Loki chats with conductor Dane Lam about his work on three continents and what it looks like to celebrate and preserve culture within different global contexts while expanding audience's perspectives on so-called classical music. Loki speaks to how the arts can be a tool to fight against gentrification. 

• Dane Lam
• Dane Lam leads the Xi'an Symphony Orchestra (Titan Symphony by Gustav Mahler)
• "Hula" from the Polynesian Suite by Dai-Keong Lee
• 4West Closes in Harlem

Peter Askim is transforming the way the next generation of artists are entering the orchestral field with a summer festival celebrated for its "pay what you can" model that eliminates what, for many, was a primary barrier to entry into this vital aspect of a musician's artistic and professional development. Peter joins Loki to talk about this festival, his entry into the world of conducting, and how he's centering music by immigrant women in his celebration of America's 250th.

• Peter Askim
• The Next Festival of Emerging Artists
• Reena Esmail: Teen Murti
• Peter Askim: Songs My Mother Taught Me
• League of American Orchestras 
• Andy Akiho
• Erich Rieppel

Joachim Horsley is a composer and performer whose fusion of Western European classical and Afro-Caribbean music has earned him praise and notoriety in the United States, Cuba, and beyond. He chats with Loki about his trajectory, his education in Cuba, and his approach to celebrating culture without tokenizing its aesthetics. Loki shares more on his recent engagement of an ensemble accused of appropriating Indigenous culture. 

• Joachim Horsley
• "Beethoven in Havana"
• "Tropical Prelude"
• Joachim Horsley Instagram

Loki chats with founding member of the Kronos Quartet, David Harrington, about the group's work over the past 50 years and their new project, "Three Bones", honoring the 250th anniversary of America with music that highlights Native, Gullah, and immigrant perspectives and experiences.

• Kronos Quartet
• Three Bones
• "Ya Habibi, Ta'ala"
• White Man Sleeps
• Nikky Finney's 2011 National Book Award in Poetry Acceptance Speech

"America/Beautiful" is a project by pianist and arts advocate Min Kwon, in which she has commissioned a diverse group of more than 70 of today’s leading American composers to each compose a variation on “America the Beautiful.” Loki chats with Min about this project, her Center for Musical Excellence, and her nuanced view of what it means to take action toward a better America. Loki offers thoughts on his initial response to this project, and how dialogue gave him a more accurate view of it. 

• Min Kwon
• "American/Beautiful"
• Center of Music Excellence
• Daniel Bernard Roumain: “america, NEVER beautiful”
• Kristjan Järvi: “Look up America”

Loki chats with Devin Moore of the Isidore String Quartet about life as a professional chamber musician, what it looks like to help people reimagine this sub-genre of "classical" music, and how his Blackness shows up along the way. Loki unpacks how he sees an engagement of the Western classical tradition as being a part of decolonization. 

• Isidore String Quartet
• Adorations
• Adoration by Florence Price, arr. by Samuel Araya (perf. Isidore String Quartet)
• String Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 44 No. 3 by Felix Mendelssohn (perf. Isidore String Quartet)

On April 16-19, 2026 the Gateways Music Festival will join forces with the Dance Theatre of Harlem to present Igor Stravinsky's "Firebird", led by acclaimed conductor Jeri Lynne Johnson. Jeri joins Loki to talk about her historic firsts as a Black woman conductor, her Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, and her work with the Gateways Music Festival. 

• Jeri Lynne Johnson
• Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra
• Gateways Music Festival
• Dance Theatre of Harlem
• Infernal Dance (perf. London Symphony Orchestra/Stokowski) 
• Firebird Finale (perf. London Symphony Orchestra/Stokowski) 

On March 27, 2026, Naxos Records released "When the Caged Bird Sings" - a new work for orchestra, chorus, and soloists by composer Nkeiru Okoye. Nkeiru joins Loki to talk about her identity as a composer of both African-American and Nigerian heritage, her new recording, and her experiences working with all of the collaborators along the way. Loki offers a Buddhist parable on the subject of caged birds. 

• Nkeiru Okoye
• When the Caged Bird Sings
• Video Trailer 

Loki chats with Nathalie Joachim about the recent release of "Black Being", a four-movement work by Nathalie and Allison Loggins-Hull featuring the Chicago Sinfonietta and poetry by Jaki Shelton Green. Loki offers his take on the end of Flutronix, and the importance of the acceptance of change and transition. 

• Nathalie Joachim
• Allison Loggins-Hull
• Jaki Shelton Green
• Chicago Sinfonietta
• "Black Being"

In late 2025, violinist Curtis Stewart, Maestro Michael Repper and the National Philharmonic reunited in concert at The Music Center at Strathmore, following the release of their Samuel Coleridge-Taylor album, honoring the 150th anniversary of the birth of this "overlooked icon of Black classical music." Michael Repper joins Loki to talk about what he sees as the responsibilities of non-Black musicians as it relates to "un-marginalizing" the legacies of composers like Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Loki responds to news coming from the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra. 

• Michael Repper
• Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Toussaint l'Ouverture, Ballade Op. 4, Suites From '24 Negro Melodies'
• Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Recordings and Free-Use Performance Materials
• Clarinet Sues Orchestra for Nixing Audition Result