movement work.

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On Threads:

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The Patreon is currently on pause.

In this week’s episode, I speak with clarinetist Gaby Castro about her forthcoming EP, music videography, the relationship between music and tarot, and the role of the arts in giving us a soft place to land. 

AESTHETICAL OUT SOON - PRE-SAVE NOW

Gaby’s Bio:

Gaby Castro is an experimental, genre-bending, instrumental-focused clarinet & bass clarinet performing artist, producer, arranger, and educator. Her originally composed works combine her classical music training on clarinet and piano and a deep love for electronic, hiphop, video games, film, and instrumental music. She is a co-founder of the pop/electronic clarinet ensemble, Four Play Clarinet, who amassed popularity with their music video covers of songs by Major Lazer and Eurythmics, gaining a following of over 32K YouTube subscribers and over 4 million channel views. Her interest in sound design also led to her to begin creating clarinet soundbaths with a looper and reverb pedal, which she now performs in and around the Los Angeles area. In addition to her original music, Gaby is also a freelance clarinetist in Los Angeles and Orange County in Southern California.

Gaby’s Website

Gaby’s Instagram

Gaby’s TikTok

One-Hour Clarinet Soundbath

Stream softnfuzzy EP Single

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Follow along with the pod on Instagram:

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On Threads:

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Support the Patreon:

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On this intense and frightening week, I offer you this beautiful and delicious conversation with therapist, flutist, and yoga instructor Claire Howard. Claire's ability to hold both sensitivity and silliness, and her wisdom to know that grief, hope, and love all live in the same place, is exactly what we need as we navigate the coming days and weeks.

Claire's Bio:

Claire Howard is a therapist, flutist, and yoga instructor currently living in Dallas, TX. 

Inspired by her experiences with burnout, perfectionism, and anxiety, Claire ardently pursues opportunities for connection, healing, and embodiment. This has led her to the deep study of yoga at the Kripalu School of Yoga and Ayurveda, where she became a 200-hour Registered Yoga Teacher, and eventually to the study of mental health. Claire graduated with a degree in Couple, Marriage, and Family Therapy from Texas Tech University in 2022. Her therapeutic practice is systemic and holistic, and primarily focuses on supporting the empowerment and liberation of both classical musicians and queer couples.

Prior to her mental health studies, Claire graduated with a Master’s Degree in Flute Performance from Texas Tech University and received a Music Education degree from Henderson State University. Claire is the co-owner of Yoga for All Musicians, a virtual yoga studio which caters to the physical and emotional needs of classical musicians across the country. There, Claire teaches meditation and movement practices and is grateful to host workshops for universities across the country.

Claire is most inspired by the duality of our lives: inhales and exhales, expansion and contraction, poetry and humor. As a yoga instructor and therapist, she facilitates deep work alongside play.

Yoga For All Musicians Instagram

Claire's Therapy Instagram

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Follow along with the pod on Instagram:

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On Threads:

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Support the Patreon:

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I'm back with a short and sweet solo episode today on the various digital organizational tools that I use to keep my workflow from becoming overwhelming. I'll discuss which tools I personally use, how I use them, and why my primary motivation is ensuring that I feel "off the clock" at the end of each day.

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Follow along with the pod on Instagram:

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On Threads:

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Support the Patreon:

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I'm thrilled to have Ben Barson on the podcast to speak with us about his essential work, including his new book, Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons. In the book, Barson uses the history and narratives of early jazz to explore the mass mobilization of freedpeople during Reconstruction and the period that followed. Together, we discuss the ways in which art and music are inextricably political, the importance of radical imagination, and the weight and power of connecting to lineages of resistance.

Content Note: This episode discusses liberation movements and therefore includes discussion of slavery, racial and sexual violence, and death. Please take good care of yourself while listening. 

You can purchase Brassroots Democracy here.

Ben's Bio:

Benjamin Barson is a saxophonist, historian, radical educator, and organizer. He is an assistant professor of music at Bucknell University. He received his PhD in Music from the University of Pittsburgh and recently completed a Fulbright Garcia-Robles postdoctoral fellowship at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California in Mexicali, Mexico and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University’s Africana Studies & Research Center. Barson has performed with luminaries including Fred Ho, Arturo O’Farrill, Craig Harris, and Geri Allen, and at a wide range of national and international venues, including the Kennedy Center, the Guggenheim Museum, CECUT in Tijuana, and the Mesopotamian Water Forum – an event organized by ecological activists in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan. He is the winner of the 2018 Johnny Mandel Prize from ASCAP for his composition “Insurrealista,” and was a member with the Afro Yaqui Music Collective when the group was named Pittsburgh’s “Best Jazz Band” by the readers of the Pittsburgh City Paper in 2018. Barson is also an activist, and was a cultural organizer in the campaign to free political prisoner and Black power activist Russell Maroon Shoatz. He currently works closely with a group inspired by Maroon’s legacy named Ecosocialist Horizons.

www.benbarsonmusic.com

Follow Ben on Instagram and Twitter/X.

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Follow along with the pod on Instagram:

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On Threads:

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Support the Patreon:

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