Canton Symphony Orchestra knows the need for change within the orchestral community. The tradition of classical music has ignored many communities that have contributed to the development and canon of repertoire played in the concert hall. While Canton Symphony is a regional orchestral, change starts at the smallest level. With “Orchestrating Change”, the Canton Symphony Orchestra hopes to facilitate conversations that will make the concert hall a more welcoming place for previously ignored communities as well as create more acceptance and diversity on the stage. GOALS - Be a platform for open discussion about diversity and inclusion in the orchestral community. - Be a platform for Black, Latinx, Asian, female, and LGBTQAI+ musicians, composers and administrators as well as other ignored demographics. - Educate our audience to issues surrounding diversity and inclusion and expose our current patrons to more music by Black, Latinx, female, Asian, and LGBTQAI+ musicians and composers. - Bring new audience to the orchestra by creating a more welcoming community that is reflective of the demographics in our Canton, Ohio community. - Move the CSO forward to programming more diverse music as well as increasing diversity within the organization.
Episodes
Friday Apr 22, 2022
Friday Apr 22, 2022
Our guest today is Tiffany Kinnard-Payton, Dean of Students at Walsh University here in Canton. She is an alumna of Walsh and has spent nearly fifteen years working serving her alma mater in the offices of residential life, student conduct, and multicultural affairs in addition to her current position. She is also a graduate of Project Blueprint, the United Way program started by Season 2 guest Flo Ginanni, which seeks to train people of color for membership on non-profit boards and is one of our newest board members here at the Canton Symphony Orchestra.
Orchestrating Change is available wherever you get your podcasts. We also have a new website! Go to www.orchestratingchange.com to sign-up for email reminders, view past episodes, and see the various channels where you can view our content.
For more information about everything else we are offering at this time, please visit www.cantonsymphony.org.
Friday Apr 08, 2022
Friday Apr 08, 2022
We are joined today by Quinn Mason, a conductor and composer based in Dallas, Texas. Writing for orchestra, wind ensemble, chamber ensembles, and more, Quinn has had his compositions played all over the world by ensembles such as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony. As a conductor, Quinn has worked with Orchestra Seattle, MusicaNova Orchestra and the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra. At only 25 years of age, he is already making a huge impact on the industry.
Orchestrating Change is available wherever you get your podcasts. We also have a new website! Go to www.orchestratingchange.com to sign-up for email reminders, view past episodes, and see the various channels where you can view our content.
For more information about everything else we are offering at this time, please visit www.cantonsymphony.org.
Friday Mar 25, 2022
Friday Mar 25, 2022
Today we welcome conductor Tiffany Chang to our podcast. Originally trained in the world of music education, Chang holds positions at both Oberlin Conservatory and Berklee College of Music, and previously served as interim director of orchestras at Baldwin Wallace Conservatory and Boston University. Lately, her focus has been geared more toward the professional realm, particularly the world of opera, where she serves as director of the North End Music and Performing Arts Center’s Opera Project in Boston and has major engagements this season with Opera Columbus here in Ohio, as well as the Portland Opera in Oregon. She also runs the blog Conductor as CEO, which examines job satisfaction issues in the orchestral industry, and the role of the conductor in creating a healthy workplace culture.
Orchestrating Change is available wherever you get your podcasts. We also have a new website! Go to www.orchestratingchange.com to sign-up for email reminders, view past episodes, and see the various channels where you can view our content.
For more information about everything else we are offering at this time, please visit www.cantonsymphony.org.
Friday Mar 11, 2022
Friday Mar 11, 2022
We are joined today by Joshua Thomas, Vice President of External Affairs at the Philly POPS. He joined the Philly POPS in 2019 as their Senior Manager of Development, having previously worked in administrative roles at the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. He is also active with The League of American Orchestras and served as a consultant and mentor for The Tessitura Network’s Early Career Development Program. He is a graduate of Temple University, where he studied voice with a concentration in opera. Joshua Thomas, welcome to Orchestrating Change!
Orchestrating Change is available wherever you get your podcasts. We also have a new website! Go to www.orchestratingchange.com to sign-up for email reminders, view past episodes, and see the various channels where you can view our content. For more information about everything else we are offering at this time, please visit www.cantonsymphony.org.
Friday Feb 25, 2022
Friday Feb 25, 2022
Today is the first time in our podcast’s history that we welcome two guests: Jules Biber and Kallie Sugatski from ChamberQUEER, an LGBTQ+ chamber music organization in New York City dedicated to presenting and performing queer composers and musicians and highlighting historical queer figures in Classical music.
Orchestrating Change is available wherever you get your podcasts. We also have a new website! Go to www.orchestratingchange.com to sign-up for email reminders, view past episodes, and see the various channels where you can view our content. For more information about everything else we are offering at this time, please visit www.cantonsymphony.org.
https://orchestratingchange.com/3-4-chamberqueer/
Friday Feb 11, 2022
Friday Feb 11, 2022
Today, we are joined by Jazmin Morales, Assistant Director of the Center for Innovation and Community Impact at the Colburn School, a prestigious conservatory in Los Angeles. She is the founder of Fortissima, an artistic leadership development program for women of color in classical music. She is also an adjunct faculty member in the Arts Leadership Program at the University of Southern California, a consultant for NPR’s From the Top and the Smithsonian Latino Center and serves on the board of both the City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles and the Little Village Foundation.
Orchestrating Change is available wherever you get your podcasts. We also have a new website! Go to www.orchestratingchange.com to sign-up for email reminders, view past episodes, and see the various channels where you can view our content. For more information about everything else we are offering at this time, please visit www.cantonsymphony.org.
Friday Jan 28, 2022
Friday Jan 28, 2022
We are joined today by Jeri Lynne Johnson, founder and artistic director of the Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra in Philadelphia. For over a decade, Black Pearl has been a model for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the orchestral industry as a racially diverse ensemble performing for a racially diverse audience - something that the rest of the industry has only recently begun to talk about. Jeri’s career has taken her all over the world, where she has become the first Black woman to ever conduct some of the world’s leading orchestras. She is also the founder of DEI Arts Consulting, which helps arts organizations to better serve the diverse communities in which we exist.
Orchestrating Change is available wherever you get your podcasts. We also have a new website! Go to www.orchestratingchange.com to sign-up for email reminders, view past episodes, and see the various channels where you can view our content. For more information about everything else we are offering at this time, please visit www.cantonsymphony.org.
Friday Jan 14, 2022
Friday Jan 14, 2022
Orchestrating Change is back! We are so excited to present the first episode of Season 3!
Our guest today is MJ Albacete, a native Cantonian who spent his entire professional career with the Canton Museum of Art, including serving as executive director for over 25 years. An arts educator equally versed in the visual and performing arts, he teaches classes on the history of art and architecture at Kent State Stark, has given pre-concert lectures both here at the Canton Symphony and at the Cleveland Orchestra, and hosts our online “Music History with MJ” series. He is a lifelong patron of the Canton Symphony and has been a loyal subscriber for 45 years.
This podcast focuses on the voices of underrepresented professionals in the classical music industry, but this episode is a little different. To start off Season 3, we brought in long-time subscriber and music lover MJ Albacete to discuss why he thinks working towards a more equitable and diverse future is important for classical music. MJ is not a minority but represents a majority of the Canton Symphony Orchestra audience. We hope that his perspective will provide insight into the importance of this podcast and other initiatives like it. We hope you enjoy.
Orchestrating Change is available wherever you get your podcasts. We also have a new website! Go to www.orchestratingchange.com to sign-up for email reminders, view past episodes, and see the various channels where you can view our content. For more information about everything else we are offering at this time, please visit www.cantonsymphony.org.
Friday Aug 13, 2021
Friday Aug 13, 2021
This episode marks the end of the first Orchestrating Change Leadership Program and Season 2 of the Orchestrating Change podcast. All summer, 9 college students met via Zoom on Tuesdays and Thursdays to discuss issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion; network with over 30 industry professionals; and develop skills to become to next leaders in the field of music. Along with this learning, the OCLP students worked together to create an educational program that would seek to actively combat issues of accessibility and inequality in our Canton community. Their final presentation left the staff and board of the CSO, along with community members, excited for what the future will hold here at the symphony. We cannot wait for 2022 and the next Orchestrating Change Leadership Program!
We would like to thank OCLP participants Samaria Hill, Valerie Mathis, and Irene Guggenheim-Triana for lending their voices for this episode. "...it definitely lived up to its name, "Orchestrating Change". We as a collective group actually put something together, networked, and made something happen, which pleasantly surprises me. I feel like I contributed to something very important in the world of music and I'm very proud and blessed to have been a part of this!" - 2021 OCLP Participant
Orchestrating Change is available wherever you get your podcasts. Go to www.cantonsymphony.org/orchestrating-change/ to sign-up for email reminders, view past episodes, and see the various channels where you can view our content.
For more information about everything else we are offering at this time, please visit www.cantonsymphony.org.
Friday Aug 06, 2021
Friday Aug 06, 2021
We are joined today by internationally renowned pianist Shuai Wang. She performs extensively as both a soloist and chamber musician, including an appearance with the Canton Symphony Orchestra. She is currently on faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and spends her summers teaching at Interlochen in Michigan. She is an alumna of both institutions, having received her high school diploma at the Interlochen Arts Academy and all of her post-secondary training up to and including her Doctor of Musical Arts degree at CIM.
Chinese-American pianist Shuai Wang is recognized internationally as an accomplished soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. She has performed extensively in major venues such as Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, and Symphony Space in New York, the Kennedy Center and Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series in Chicago, the Gardner Museum in Boston and the Buffalo Chamber Music Series. Wang has appeared as soloist with the Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra, Canton Symphony Orchestra, Tianjin Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, Heights Chamber Symphony, Suburban Symphony Orchestra, and the Cleveland State University Symphony Orchestra. She performed under the batons of Ton Koopman, JoAnn Falletta, Gerhardt Zimmermann, Robert Moody, Renchang Fu and Muhai Tang.
Orchestrating Change is available wherever you get your podcasts. Go to www.cantonsymphony.org/orchestrating-change/ to sign-up for email reminders, view past episodes, and see the various channels where you can view our content.
For more information about everything else we are offering at this time, please visit www.cantonsymphony.org.