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Tyné Angela Freeman’s work spans songwriting, ethnomusicology, recording, and authorship. This podcast explores her album and text by the title of “The Sky is Deeper Than the Sea” to discuss questions of trauma, transcendent hope, history, love and resilience. We also explore her earlier work of cross-cultural bridge-building and her research on Mamie Smith. Resting on a profound belief in hope, Freeman explores the reconciliation of traumatic histories through evocative approaches to story and time.

This podcast explores notions of dignity, home, identity and collaborative music making with Renae Timbie. As the third and final podcast in a series on Compassionate Music Teaching,  Karin Hendricks writes that Renae Timbie has an “instinctual ability to connect deeply with people no matter who they are, and no matter their worldview.” This podcast enters that conversation with Timbie, exploring her work with multicultural and refugee choirs and the search for home and identity across diverse cultures.

This 2nd of the Compassionate Music Teaching Series explores Afro-Centric musical traditions, Samba Reggae, and the importance of empathy in music teaching and learning with Marcus Santos.  Santos is a native of Bahia, Brazil who commits his life to the study, teaching, and performance of Afro-Brazilian music and heritage. His network titled, Grooversity has built from traditions of Samba Reggae performance as a time-space for social change.  As an episode of laughter, joy, and curiosity this episode explores the embodied joy and empathetic practice of Marcus Santos as is profiled by Karin Hendricks’ book Compassionate Music Teaching.

This episode is the first of a three-part series exploring Dr. Karin Hendricks’ book on Compassionate Music Teaching. In this series, we will follow the profiles within the book to encounter lived practices of relationship, identity, community, voice, empathy, and dignity in music education. In this first episode, we explore Hendricks’ research on Suzuki, Steve Massey’s legacy of community, music, and leadership, Brian Michaud’s joy and curiosity, and the patient question-driven instruction of Dorothy Delay. This episode also contains a special treat with a tribute by Wynton Marsalis in honor of Steve Massey.

Imaginations in peacebuilding and the arts are seen as almost a universal good. This podcast episode adds complexity, exploring how imaginations of a “modern” Mexico led to indigenous persecution and how imaginations of fame and prestige may be destructive to relationship. In contrast, Martha Gonzalez of Grammy-nominated Quetzal, explores liberatory imaginations of community, belonging, and women’s testimonio within the fully embodied, communal practice of Fandango and Son Jarocho. Exploring indigenous relationality, Fandango Fronterizo, and Chicana feminist scholarship, this conversation opens new perspectives of activism.

After a much-needed break, we are excited to announce the launch of Season 2! In season 2 we explore new questions about cultures of transformative healing with ethnomusicologists, musicians, educators, and peacebuilders. Join us as we explore episodes on Balinese Gamelan, Compassionate Music Teaching, Building Bridges of Storytelling, and much more! 

This final episode of season 1 explores ritual, symbol, and peace building with Dr. Lisa Shirch. Dr. Shirch is senior research fellow for the Toda Peace Institute, Senior Fellow with the Alliance for Peacebuilding, and Visiting Scholar at George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. We explore the “rationality” of ritual, the power of symbol and transformative space, and the dark side of ritual when it is used for xenophobia and hate.

Hong Le is a National Board Certified elementary music specialist who teaches workshops in World Music Drumming Curriculum. We sat down to talk about her belief in community, universal talent, and the ability of music teachers to empower student voices. Weaving in her own story as the child of Vietnamese refugees, Hong Le also speaks to the centrality of hospitality, community, and generosity in building compassionate lives.

The second in our Anabaptist theology series features an interview with Dr. Drew Hart of Messiah College on his book “Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism.” Our conversation looks at issues of embodied solidarity, ground-up thinking and organizing, systemic racism, reconciliation, dignity, and hope. 

Embracing a diversity of voices and musicians, this podcast explores the beautiful interwoven thoughts and expressions of what it means to live the Anabaptist walk of peace, community, witness, and humility. Featuring Rev. Pam Reist, Dr. Drew Hart, Dr. Jeff Bach, and Dr. Don Kraybill, the Oasis Chorale, the Nigerian Women’s Choir, and Frances Miller and Daryl Snider of Sopa Sol, we explore the intersections of history and the lived, and embodied walk of faith and love.

This podcast explores the artistry of Sreyashi Dey's interpretations of the Mahabharata through the Odissi style of Classical Indian Dance. Dey sought to restory the life of Hidimba, a minor female character in the Mahabharata who is marginalized within structures of ethnic and class power. Alongside this artistic narrative, we explore Vrinda Dalmiya's exploration of feminist care ethics and the storied contrast between masculine order and principle against the vulnerable, embodied, and contextually situated ethic of care. Our exploration of care and restorying deepens our notions of care and narrative within peace work.

Together with Dr. Jeff Long, Elizabethtown College scholar on Indic religions and philosophies, we launch the first of a two-part series exploring Yogic values and Classical Indian Dance. Our discussion centers on Dr. Long's United Nations speeches regarding peace, nonviolence, ahimsa, and Hindu and Yogic values. Exploring Ahimsa, we examine the interconnectedness of care for one another and the centrality of sound and story in Hindu traditions.

Our first in this series examined the music of Oliver Mtukudzi. In this episode, we extend this conversation, interviewing Vurayai Pugeni about his work as a peacebuilder with Grow Hope Globally, the Mennonite Central Committee, and Score Against Poverty. We explore the meaning of Tuku music in Pugeni's life and work. And then we turn to a fascinating story of the "Men Can Cook" cooking competition - An initiative that found an innovative and creative challenge to patriarchal structures and resulting food insecurities for families, women, and children.

Bridget Moix is an advocate, educator, activist, and leader of the US Office of Peace Direct. She believes in the power of local people to build lasting peace. In this conversation we encounter themes within her book, Choosing Peace: Agency and Action in the Midst of War, to explore the notion of peace agency and how our best work is bounded in relationship. Weaving together the teachings of James Waller and Elise Boulding, we explore our innate capacity for peace and relationship, and the importance of families, friendships, and communities in rooting our advocacy and care to place. The episode concludes with a joyful exploration of hope, choice, and imagination led by the laughter and music of the Bluegrass Ambassadors and members of a Ugandan community. 

In this podcast we explore the beautiful, creative, and challenging work of Dan Shevock's Eco-literate music pedagogy. His notions of the local and rootedness challenge teachers to live into a sense of being in relationship to our locality. A profound scholar and poet, Shevock weaves together strands of philosophy, theology, poetry, music, and science to imagine the radical interconnectedness of an ecology of being. Our discussion speaks to meditative presence, being rather than having, and the balance of conservation and liberation. Interwoven with our conversations are Dan Shevock's poems, whale songs, soundscapes of the National Park Service, and the soundscapes preserved and musicked by preeminent acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton. May we return our ears to the soundscape of our presence, finding the connection that repairs our ecosystem of relationship.

Josh Ryan is Department Chair and Professor of Percussion at Baldwin Wallace University and a well-known clinician within the World Music Drumming workshops. Known for the depth of his knowledge, his musicianship, and the approachableness of his presence, he is well-loved by World Music Drumming participants all-over. Our conversation today is an exploration of the music of Africa-West, the importance of musical embodiment, and the rebalancing of visual-focused musicianship with aural, listening-centered and embodied traditions.

Play is a rich site for cultivating creativity, empathy, voice, and finding out who we are. Sonia De Los Santos is an award-winning Children's music artist who models the essence of play, creativity, joy, and voice through her music. In this episode, we explore her music, listening to sounds of Cumbia and Son Jarocho, while simultaneously exploring her lyrics and empowering outreach to children. If play is the heart-space of creativity, imagination, and empathy, then musical play is the work of musical peacebuilding. 

Brandi Waller-Pace created Decolonizing the Music Room as a website and Facebook group to use research to inform educators about decolonizing and help develop culturally competent pedagogy. In centering the voices of educators from marginalized groups, they imagine instructional practices, repertoire, and lived presence as bringing restoration and change to oppressive practices. This particular podcast looks at the importance of moving beyond theory to encounter the lived experiences of oppression, hate, and brutality. In so doing, we may musick into deeper forms of love, compassion, and care.

We discuss questions of belonging, boundaries, and the role of music in war as we examine the tumultuous year of 1917 that led America into World War I. Dr. Douglas Bomberger leads us in the study of four characters: Carl Muck, Ernestine Schuman-Heink, Fritz Kreisler, and the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Through the lives of these characters, we study the role of the National Anthem in articulating belonging, traumas of war, exoticism, and whether music is an instrument of peace or a tool for war.

Dr. Mary Cohen is a leading scholar exploring community music making within prison contexts.  Our conversation explores the redemptive, restorative, and connective empowerment of choral singing as building imaginations of possible selves and ubuntu, or connectedness. This podcast blends conversation, quotes from Andy Douglas' book Redemption Songs: A Year in the Life of a Community Prison Choir, and sound clips from the Oakdale Community Choir.