Behind the Curtain with Brennan Stokes - Part 3

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 97: Behind the Curtain with Brennan Stokes (part 3)

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In this week’s episode, we continue our conversation with E4TT Assistant Director and For Good Measure podcast cover artist Brennan Stokes. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Brennan Stokes, check him out here: https://soundcloud.com/brennan-stokes.

This podcast is made possible in part by a grant from the California Arts Council and generous donors, like you. Want to support For Good Measure and E4TT? Make a tax-deductible donation or sign up for our newsletter, and subscribe to the podcast!

Intro music: “Trifolium” by Gabriela Ortiz, performed by E4TT (Ilana Blumberg, violin; Abigail Monroe, cello; Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Below the Surface: Music by Women Composers,” January 29, 2022
Outro music: “Lake Turkana” by Marcus Norris, performed by E4TT (Margaret Halbig, piano), as part of “Alchemy,” October 15, 2021

Transcription courtesy of Otter.ai.

Co-Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Co-Producer and Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
With assistance from Hannah Chen, Sam Mason, Renata Volchinskaya

If you're curious to hear a little music from our guest Carla Lucero, who we spoke to in our most recent episode, check out E4TT's annual concert of music by women and non-binary composers "Midnight Serenades" on January 25.

Chapters

• 0:37 Today we continue our interview with E4TT assistant director and For Good Measure cover art designer, Brennan Stokes.
• 0:46 I get that you get a lot of your ideas from the text, both musically and thematically. Do you get them other ways? Or is that the primary way? And would you consider yourself primarily a vocal composer right now?
• 2:33 Are there any poets you're currently reading and interested in?
• 3:51 You grew up in Southern California; you got your Master's in Composition from the Conservatory here in San Francisco - are the musical or composition scenes different in the two parts of the state? What's to like? Does one region do something better...
• 6:39 Who or what were your major compositional influences? Who are you listening to? Who were you listening to?