Da Capo Conversations 2.0 with Devon Lee and Caleb Palka

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 186: Da Capo Conversations 2.0 with Devon Lee and Caleb Palka

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Today we revisit Devon Lee’s and Caleb Palka’s perspectives on a what being a composer means to them. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Devon Lee and Caleb Palka, check them out here and here. Parts of this episode originally premiered in February 2025, click here, and March 2025, click here.

This podcast is made possible by grants from the California Arts Council, SF Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, 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.
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1903729/episodes/18312572

Co-Producer, Host, and E4TT co-founder: Nanette McGuinness
Co-Producer and Audio Engineer: Stephanie M. Neumann
Podcast Cover Art: Brennan Stokes
Interns: Renata Volchinskaya, Sam Mason, Christy Xu

Chapters

• 0:29 Today, we revisit Devon Lee's and Caleb Palka's perspectives on what being a composer means to them. Here's what Devon Lee had to say.
• 2:41 Here's what Caleb Palka had to say.

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness  00:00

[INTRO MUSIC] Welcome to For Good Measure, an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists. I'm Nanette McGuinness, Artistic Executive Director of Ensemble for These Times. In this week's episode, we continue our Da Capo Conversations, a mini-series where we'll be giving familiar segments a topical twist. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] Today, we revisit Devon Lee's and Caleb Palka's perspectives on what being a composer means to them. Here's what Devon Lee had to say.

Devon Lee  00:39

Since I've been in a lot of different spaces for kids learning about composition. The first thing that people ask is kind of like, what is a composer? What is what is making music mean? And God, for me, I feel like I was saying before about trying not to get too existential. I feel like I used to think that composing was kind of like, you know, inscribing your name upon the world, like, kind of, you know, like the greats. yeah, kind of like "Mahler-esque"

Nanette McGuinness  01:10

[laughs]

Devon Lee  01:10

Just kind of like that, but maybe "Mahler-ian" I don't know [laughs] but, um, I think for for me, it's for long time. It was just kind of like expressing this or that, kind of month to month, day to day, what I wanted to hear and making that. And then it sort of Incorporated, and a lot of people say this, but kind of like a creative outlet, or like emotional outlet to describe things that I just couldn't do words. I often struggle a lot with words. I always love creative writing, but I just I'm kind of like a really. I get bashful very easily when sharing about myself. So instrumental music or setting someone else's words and putting my own meaning behind it was really huge for me, and it made me feel like you like. It gave me an in to expressing myself. And not that interesting music is any less exposed than creative writing or anything like that, but for me, at least, it felt like just the way that I think, was the right modality for me to share things. For me, I think being a composer, honestly, is just anyone who wants to, like, write and share music. I don't feel like there should be that, like, kind of pedagogy or like fear behind it, of like, Oh, I haven't taken 10 levels of theory so I'm not a composer" but just anyone who's like, I want to write and make music.

Nanette McGuinness  02:41

Here's what Caleb Palka had to say.

Caleb Palka  02:44

I've enjoyed writing as well as composing, for a long time, and I see them both as like very intertwined kinds of forms of expression, ways of interacting with the world and noticing small details and then sort of shaping these things into music, into words, and as a way of creating something that makes me more aware of everything I encounter in my daily life, I guess, sort of sort of mindfulness like I find when I go on a walk in The woods I'm listening to, like, all the different types of bird calls, and like, what's the musical shape of the phrase of that bird call? And, you know, listening to the wind in the trees or, like, the dry leaves crunching under my foot, it just sort of shapes how I experience the world.

Nanette McGuinness  03:40

[OUTRO MUSIC] Thank you for listening to For Good Measure's Da Capo Conversations, and a special thank you to our guests for joining us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast by clicking on the subscribe button and support us by sharing it with your friends, posting about it on social media and leaving us a rating and a review. To learn more about E4TT, our concert season online and in the Bay Area, or to make a tax-deductible donation, please visit us at www.E4TT.org. This podcast is made possible by grants from the California Arts Council, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, and generous donors like you. For Good Measure is produced by Nanette McGuinness and Ensemble for These Times, and design by Brennan Stokes, with special thanks to Co-producer and Audio Engineer Stephanie M. Neumann. Remember to keep supporting equity in the arts and tune in next week "for good measure." [OUTRO MUSIC ENDS]