The Second Street Dreams Audio Network

The year was 1985 when members of the Klezmer Conservatory Band (KCB) went on a secret mission to what was then the Soviet Union.  The plan was to meet with the Refuseniks, Russian Jews, and smuggle information about them out of the country.  Dr. Merryl Goldberg was one of the four musicians on the trip, and she used a music cypher to get pass the KGB.  The entire adventure is now chronicled in the book Notes of Deception.

There are so many musical works that have been lost to history.  Joshua Conyers and the faculty and students at the Eastman School Of Music in Rochester, NY has recorded over 40 of them in an album called In Plain Sight, The Black Anthology. In recognition of the nation’s 250th, there’s the first part of a three-part series about the musical lives of the colonists during the Revolutionary War.  Music professors at the University of Texas in Austin, Andrew F. Dell'Antonio and Hannah Lewis offer some fascinating information about it. 

The Many Deaths Of Laila Starr is historic.  It’s one of the few operas covering South Asian themes.  It centers on Laila Starr, the avatar of Death living as a mortal in Mumbai, India. It was created by composer Kamala Sankaram, and  the librettist, Minita Gandhi via the New Works Initiative at the Minnesota Opera.   Hear how their backgrounds, talents and curiosity shaped The Many Deaths of Laila Starr.

Now that Gustavo Dudamel is holding the baton for the New York Philharmonic, the classical music community is all atwitter.  He says he’s not coming in to make changes, but changes will most likely come.   And on the west coast, from whence he came there’s Dale Dale Hikawa Silverman, a violist and the first Asian American woman at the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  She tells stories of her 40-year career so far with the orchestra in her documentary DALE.

Many of you were not alive or were babies on the horrible day, September 11, 2001.  
Those of us who were will NEVER FORGET it.  That includes the thousands of reporters who covered the events of that day and in the days ahead. Judlyne Lilly was a news anchor at WTOP Radio in Washington, DC at that time. Here's how she remembers it. 

Morgiane, the opera by Louisiana native Edmond Dédé got national and international attention when it was performed and recorded earlier this year.  This 1887 opera was finally included in the opera canon after 138 years and a 12-year effort by Givonna Joseph, Artistic Director of Opera Creole in New Orleans.  This opera company continues singing about historical events in the Black community of New Orleans and beyond as they prepare for their 2026-2027 season.

Heartbeat Opera in New York has a reputation for modern reimagining’s of classic operas. They did it earlier this year with their production of Manon by Jules Massenet.  Now they’ve done something they’ve never done before.  They called back the cast to record a cast album of the show.

Since 2021, the Catalyst Quartet has released albums of the music of Black composers.  The series called Uncovered featured the works of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Florence B. Price,  Coleridge-Taylor, Perkinson, William Grant Still, and George Walker.   The latest and last album features the works of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges.   The National Symphony orchestra won’t be performing at the Kennedy Center this coming season.  They’re performing all over the Washington DC area and in other cities.   The BBC Proms continues with an All American program and a performance from the American Soprano Angel Blue.