In this episode, I interview composers Josh Rodriguez and Xavier Beteta about their new project, a composition festival in Guatemala called Guatemala Contempornea. Both are professors of composition in the United States but are originally from South America. Josh is from Argentina and Xavier is from Guatemala. They have joined together to create this festival now entering its 2nd year. They will give us all the details as well as share some of their thoughts on the definition of success, what musical and non-musical skills are important for composers to have and where they find their inspiration.

Topics in this episode include:

• Bringing together composers and performers in a place that does not have a unified "classical" music
• Making an investment in an area that does not have a strong composition program
• Partnering with other musicians, ensembles and festivals in another country
• the national instrument of Guatemala (the marimba)
• Ensuring that musicians are familiar with their own heritage that already exists in the classical music world
• the definition of success as a composer
• what is "inspiration" and what is not

Josh Rodriguez

Known for his energetic rhythms, rich harmonic language, and striking colors, Colombian-American composer Josh Rodriguez continues to gain recognition as an emerging composer and collaborator on a national and international scale. Born in Argentina and raised in Guatemla, Mexico, and the United States, Rodriguez's musical imagination has been formed by this bilingual multicultral heritage.

Rodriguez collaborates regularly with theatre and film directors and has received notable concert commissions in a wide range of musical genres: works include Dos Palabras (winner of the inagural Springfield Chamber Chorus Competition 2022), When Stone Becomes Forest (winner of The American Rpize - Professional Band Division 2022), Partita Picosa (a 5-movement piece for solo piano), Contra Spem Spero (violin chamber concerto) and That Crazed Girl Improvising (piano trio), all which were finalists for the American Prize (TIKAL, for concer band, received Honorable Mention, 2021.)

He's written numerous choral works, music for jazz trio and big band, original scores for Courtyard Shakespeare Festival's productions of Hamlet (2019), Much Ado About Nothing (2022), Richard III (2022), and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (2019), and CBU Theatre's productions of Love's Labour's Lost (2020) and She Stopps to Conquer (2021). In addition to concert and theatre music, Rodriguez has scored numerous independent film projects, several of which have appeared in international film festivals and received special awards. His most recent film score is for an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest by Rebel Run Studios. 

Rodriguez is composer-in-residence of the Corona Symphony Orchestra, and currently serves as Associate Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the Elmhurst University. He regularly contributes to various arts & culture blogs and is on the leadership team of Deus-Ex-Musica, an ecumenical and interfaith initiative that brings musicians, clergy, and non-musicians together for concerts and conversations abotu the intersection of faith and new music.

Rodriguez earned his MM at the Cleveland Institute of Music and, upon winning the Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship, moved west to study a doctorate at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research at UCLA culminated with his dissertation on Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera. 

https://www.joshrodriguezmusic.com/

Xavier Beteta

Guatemalan-American composer Xavier Beteta studied piano at the National Conservatory with Consuelo Mdimilla. At age 18, he was awarded the first prize at the Augusto Ardenois National Piano Competition and third-prize at the Rafael Alvarex Ovalle Composition Competition in Guatemala. He continued his piano studied in the United States with Argentinean pianist Sylvia Kersenbaum and with Ukranian pianist Sergei Polusmiak. He also attended masterclasses with pianists Missimiliano Damerinin and Daniel Rivera in Italy. Xavier has performed in different venues in the United States, Europe, and Latin America and has been a soloist with the Guatemalan National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Augusto Arednois, and the Camellia Symphony in Sacramento.

As a composer, Xavier did most of his early studies privately with Guatamalan composer Rodrigo Asturias. He also studied privately with Donald Harris, a student of Max Deutsch and visited Richard Hoffmann, a student of Schoenberg. In 2013 he won the Silver Medal at the fourth International Antonin Dvorak Composition Competition in Prague. Xavier studied music theory at the University of Cincinnati where his thesis advised by Steven Cahn was ranked no.4 in the National Best-Seller Dissertation List. He later obtained his PhD in composition at the University of California, San Diego, where he studied with Roger Reynolds, Chinary Ung, and PHilippe Manoury. 

Xavier has been a composer in residence at the Naperville Youth Symphony and his compositions have been performed in diverse festivals such as Fesitval Musica in Strasbourg, France, Darmstadt Composition Summer Course in Germany, June in Buffalo, SICPP in Boston, Opera Theater Festival of Lucca, Italy, and by ensembles such as Arroche Note, Ensemble SoundScape, Ensemble Signal conducted by Brad Lubman, UCSD Palpmest. the Mivos Quartet, Formosa Quartet, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players under Steven Schick, Picosa, Lakeshore Rush, the Guatemalan National Symphony, The Camellia Symphony, the Naperville Youth Symphony, the Monterey Youth Symphony, the Pittsburg Civic Orchestra, and the Wheaton College Orchestra.

Xavier also holds a law degree from Salmon P. Chase College of Law, and his diverse interests include cultural property, copyright, poetry, and tango. In 2018, he founded the tango group "ensemble orillero" in San Diego, California. He is currently an Associate Professor of Music Theory and Composition at Wheaton College, serves as the Vice President of New Music Chicago. and is part of the board of The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Latino Alliance. 

https://www.xavierbeteta.com/

To contribute to Guatemala Contemporanea, visit the Go Fund Me Page here:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-fund-the-guatemala-music-festival-2025

In today's episode, I interview Kirsten Kunkle, a soprano, librettist, pedagogue, composer, and member of the Mvskoke Nation. She shares how she combines her Native heritage with her love and passion for classical music, and why reclaiming culture is important for all of us.

Topics in this episode include:

• How to know the best musical direction for you
• Setting pidgin English
• Ethnomusicology
• Working with other Native musicians
• The melting of European-American and Native-American cultures
• Seeing a void in the repertoire and seeking to fill it
• The move toward DEI in the arts
• The Circle of Resistance Concert of 2021
• The responsibility of being a professional in music
• Building a legacy, individually and collectively
• Native themese do not need to be stereoptypical
• Exocitism and "Indianist" music
• Allowing for differing interpretations and layers of meaning
• Shell-Shaker: A Chickasaw Opera
• Mvskoke Lullaby
• Revitalizing, Renewing and Reclaiming Culture
• The specific is the universal

Lauded as the leading Native American soprano in today's classical music world, Dr. Kristen C. Kunkle is a voting citizen of the Mvskoke Nation. She has been hailed as an outstanding singing actress with a voice that has been described as beautiful, ethereal, powerful, fiery, and bewitching. Kirsten commissioned and premiered sixteen original compositions, including one of her own, based on the poetry of her ancestor and highly-acclaimed poet of the Native American Muscogee Nation, Alex Posey. Her recordings are collected at the Library of Congress, the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian Institution, and the Merkel Area Museum in Merkel, Texas. Kristen is included on the list of Classical Native American Artists and Musicians at the Smithsonian Institution's NMAI and on the Molto Native American list of performers. She was featured as a composer and soloist for the Circle of Resistance concert with intermountain Opera Bozeman in May, 2021. 

A chamption of new and unrecorded music, Kirsten works frequently in the realm of new music or previously unrecorded music, With the Philadelphia Opera Collective, she created leading roles in numerous world premieres, including Edith Standen in Shadow House, Annie Jump Cannon in Jump the Moon, Edgar Allan Poe/The Poet in Opera Macabre: Edgar Allen Poe, and Dr. Frankenstein in By You that Made Me, Frankenstein. She also created the role of Space Mad Woman in Toowhopera by Sorrell Hayes. She has recorded extensively through the Comic Opera Guild, specializing in the works of Victor Herbert. Most recently, Kirsten recorded the leading role of Catherine Sloper for the world premiere of the new opera Washington Square, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. She made her solo European debut with the Sofia Philharmonic in the role of Arabella in Johann Strauss II's Blindekuh. She is also a NAXOS recording artist for the world premiere recording of Blindejuh, which was released in March 2020 to extraordinary reviews. 

Among her favorite roles in the standard operatic repertoire are Agathe in Der Freischutz, the title role in Suor Angelica, Magda and the Foreign Woman in the Consul, Mimi in La Boheme, Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus, Contessa in Le nozze di Figaro, Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors, Iolanta and Brigitta in Iolanta, Zemfira in Aleko, Lisa in Pique Dame, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Laetitia in The Old Maid and the Thief, the Witch in Hansel and Gretel, and Dido in Dido and Aeneas. She has an Honorable Mention for the American Prize in Voice - Professional Art Song and Oratorio Division (Women), as well as being a two-time semi-finalist for The American Pirze in Opera (Women.) She made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2014, and in the same year she was the Pennsylvania District National Association of Teachers of Singing Artist Award Winner. Kirsten won second place in the Roschel Vocal Competition in 2015.

Kirsten attended Bowling Green State University and the University of Salzburg for her undergraduate studies, majoring in voice performance with minors in Italian and German. Her masters and doctoral degrees are in voice performance from the University of Michigan. She has been published in peer-reviewed journals and is a successful voice educator. Having previously taught on the faculties of Lincoln University, Shorter College, Youngstown State University, Wright State University, and Terra Community College, Kirsten currently maintains a private vocal studio.

Kirsten is the proud Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Wilmington Concert Opera, a grassroots women and minority-led opera company in Wilmington, Delaware. Kirsten has spent the majority of her time during the pandemic recording new works, promoting the arts through Wilmington Concert Opera, writing opera libretti and composing song, chamber music, and choral music and raising her young daughter. Upcoming events focus on feminist and Native American based projects, as well as continuing to bring opera to everyone through her work as an artistic director. 

On today's episode, I interview Elizabeth McNutt, flutist, concert curator, and founder of Sounds Modern. Sounds Modern partners with a local modern art museum to present concerts which pair contemporary music with contemporary art allowing for conversation between the artistic disciplines to bring a greater depth of understanding and appreciation to the public. 

Topics in this episode include:

• The value of early exposure to new music
• Bringing musicians into the visual art world and visual artists into the music world
• Partnering with an art museum
• Reinterpreting art through a musical lens
• Crowdsourcing knowledge to find new pieces because Google does NOT, in fact, know everything
• Pros and Cons of doing free concerts
• Pros and Cons of daytime concerts
• The value of new music concerts

The most innovative and least predictable concert music series in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Sounds Modern has been exploring links between contemporary music and visual art for over a decade. Sounds Modern reaches beyond the traditional context of classical music, collaborating with modern art presenters and other non-traditional venues to share adventurous new music with adventurous new audiences. Conceived and directed by virtuoso flutist Elizabeth McNutt in collaboration with The Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth, Sounds Modern adds a sonic dimension to the ideas presented in the galleries, and brings the artwork to life in the concert hall. 

Websites:

Sounds Modern

Elizabeth McNutt

My guest on today's episode is singer-songwriter, Meghan Pulles. After training as an operatic vocalist, she realized her heart was pulling her towards songwriting. Now, she is creating music which she calls "emo-positive" that brings listeners through the darkness into light. Meghan believes that, by being vulnerable, artists can guide their listeners to hope and healing.

Topics in this episode include:

• Overcoming failure
• The need to do what lights you up and be connected to the art form
• Fighting the voices in your head that tell you to stay in one box
• Emo-positive music
• Making music that is vulnerable and from the heart
• The power of connection in small venues
• Project management
• Working with producers remotely
• Growing into more roles and taking ownership of your project

Meghan Pulles reigns as an emo-positive Nashville-based genre-defying singer-songwriter and artist with an ability to beautifully blend pastoral melodies with nostalgia. With a staunch devotion to musical healing, her compositions are all about the emotions and feelings they evoke in her listeners. Ranging from drenching folk to melodic pop and indie styles, her work is reminiscent of the musical richness of Regina Spektor and softness of Joni Mitchell. 

Meghan recently released her debut album ear baby which she co-produced with Harper James who is known for his indie band, Eighty Ninety, and his solo project, Middle Youth. She recently signed with Aurally Records powered by Symphonic Distribution. 

Meghan Pulles is at work on her sophomore record which will be out in 2026.

"Meghan Pulles clearly has an amazing gift of uplifting people through her music and if hers is the last voice I ever heard, I'd be sure I was on my way to heaven." - Pop Fad Blog

Facebook.com/meghanpulles

Instagram.com/meghanpullsmusic

tiktok.com/@meghanpullsmusic

My guest on Episode 24 is Brian KM, a composer and French-hornist living in Australia. He tours with a program he created which he calls a "show, not a recital" combining French horn with live electronics and incorporating classical music, daft-punk, poetry, and loop making. Along the way, he also began researching the use of AI in relation to art and wrote an AI Code of Ethics for Artists and Creatives. We talk about it all in this fascinating conversation!

Topics in this episode include:

• Playing French horn with live electronics
• Combining classical music, daft-punk, poetry, and loop-making
• "It's not a recital, it's a show!"
• A business model of touring
• Pitching shows and residencies
• All the different aspects of knowledge and experience you can share
• The need to regulate AI
• AI Code of Ethics for Artists
• Consumers should support artists who reflect their values
• If we remain aware, we might be able to influence how AI is used

Website: www.briankm.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imbriankm

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imbriankm/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZcH6XSHMwtomzlm7tPBqCA

AI Code of Ethics for Artists: https://www.briankm.com/ai.html

My guest on today's episode is Emily Park, the artistic director and principal conductor of the InterPlay Orchestra, a musical ensembles in the Washington D.C. area that exists to give individuals with various intellectual, developmental, or physical disabilities the opportunity to learn and perform music. The ensemble is not only vital to the individuals who participate and their families, but also to the greater community as InterPlay Orchestra demonstrates that those with differing abilities still have something to offer the community and bring to the table. Our conversation is full of nuggets of wisdom about music and relationships and the importance of finding joy, connection, and a shared humanity. 

This episode is part of the 2025 Podcasthon which features podcasts by women and also serves as a fundraiser for the non-profits featured in each episode. In these days when efforts to promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are being defunded, it is more important than ever that individuals and companies step up to fund these endeavors. InterPlay Orchestra is essential to the lives of the individuals involved, and I invite you to consider donating to this amazing ensemble. A link to the InterPlay Orchestra website is below. 

Websites:

InterPlay Orchestra

Emily Park

Instagram:

InterPlay Orchestra

Facebook:

InterPlay Orchestra

Emily Park

On today's episode, I continue my conversation with Joshua Nichols. Though we disagree on hot topics like diversity, equity and inclusion and the impact they have on classical music, we have a respectful conversation about broader issues like the need to listen deeply, how to determine what good art is, and how we cannot know now what music of today will stand the test of time. 

Topics in this episode include:

• The need to use new methods of teaching to avoid stifling learning outcomes
• Listening deeply
• Good music allows us to hear something new every time we listen
• How we decide what good music is, even when it is brand new
• The Sculpture's Gaze
• Unity and integrity in music and art
• How art speaks to (is in conversation with) other art
• Making the best art you can
• We don't know what current art will stand the test of time

Dr. Joshua Daniel Nichols is a composer, organist, pianist, and teacher

Currently based in Tucson, AZ, JOshua earned a D.M.A. from the University of Arizona's Fred Fox School of Music in Composition, studying with Professor Daniel Asia. He holds two M.M. degrees, one in Composition (Floridat Atlantic University, studied with Dr. Kevin Wilt) and one in Organ Performance (Mississippi College, studied with Dr. Robert Knupp.) He received his B.A. in Organ Performance (studied with Ms. Carol Durham) from Belhaven University. He is Artistic Fellow and Director of Technology at the Center for American Culture and Ideas.

As a composer, Josh's compositions have been featured and sought after around the United States. He has been commissioned to write ballet and dance music, as well as chamber percussion, and chamber orchestra. Critically acclaimed, he released an album of Summit Records titled, "Metropolis: The Piano Music of Joshua Nichols" featuring his major piano works to date. Josh draws on an eclectic musical background in film, commercial, and concert music, as well as classical forms and harmonic structures. Recent notable compositions include: Metropolis, Variations on Hatikvah, the Dover Sonata, and What Tongue Can Tell? His music is exciting, palatable for both regular concert goesr and academics alike, and deeply expressive.

As organist, Josh has emphasized his role in church music both as an accompanist of congregational song and service musician to elevate the service and liturgy. He not only prepares solo repertoire, but also is an active clinician in church music, improvisation, harmonization, and directing choirs. 

As pianist, Josh continues to play as an instrumental and vocal accompanist, as well as in musical theater. He is also a clinician in piano improvisation, harmonization, and vocal coaching.

Joshua's website: www.joshdnichols.com

The Center for American Culture and Ideas: https://thecaci.org/

This episode is part one of my conversation with Joshua Nichols, an artistic fellow at the Center for American Culture and Ideas. Get ready for a deeply phiolosophical discussion about the pragmatic versus the beautiful, the nature of transcedence, the democratization of art, whether culture should be curated - and by whom, and who decides what is good. Sometimes Josh and I see eye to eye, and sometimes we don't. I'd love tfor you to share your thoughts on this episode!

*Since this episode aired, I have learned more about MuseScore's updates, and it is apparently better than I thought, so please disregard my disparaging comments.

Visit the episode page on our website to get full show notes.

Dawn Walters is a mezzo-soprano and composer working and living in East Yorkshire, England. She shares how composing and performing art song builds community. She did this through participation in the Leeds Lieder Festival in addition to being a teaching artist with the Maritime Primary Outreach Program. We also chit-chat about what it's like to return to school as an older student and some of the challenges we've faced as moms trying to build music careers.

Topics in this episode include:

• Leeds Lieder Festival
• How poets, composers, and performers can collaborate to bring attention to important topics
• Maritime Primary Outreach teaching artist
• How to think about expanding a small project into something much larger
• Serving underprivileged communities
• Serving an organization by customizing a project to match its mission
• Why children need access to music and other arts
• Going back to school as an older student
• The need for consistency & resilience, plodding on and keeping your nose to the grindstone

An alto soloist and small ensemble singer, Dawn Walters currently performs with Robert Hollingworth's The 24, as well as singing weekly services as part of a professional quartet in the York Oratory, and as an Alto Lay Clerk with Sheffield Cathedral Choir. She is an awarded and published choral composer who also sets Shakespeare songs and sonnets, which have been performed across the UK and in Europe, and broadcast on BBC radio. Dawn is also a deputy lay clerkfor several cathedrals, including York Minster and Bradford Cathedral, and performs with vocal ensemble Allegoria. 

You can find Dawn at: dawnwalters.wordpress.com

For this episode, I interviewed Jan Mittelstaedt, the director of the composition project In Good Hands, which is sponsored by the Cascadia Composers group out of Portland, Oregon, part of the National Association of Composers USA.  Unfortunately, there was a problem with Jan's original sound which I did not notice until I was working on the production of this episode. The sound quality did not meet my standards, so I decided to go a different route with this episode. I made a transcript of my interview with Jan, which you can find at The Musicking Community website, or on our Substack page. In the rest of the episode, I will share why I personally find the In Good Hands project to be so important, which will involve some storytelling about my own musical history. 

http://themusickingcommunity.com/2024/12/30/episode-19-the-in-good-hands-project/