The thing that I was reflecting on as far as Juneteenth was concerned is the fact that
you know if you put yourself in the mind of people who were enslaved at that point you
know when they got that announcement it was a General Gordon Granger who made the announcement
in Galveston, Texas.
You have to imagine what it must have been like to have your world be as big as the plantation
that you worked on and then suddenly your world got a whole lot bigger.
And what black people chose to do with that freedom I find is absolutely extraordinary
because within like a couple of decades you had young black men studying classical music
and living life on their terms.
And so this is what I wanted to celebrate like this artistic drive and this incredible
spirit that sort of pushes us forward as black people and as Americans.
Welcome back to another episode of the PianoPod where tradition meets innovation.
We bridge the timeless beauty of the piano with the dynamic pulse of today's world.
I am your host Yukimi Song.
I am immensely proud of this new season's guest lineup who are incredibly talented and
dedicated in their craftsmanship and bring a rich tapestry of diverse experiences into
this show.
I truly appreciate their willingness to be on the PianoPod to share their thoughts and
expertise and I really can't wait to unveil each episode to you letting their stories
inspire, educate and resonate.
Now I trust you've had a chance to dive into our previous episodes and I am genuinely
curious to know your thoughts about them.
So please share your feedback on social media or drop us a note on our website at thepianopod.com.
Your insights are valuable in shaping the direction of the show.
Today's episode features an artist whose journey in the piano world is deeply rooted
in her background, Caribbean and African heritage and whose performances resonate with audiences
worldwide.
So let me introduce our guest for this episode, Dr. Nena Ogwo, pianist, educator, founder
and artistic director of Juneteenth LP.
She's graced stages from Europe to the Middle East, South America to the Caribbean and of
course the United States.
Whether it's a grand concert hall or an intimate gathering, Nena's captivating warmth ensures
everyone feels welcomed, which is central to her mission of broadening the horizons
of classical music audiences.
In 2019, Nena took a bold step by founding the Juneteenth LP.
This collective shines a spotlight on the artistic brilliance of the African diaspora
through the unique lens of Black classically trained musicians.
Nena has been the driving force behind Juneteenth LP, both as a pianist and executive and artistic
director.
Her dedication was recognized in 2022 when she received the Chamber Music America Artist
Grant.
This accolade transformed her annual Juneteenth celebration from a one-night event at Joe's
Pub at the Public Theater to a week-long New York City extravaganza.
Dr. Ogwo's piano journey began at the tender age of six.
She honed her skills at prestigious institutions like Peabody Prep, Oroling Conservatory,
The Liszt Academy of Music, and Stony Brook University.
She has been honored with the Stern Scholarship, Turner Fellowship, and the Fulbright Award.
Today, Dr. Ogwo is sought after as a concert pianist, chamber musician, concert curator,
guest lecturer, and faculty member at various esteemed music institutions.
And for those eager to experience her magic, her solo piano album, Luminous, was unveiled
in May 2023 under the MSR Classics label.
Before getting started with this special episode with Dr. Nena Ogwo, I want to welcome all
our first-timers to the PianoPod.
I'm a classical pianist and educator from New York City.
Whether you're diving deep into a piano career, working professionally in the classical
music scene, or simply have a passion for piano tunes, this podcast is your backstage
pass to the fascinating piano world.
I also want to welcome back and thank you to amazing TPP fans and faithful listeners
for tuning in today.
Please rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platform because every rating review
will help people find the show.
So dear TPP fans and listeners, I can't wait to interview Dr. Nena Ogwo to hear about
her remarkable musical career and learn what Juneteenth LP is all about.
So stick with me till the end of our conversation as it will lead to a more reflective discussion
on how we trained classical musicians should keep classical music relevant and thriving
in today's rapidly changing world.
So here we go, dear friends, please enjoy the show.
You are listening to the PianoPod where we talk to the brightest minds in the industry
about how they are bringing the piano into the 21st century.
So welcome Nena to the PianoPod.
Thank you so much for being here.
I love your room.
I love the painting.
I recognize the painting in your background.
You know, when you're doing things on a shoestring budget, you use what you have.
And I decided this will be a lovely background for my website.
No it looks like a million bucks.
I mean, yeah.
And I recognize it from your website, right?
Yeah, it actually is the first piece of art that I ever bought in New York.
Really?
Yeah, there used to be a public auction house called Tepper Galleries on East 25th Street.
And I was with my mom and I was bidding on it.
And my mother was looking at me like, what are you?
That looks terrible.
But I had this huge living room with tons of wall space.
And when I put it up, she was like, oh, okay, okay.
Pretty dramatic and powerful.
But when I was bidding, she thought I was nuts.
Wow, but somehow it just captures the essence of my impression of you.
Anyway, so our mutual, I guess, friend or colleague, Rosemary Caviglia.
She is a fellow pianist and educator as well.
And my colleague at the Non-Profit Organization, we are both part of, is a faithful listener
of the PianoPod and such a wonderful supporter of what I do.
And then she emailed me a few months ago and suggested that I should interview you.
And so I'm very excited.
The biggest shout out to Rosemary.
If you are listening, Rosemary, I am sending you positive vibes and appreciation for introducing
Nana to the PianoPod.
While I was learning about you to prepare for this interview, even within this big umbrella
of music or music industry, you do wear many hats.
Not only the pianist and educator, but also you are a composer, arts advocate.
And among many things you do, what I'd like to focus today in this episode is your passion
project, Juneteenth Legacy Project.
And you're a founder and executive and artistic director.
So let's start with that.
So what is Juneteenth Legacy Project?
Is this an organization, program?
Who is this for?
First of all, I want to correct you on one thing.
We are actually called Juneteenth LP.
The LP does stand for Legacy Project, but there actually is a Juneteenth Legacy Project,
which is an arts-based organization in Houston.
And I encourage people to find out who they are and what they're doing.
They're doing really great work.
But it was one of my first lessons in business.
I did not grab that domain name.
I did not grab it immediately.
And so, you know, I went back to it three months later and it was gone.
So we became Juneteenth LP.
But we are a music collective of classically trained, mostly classically trained musicians
of the African diaspora.
Our mission is to introduce people to classical music by African diaspora composers, but the
gateway is more familiar music to them.
So we play music of all genres.
Toshi Reagan, the amazing musician, artist, activist, had a series at Joe's Pub called
Her Good Folks series.
And she invited me to do this, to do a Juneteenth show, because I had said that's what I wanted
to do.
She invited me to do the Juneteenth show at Joe's Pub in 2015.
And in May of that year, my mother passed away.
So it didn't happen.
For 2016 and 2017, I shared the event with two other artists, which was a wonderful experience.
And through that sharing, the artists that they brought in, I got to meet some of them.
And so as we were giving these concerts, the concert was my way of introducing people to
classical music by black composers.
And so I played Ulysses Kay and I played William Grant Still and I played David Baker and Dorothy
Redmore.
And people really, really enjoyed it.
And it was funny because, you know, I started the program and then the other musician ended
the program.
And, you know, what they were playing was much more contemporary.
I thought even though, you know, there are these two sort of very distinctly different
styles, people were really, really receptive to the music that I was playing.
But I think that they were not just receptive to what we were playing, they were receptive
to the fact that I talked about the music.
I talked about the composers, I talked a little bit about their lives and about maybe what
they were going through when they wrote the pieces.
And I talked about how the music spoke to me and I invited the audience to engage with,
you know, what did they hear?
And in the first year, actually, or maybe the second, I did something really interesting.
I played a bunch of Scriabin preludes, the Opus 16 preludes, and there are five of them.
And I played them all.
And then I turned to the audience and I said, well, before I said, you know, there are this
set actually reminds me so much of Nina Simone.
And I'm curious if you hear what I hear in it.
If you don't, it's fine.
But if you do, I'd like to know which one of the preludes.
And so I played them all.
And there was one that I was specifically thinking about.
And they said number one, number five, number three.
And I thought, huh, because number four was the one that I absolutely attached.
Absolutely attached to Nina Simone.
There's something very haunting and lonely about her voice when she's singing ballads
or even when she's singing tunes that should be a little bit more upbeat.
There's still a profound sadness sometimes that comes through.
And so this this prelude, which just has this melody, da da da da da da da da da da da
and then chord chord and then the harmony changes.
Right.
And that I mean, it broke my heart every time I heard it, every time I worked on it.
And I said, so number four, no one.
And then, you know, the audience went, oh, yeah, I could I hear that.
You know what I mean?
But everyone had different ideas of what different things appeal to them.
And I thought, you know, music is is fascinating.
There's what I think and what I feel.
And then there's everybody's going to receive it in a different way in a different context.
I was kind of struck by the fact that this was a real opportunity to have a much more
intimate relationship with the audience than I ever would.
Right.
Because normally we get on stage, we play, we bow, we maybe say a few words, maybe about
our encore.
And then, you know, that's done.
And so there's this kind of mystery of being a classical pianist or musician or performer.
And this way, I got to talk to people about, you know, my process and what I was thinking
of and why I chose this and, you know, the connections from composer to composer.
And so finally, in twenty eighteen, I had met enough musicians who were really interested
in what I was doing and really sort of like, yeah, we want to support you.
We want to do this and we want to support you.
And you know, that is really profound and significant, especially in New York, because
it's very hard to make a living.
It's very hard to.
It's just the daily grind is hard.
And when musicians say, yeah, we're willing to rehearse every week, every two weeks, and
we're willing to put in this time and we're willing to.
We want to.
We do want to give concerts in the community and we do want to do outreach.
And they kind of trusted me to find the money, you know, and sort of helped with like there
are two people specifically who became part of the team, you know.
And so we sort of together were able to build something.
And I know I don't take any of that for granted, like as much as it says, you know, I'm the
executive and artistic director.
Yeah, this was a team and it is a team in a lot of ways.
Just to go back a little bit.
So I read your bio and then Juneteenth LP was officially formed in the year 2019, I believe.
That's a year before the, you know, of course, largest Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.
And then so when I visited your website, I also heard the audio file of your statement
in 2016 at the Joe's Pub in downtown Manhattan.
So what to become of Juneteenth LP down the road.
So spend years in the making, right?
Yeah.
And what really inspired you is it sounds like it's a gradual thing to form this.
But was there a specific event or experience that really inspired you to create it?
Or was it more like a gradual thing, started something small and became what it is today?
Definitely there was a seed and the seed was this annual Juneteenth celebration at Joe's
Pub.
And then the more musicians that I met that were kind of simpatico with this idea that
I had, the more I realized this could be something more than just one show, you know, in the
year.
And, and also I started paying attention to how people were reacting to the concert.
We got a lot of kids coming up to musicians with stars in their eyes, like, I didn't know
the violin could do this.
You know, we had this violinist who wrote this piece called Evolution.
His name is Ed Hardy and he sort of musically charted in this piece, you know, music and
it went from spirituals to hip hop and scratching on the violin.
And it was really kind of potent.
But what was really amazing was watching these kids say, I play violin and I didn't know
I could do that.
I didn't know it could be like that.
To watch him and the other musicians interact with these kids, like, yeah, there are tons
of things you can do with this instrument.
You know, this is, you know, the whole point of practice is to play and explore and to,
so I was really kind of moved by that and realized that we could reach people in a way
that was so much greater.
Classical music audiences are small and we're, our concern is that it's dying off, right?
That it's definitely an older community that really, really loves classical music and then
grew up with it.
And I think that my mom's generation is probably the last of the generation that sort of classical
music was in the general, in the air generally, right?
Now classical music is very sort of specific.
And because it's specific, if you don't know the language and you don't know the codes
to get in, you don't know how to access it, even if you love it, this provided an opportunity
to reach so many more people and to reach people who would not necessarily think that
they love classical music, but that they hear it and they go, that was, that was gorgeous.
Or that was so interesting.
I'd like to know more about this composer.
One of the things that people ask me a lot is what is the impact you want your ensemble
to have and then what is the impact you think it actually does have.
And I think that I would say that what I want is for it to open people's ears, you know,
in people's minds and open people's hearts.
Nina Simone is, was interviewed once and she said, you know, we're all walking through
the world in a way, a little dead inside, like we're, we're, we're just getting through
our day, you know, and we're dealing with our things.
And so we, we don't really see what's around us and we don't really interact with what's
around us.
It's just, we're getting through.
And so we're all walking around kind of like zombies.
And what I want, what she said, she said, what I want to do with my art is I want people
to feel something, anything, just to feel something, to shake us out of that space.
And I thought, you know, that's it.
I just want people to feel something.
And I want people to know that this music that is considered very elite and rare and,
you know, all of those things that actually they have a cultural history with it as well.
Like it is not something that they have to be on the outside looking in that their grandparents
and their great grandparents, you know, broke barriers and were the first black conductor
and, you know, and the first black composer to win this prize and the first black, you
know, violinist.
And so that there's a long history of black people in classical music and that they should
know it as they know, you know, the history of African-Americans in America, for example.
Now there are so many ways to look at this.
So let's, let's go back, talk about the mission of your Juneteenth LP.
And you briefly mentioned, but are you looking for, let's say platform to give the general
audience to get to know the classical music by maybe doing in such a way that is more
inviting or in the end, do you want to promote inclusion in a classical music or maybe both?
I was about to say, I'm not sure that those are mutually exclusive at all.
You know, I do want it to be more inviting and if, and, and also multi-generational,
right?
So we play music by black classical composers, but we also play, you know, we'll play a LISO
arrangement and we'll play some arrangement of Stevie Wonder, we'll play an arrangement
of Nina Simone and we'll play some Duke Ellington.
And so all of a sudden you have a show in which like a seven-year-old is delighted that
they hear something that they recognize, but also grandma and grandpa are delighted that
they hear something that they love and recognize.
And in between they're also being exposed to such a wide breadth of different composers
and so that it's something that people can share sort of within the whole family.
And that's wonderful, but also an introduction to, you know, you love, you love song.
Well, H.T.
Burley wrote some of the most beautiful art songs and some of them were arrangements of
spirituals, which I know you know, because you know, you're a church going person and
your family's from the South originally.
So here's this music that is a part of your legacy, but you didn't realize also lives
in the classical music canon.
But I also think that classical music needs to sort of rethink how it wants to present
itself, you know, and I think that contemporary classical composers, a lot of them are grappling
with this and they're sort of writing in a way that's challenging norms and trying to
get people to listen differently and think differently about the music.
But also I think that we need to invite people who are not necessarily white and wealthy
to like, because if we don't grow that audience, it will become tinier and tinier and tinier
until there's until we have, you know what I mean?
Like why not grow the audience so that we can actually make sure that the kids that
we're teaching who want to be pianists will have audiences to play for, you know?
We are raising the audience also.
Yes, not just the music players.
I know.
I totally understand.
Now, I'm curious to know how you're accomplishing this mission.
So is it by the concert series or just one event or tell us.
So we we have sort of grown the out of this, you know, one show we we've grown into sort
of a Juneteenth Festival week where we present more than one concert.
We do about three or four.
And we we do video concerts for other places where it's like, you know, it's it's really
expensive for eight people to go to Boston.
So, you know, Bunker Hill Community College, we do a Juneteenth show for them that is recorded.
But we also do lectures and workshops and master classes and things like that.
Throughout the year or?
Yeah, throughout the year.
Yeah, mostly January to June, but throughout the year.
One of the things that I'm realizing is that because I am the artistic director of Juneteenth
LP, a lot of times what I do also becomes sort of a reflection of the ensemble as well.
So when I give a master class or when I present concerts and lectures, it is something that
I always make sure to mention Juneteenth LP like we're sort of we're interconnected unity.
It's not sorry.
Interconnected entities.
It's not just I'm a solo artist and I'm and I am a teacher and I do these things.
And then there's Juneteenth LP.
And that's a completely different thing.
Often we find I find that we're working very much in conjunction.
Like our our missions are the same, whether it's me individually or me as part of a group.
And our intentions and our goals and our aesthetics principles are the same.
So I'm still trying to sort out how that's going to work ultimately.
But the drive is similar.
And so sometimes we do things hand in hand.
Like, for example, my my album is actually sort of has been released under the Juneteenth
LP umbrella of recording projects.
It's just the first of a bunch of recording projects that we have.
Oh, you mean the latest album that you it's your solo album, right?
Yeah, we're going to talk about that later.
But the title is Luminous.
Yes.
Right.
Which is available on major MSR Classics label was we release it through MSR Classics.
And and it's available wherever you stream music.
You know, on the Juneteenth LP website, it says, quote, Juneteenth LP LP brings together
unexpected classical music and brilliantly crafted arrangements of more popular repertoire
for refreshing take on live performances and educational music experiences.
So I'm curious, what are you guys playing and what are unexpected classical music, which
I can almost guess and brilliantly crafted arrangement that you mentioned that there
are sometimes you do the arrangement by Stevie Wonder to many other like I saw an arrangement
by Childish Gambino.
And then, yeah, also, Mongo Santa Maria, Afro Blue.
Yeah, I saw that arrangement as well.
So who does these arrangements?
And also, you are doing popular music and also probably African American classical music
as well.
So tell us when I was I'm going to go back a little bit when I was a kid, I actually
the first music camp I went to was a school for composers, a summer school for composers.
It was called the Walden School and it's up in New Hampshire.
It still exists.
It's a wonderful, wonderful institution.
Because in that space, I got introduced to theory, ear training and composition.
And their philosophy is really interesting.
It's basically that whatever they're teaching, it's orally based.
So it's you don't know it unless you can hear it.
You can hear it.
You can take dictation on it.
You can sing it.
You can, you know, which is very different.
And I didn't realize how different it was till I got to college.
And it's a wonderful.
It was a wonderful experience.
But what it did was it also introduced me to the idea of everyone is and can be a composer
and should be to some extent.
If you are in music, you should also be composing.
Then you don't have to be composing like you're a serious composer.
You're out getting commissions and that's how you are you're living.
But you should always be playing around with your instrument and making stuff up.
Who does the arrangements?
Well, I have tackled some arrangements.
And because we were going to be doing more different genres, I started taking jazz piano
lessons, which was a hilarious experience because I will admit right now that I was
a terror.
I am a terrible student in so many ways because there's no time.
Right.
And jazz is not one of those.
Oh, yeah.
You know, I play classical music and I have great chops.
And so I'll just pick this thing up.
Some people can and do.
But that's a different that's almost a different talent.
You know what I mean?
Like they and you know, and it's so funny because people say, well, you play the piano,
you should be able to do this.
And I'm like, yeah, not necessarily.
It's different.
No, no, I know.
I try.
I try to miserably fail.
Right.
I totally understand.
Yes.
What's fascinating about studying jazz piano is that you're forced to really you have to
reconcile yourself to the fact that our training for the most part, I know that there's a lot
of there are places that train musicians really, really well.
But for the most part, in classical music, we are very visually attached to the page
and then we render the page.
Right.
And, you know, I've been I've had people say to me, well, that isn't very creative.
And I said, well, actually it is because you make choices what you want to bring out, what
you think is important.
You know, you're basically a field guide for the listener.
This is the line I want you to hear.
And this is how it you know, I'm shaping a phrase in a certain way.
And it's subtle and it's nuanced.
And I can understand that it feels very different from a jazz type of form where you are creating
in the moment.
But as you and I both know, in every piano lesson we ever took, our teachers would tell
us, exhort us to play in such a way that it sounds like we are creating this music in
the moment.
Right.
So from a very different way, like almost like a backwards way around, we are studying
the score and learning and studying context and history so that we can come to this place
where it sounds like we are making the music as we you know what I mean?
We are creating it as we play it.
And jazz musicians actually just create it.
Right.
And what is fascinating about that is you can think that you know harmony, but creating
as your harmonic language shifts in time and, you know, in time, like harmony shifting in
time and you have to, it just moves like the second hand of a clock just moves.
You don't get to revisit.
I didn't like how that goes until I'm going back.
It's we're on to the next, you know.
You know, if you're playing a 12 bar blues, let's swing around and it'll come back again.
You get to try again.
But this is what it is.
And it's it took a long time for me to let go of the I didn't I didn't like that.
Let me fix it.
But once you do start to do that and once you start you allow yourself to be not comfortable
because that's the thing we work so hard to make it perfect that there's a level of I
am prepared and I am secure that absolutely does not exist.
Well at least not as a jazz student.
I'm sure you know if you're Ron Carter it exists, but it doesn't exist for me.
And it doesn't exist for most people who are just starting where it is.
It's a whole other world.
And I totally understand.
So during the program of Juneteenth LP, you combine this jazz elements and then with the
classical elements and the pop too, right?
Wow.
That is really, really cool because I would love to attend that.
Yeah.
I mean, you're always welcome.
And I would be delighted to get you a ticket.
But what's what's interesting is that because I started studying jazz and I started saying,
when we arrange this tune, like I thought Afro Blue would be perfect for us.
Let's arrange it.
And I was working with Neil Kirkwood at Third Street and he would help me with some arrangements,
but also, you know, I would tweak a lot of the things.
And so it was a real collaborative process, which I enjoyed, but I started to become a
little bit more comfortable with improvising.
And then we started sort of, well, there's this song and we all love it, but we're going
to have a break where individuals can solo and I would be soloing sometimes.
And it was terrifying.
It still actually is.
But you know, you are improvising.
I am improvising.
It is nuts.
And you know, it's really funny in the same way that when, you know, you give a concert
and you think, oh, that was okay.
I didn't like the way I did this and I didn't like the way I did that.
And then a month later you listen to the concert and you say, wow, that was really good.
Why did I think it wasn't good?
That was really good.
It's the same thing.
Like I will improvise and well, whatever, just keep moving.
It wasn't, I don't know, hopefully nobody noticed.
And then I listened to it and I think, well, that wasn't terrible at all.
Hello, right?
That's great.
And so it's teaching me to be okay with uncertainty and to be okay with not being able to control
everything.
That is a very different concept from classical performance.
Yes.
But I think that what you need to be in control of when you're improvising, you need to be
in control of the harmonic language.
Like you need to know that.
And then with that framework, the world is your oyster, but also terrifying.
Yes.
And I think that that's what you need to be in control of when you're improvising.
And so I think that's what you need to be in control of when you're improvising.
Yes.
One of the things that was monumental was obviously 2020 of the Black Lives Matter movement.
And then you are already starting the Juneteenth LP before that, right?
And then so the 2020, the year 2020 of the Black Lives Matter movement, which brought
the day, the Juneteenth to many people's awareness finally, and especially unfortunate death
of Mr. George Floyd.
And of course, finally Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021.
So I'd like to know your own personal experience of that year as much as you can.
I know it's still a sensitive topic, but because you have already started this project before
that and what's been like with your Juneteenth LP journey since then?
Well when I started, I was kind of, I was talking about the fact that I wanted to celebrate
Juneteenth Freedom Day, right?
It's called Freedom Day or Liberation Day.
I wanted to celebrate it from an artist standpoint.
So I wanted to celebrate these musicians who post Juneteenth, their world was far more
open than it had ever been.
And I'm not saying that it was easy and all of a sudden people had access to everything,
but you had the opportunity possibly to have a life that wasn't plantation bound necessarily,
right?
And so what did people do with that freedom?
And taking that step into the unknown is actually a terrifying thing.
Like if you were raised in a plantation system or if you were raised in subjugation or you
were raised in one kind of climate and then you decide that you want something different
for yourself, you know, and it's sometimes not as obvious as slaved and then not enslaved,
you know, slaving and free.
It is sometimes as it can be as nuanced as you come from a family of people who believe
that the next generation should lift up the next generation.
And so everyone is going to go to college and become a professor or a doctor or a lawyer
and then someone says, yeah, but I want to paint.
That is a scary and terrifying path to take if that's not the norm for your family, your
tribe, your environment, right?
And so I wanted to sort of celebrate these people who were invariably incredible risk
takers, even if they came from musical families, just to be black in America and to be doing
what they were doing was something extraordinary.
And the fact that they persisted, like in the face of incredible difficulties, they
persisted.
But then, you know, when George Floyd was killed, it was very interesting.
And people ask you what you know, what was how did you deal with it or what you were
going through?
And honestly, and I apologize if this is this feels harsh, but the hardest thing was realizing
to what extent I was people's only black friend.
And so what I got was a lot of other people feeling bad and then thinking they were going
to feel better by reaching out to me.
Do you know what I'm saying?
And in fact, I didn't feel shock for oh, also, you should know I didn't watch the video.
I didn't watch the video because what happened to George Floyd has been happening to black
people for centuries, whether it was a lynching or police violence.
I mean, you know, Rodney King was videotaped in that was 1992, I believe.
And what was traumatic about that was not that it happened because we knew things like
that happen.
But the fact that there was video, and yet it seemed to leave the world relatively unchanged.
Do you know what I mean?
Like this reckoning that we had post George Floyd, there should have been a reckoning
like that after the Rodney King assault.
But there wasn't, you know, and it seemed to me that I think that there was something
particularly gruesome about George Floyd's death and the fact that we now live in a viral
age.
So you can miss the Rodney King thing if you hadn't been watching TV at that time.
But you could not escape what happened with George Floyd.
It was everywhere.
And so for me, I was more grieving at how, how often it seemed to happen.
Do you know what I mean?
And in some ways, the world changed.
And so I'm grateful for that, and I'm grateful that I'm, of course, happy that Juneteenth
is now a federal holiday.
But it also made me realize there's something bizarrely, there's something a little bit
obscene with how immediately suddenly there were Juneteenth events.
Do you know what I mean?
That, and it reminded me, oh, yeah, this is a business too, isn't it?
And so, yeah, you know, and I'm glad that there are events.
But also there's something a little bit gross about it, you know, it's hard, you know, like
it's not a, it's not a fun conversation to have.
But like I said, I'm really grateful that it's, you know, it should be a national holiday.
So I'm glad that it is.
But you know, by asking this question, I don't mean to, like put you in a place, a spot where
you are like all of a sudden the representative of this whole entire Juneteenth or Black Lives
Matter movement.
No.
And I didn't, I didn't receive it that way at all.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I appreciate the question because it's, it allows me to sort of, you know, I don't
think I've, I've articulated this.
I've had an opportunity to articulate this.
And so I was, I'm glad to do it.
You know, it's funny, I say this to my friends often, but there are a lot of things that
were made possible because of George Floyd's death.
And it is horrible and horrifying that that was the case.
But I mean, it changed us.
And I'm glad it did, you know, because it would be appalling if something like that
were to happen and it didn't change us.
You know, even, you know, you could argue whether it's changed us societally a lot or
a little, but I'm, I'm grateful.
And I'm devastated that people had to lose their, like a family had to lose someone that
they loved, you know, for this to happen.
It's kind of like when Martin Luther King was assassinated and Malcolm X was assassinated,
it was assassinated.
You kind of, those were turning points in American history.
But did someone have to die?
Did children have to lose their parents?
Did a woman have to lose, did women have to lose their husbands behind that?
But I don't know, I'm getting a little.
I know it's a very tough topic and I'm sorry.
But I appreciate you for really opening up and telling me because it's important to talk
about and we need to do better too, you know?
It's not just that his death, but I think we have to do even better.
So thank you for opening up.
So just to change the mood of our conversation, I really want to congratulate you for all
the hard work you spend with the, especially Juneteenth LP and then your dedication was
finally recognized in 2022 last year when you received the Chamber Music America Artist
Grant and this accolade transformed your annual Juneteenth celebration from a one night event
at the Joe's Pub at the Public Theater to a week long New York City extravaganza.
Congratulations.
So I know to get a grant from the government, right?
That's not easy, extremely difficult.
Yes, Chamber Music America is I think a private organization, but I mean this year I am applying
for city and state grants.
You know, it is a long and arduous process and I was very lucky to have one of my team
members who was just there and you know, it took us consistent work over together, working
together over the course of a month to prepare this grant proposal.
But what was really interesting about it was that it really does lay the groundwork for
us, so we got to learn how to apply for grants from an organizational level or you know,
and it's different from applying for a grant as an individual.
And so that was an incredible sort of steep learning curve.
And as I am applying for grants now in this round, it's a lot easier in some ways.
I don't have the same team members, but it is easier because that that groundwork was
laid, you know.
But I will say that it is a constant struggle of getting your projects funded, getting,
you know, getting funding for your projects so that you can present.
And I tell people all the time, I feel like that no matter what I do, there's always this
next challenge on the horizon that is unlike anything I've done before.
And so it feels like I'm a beginner again and again and again.
And I thought to myself, but you know what?
I remember telling students you have to be unafraid to not know what's going on.
But you have to be OK with not knowing because eventually you work at it and then you will
know.
But then there'll be another challenge.
You know?
I know.
Totally, totally.
But congratulations.
That's a big thing.
And then, you know, I really hope to attend the future events.
And I know this Juneteenth LP is going to be even bigger and because the message is
right.
So I also want to know a little bit about other musicians who are involved, like who's
the member or who would be the guest?
One of the first people that I met doing the show was cellist Eric Cooper.
He's a really amazing musician, but also he has a quartet called Sterling Strings.
And this quartet does really amazing work.
And they they do these great arrangements of popular music.
Their improvising chops are wonderful.
But it's very funny when we're in rehearsal because, you know, we're doing Childish Gambino
or Lizzo or whatever.
And they're like, yeah, you know, we're very familiar with this.
Let's just play it through and go.
And I'm like, I am not familiar with this.
I am not familiar with improvising and I need to play it more than once.
So we're coming from very different places and they're like, yeah, it's no problem.
And I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is so hard.
But it's great to be able to work with an ensemble that is so capable in that way.
And so we have a singer and we have our newest singer is Kristin Devine.
She has this really wonderful voice and it's been a pleasure working with her.
And we have this fabulous, fabulous percussionist, Shirzett Tinnen, who is just absolutely brilliant.
She and her ensemble opened up the Women in Jazz series up here in Harlem.
I believe I forgot to mention.
So our first violinist, Frederique Namaam is an African Caribbean violinist from the
Boston area and she is a powerhouse arranger.
And so she's been doing a lot of our arrangements.
But also this year, I believe Shirzett is going to do a couple of arrangements for us.
And so we're just kind of collecting these musicians that vibe with us well.
I just feel really lucky that a group of musicians that we.
And not only do we enjoy playing together, you know, it's a really great energy, but
also we just enjoy hanging out.
That's wonderful.
That's a dream come true.
It's very hard to collaborate, but that speaks volume about you.
You know, you have that ability to put things together, put people together.
So what would you like your audience to experience from attending the concerts?
I want them to hear music they've never heard before and hopefully be delighted by it and
hopefully be interested and engaged.
I want them to come away with it thinking, I want to know more about Margaret Bonds.
I want to know more about William Grant still.
I want to know more about whomever we've presented.
That's what I want.
And what's great is that we live in an era where they can literally put that in their
phone and pull up, you know, whatever Trevor Weston's got, whatever and Kiro Koei has got.
There's a sound cloud for that.
There's a Spotify.
Primarily that's what I want.
And also I want them to hear pop standards or blues standards or whatever in a different
way because we're playing it, their strings.
How much Marvin Gaye have you heard that's been, you know, string centered, string heavy
or string forward?
Oh, I would love to hear that.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, it's a lot of fun and it's a lot of, it's really engaging.
Before I, you know, we go to the next segment, which is about your life, but I want to ask
one last question from this Juneteenth LP.
What did you gain or what important life lesson did you experience from launching and building
the Juneteenth LP?
What I've learned is that the most important thing that you can do is to put one foot in
front of the other.
It doesn't matter if it feels like it's working.
It doesn't matter if it feels like it's right.
Just you have to get up and you have to put one foot in front of the other.
And my mother used to talk about this.
She struggled, you know, as we all do.
And I, and I remember saying to her, how, how are you able to do that?
How are you able to work from 3pm to midnight because they wouldn't give you a reasonable
shift at the hospital and then get up at six in the morning to take me to school?
How did you do that?
And she said two things.
She said, well, first of all, when you have kids, you become capable of all kinds of things
that you know darn well you could not do if you didn't have these kids to take care of.
But also, and I'd heard her say this to more than a few people, I'm just stumbling and bumbling
along.
Like it doesn't look right.
It doesn't feel right.
It doesn't seem like I'm succeeding.
I'm just today I'm going to get up and I'm going to try again.
That's the thing that is the most important thing.
I think that people who build things that last just persist.
Do you remember that speed skater was his name, Eric Hayden?
There was a speed skater who kept in the Olympics and the Olympics every four years, he kept
skating and like he'd make it to the and he would fall.
He would fall.
He would not be able to fit.
And he was always, he was always clearly like the best.
They expected him to win.
And yet something would always happen and something would always happen.
I think it was like his fourth Olympics.
Do you know how old like athletes do not have a long shelf life, right?
And when he finally broke through and won, it was like the whole world was unified in
this moment of my gosh, like, yes, you know, and then away, he will be remembered forever.
I get choked up when I remember his breakthrough.
Do you know what I mean?
I and I remember where I was watching each time he didn't and each time he crashed and
burned and sort of weak families watching the Olympics again.
And then it happened.
It takes what feels like forever to achieve the thing that you're trying to achieve.
Your job is not to predict when your success is going to happen.
And your job is not to, you know, you're not in charge of the universe.
You don't get to know if it's going to happen tomorrow, if it's going to happen in 20 years.
Your job is to get up in the morning and say, I am committed to this thing that I'm going
to do.
And so I'm going to do it.
And sometimes it is exhausting and it is lonely and it is frustrating.
And you're you're you feel broken half the times that you're doing it.
But also, when you do get to that level, you realize that you are enjoying it because you
knew what it took.
Right.
And then also you realize, oh, there's another mountain.
I climbed this.
Oh, there's another mountain.
Right.
Yeah.
I'm comfortable because it is always striving and always climbing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I hear you.
And thank you for the reminder, because, you know, sometimes when I do this podcast, it's
I enjoy it.
But it's like, like you said, one foot in front of the other.
It's like every day you do this that matters.
It's not about when you achieve how much you achieve.
And that's a wrap for the first part of this engaging episode on the PianoPod with a guest,
Dr. Nena Ogro.
If you have been enjoying our episodes, please take a moment to rate and review us on your
favorite podcast platform.
You can also watch our episodes on the PianoPod YouTube channel.
As we kick off our fourth season, we owe it all to your support.
Since 2020, we've been exploring how to make classical music resonate in fresh ways with
today's audience.
But to continue bringing you these episodes, we need your support.
Every contribution goes toward essential podcast expenses.
Want to be part of this journey?
Click the PayPal link in the show notes or visit the pianopod.com to donate.
I'll personally mail you the PianoPod's logo sticker as a token of gratitude.
So hit that subscribe button, spread the word, and don't forget to follow the PianoPod on
social media.
The links are in the description.
Tune in next Tuesday, October 24th at 8 p.m. for the rest of the interview with Dr. Nena
Agpa.