Da Capo Conversations 2.0 with Nina Shekhar and Carla Lucero

For Good Measure, by Ensemble for These Times (E4TT)
Episode 217: Da Capo Conversations 2.0 with Nina Shekhar and Carla Lucero

Looking for a way to listen to diverse creators and to support equity in the arts? Tune in weekly to For Good Measure!

Today we revisit Nina Shekhar’s and Carla Lucero’s advice to emerging artists. If you enjoyed today’s conversation and want to know more about Nina Shekhar and Carla Lucero, check them out here and here. Parts of this episode originally premiered in July 2024, click here, and September 2024, 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/19502033

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

Transcript

Nanette McGuinness  00:07

[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 Nina Shekhar's and Carla Lucero's advice for young or emerging composers and artists. Here's what Nina Shekhar had to say.

Nina Shekhar  00:39

Yeah. So, in terms of advice, there's many ways I could go with this. You know, I think ultimately, I think the biggest advice for anybody is that you know their voice matters, and and that they shouldn't be afraid to say what they want to say how they want to say it, you know, regardless of what anybody else thinks or other constraints that are put on them. And I, I think that this especially goes for, you know, like young women or non-binary artists, you know, composers of color. I think it's so often like marginalized identities tend to be constrained in a way that it's like we're so afraid of taking up space, especially like young women. I think like it's so we're conditioned, you know, by society to kind of take as little space as possible, and I think that it's been a real like eye-opening journey for me. I think you know I'm still a young woman, and and kind of feeling the last few years like just kind of how I've been thinking about that idea of taking up space, how I engage with my own voice and how I speak up, like, and you know, I think also related to this is you know a lot of Asian identity, like culturally, we're taught to like keep your head down, be quiet, don't disturb it, just like move ahead. Like don't bother with like you know kind of trying to dismantle anything. You just kind of keep your head down. And I think both of that. I think it's been really interesting as I move through the field and kind of counter a lot of fears I had about speaking up and and taking up space, but then also I think related to that is I think men are conditioned that they should take up as much space as possible, but then they think everybody else should too, or like that's like the like they we should be like them when actually I think maybe there's maybe it's a good thing that we should have take up as much space because we have a sense of empathy.

Nanette McGuinness  03:09

[laughing]

Nina Shekhar  03:09

Like I... I actually think like I critique that notion of like everybody should be as loud as possible because I don't think that's true. I think that really we should be listening to each other a lot more. We should be making space for others, you know, to have their own platform, and you know, I think that that's something that I think about for, for younger artists, you know, as we move through the field. It's really scary to like, you know, put yourself out there, and especially in a time where it's like identity is so policed, or so like...

Nanette McGuinness  03:50

Fraught.

Nina Shekhar  03:50

Yeah, fraught, I would say, and it's just so like scary right now to you know be honest about your own experiences and and feel like you can say what you want to say without somebody else censoring it or or changing you know your honesty and what you want to say. So I think that ideally I would think that that's the most important thing for young artists for them to have that be able to move through the field and be able to create the work that they want to make, without having fear of you know being censored in some way. And I'm saying this because I I had had a few experiences, especially like after 2020. I think you know with everything going on socially around that time, it's like a lot of organizations suddenly felt like they were on like hot coals and were like really afraid of everything and and also not really understanding how to deal with change and and and actually like meaningful change. Like I think there was a lot of this kind of like putting a band-aid on things, but not actually wanting to change things. And like yeah, in 2021, I, I had a couple pieces censored for very different reasons. Yeah, and it really affected me, and I think that contributed.

Nanette McGuinness  05:17

What happened?

Nina Shekhar  05:17

There were just certain instances where, like one piece, so that the Bach piece actually was somebody programmed it. It was already an existing piece, you know. It wasn't like it was a commission. Then somebody thought it was too political. That like, how dare! ...

Nanette McGuinness  05:35

Oh my God!... [laughing]

Nina Shekhar  05:35

...I take apart Bach. It was like actu a lly a real issue for somebody. And then on the other side of things, it was like a piece where I wrote something about immigrant identity, and it had a lot of double meanings. And the ensemble did not understand any of those double meanings, and thought that it was like this really vanilla. Like they didn't understand that there was like this kind of sense of...

Nanette McGuinness  06:04

Subtext.

Nina Shekhar  06:04

Yeah subtext, and they thought it was not essentially like not a trauma, traumatized piece enough. So like, it's like kind of the opposite things that have happened, and I think it contributed to some of the burnout that I felt in after that year, and I think you know. Since then, I kind of been really thinking about like, what is it that I want to say, and how can I preserve that space for myself where I can say what I want to say, and make sure that I don't feel like I'm stifling my voice in any way, and that like ideally, what we w a nt is a field where everybody has the agency, has the platform to speak their own truth, and yeah, I've been trying to make sure that I can do that and feel like I I have that, and and I do feel like I have that now, and I think... I just always empathize, you know, with other young artists who are just starting and you know are really afraid their next paycheck, you know, of like you know how like building their career, building a network, and being so afraid of being censored in some way. Like I think that it's really important to me that they, they feel like they have that space where they can be themselves.

Nanette McGuinness  07:27

Yeah, I think that makes sense, especially for young women in all cultures, because we get, we get very far by figuring out how to get approval, right, and how to get that A plus or whatever. But there comes a point where, as an artist, if all you're doing is trying to get approval, you are censoring yourself, and you aren't hearing your own voice. And if you don't hear your own voice, you can't authentically share it with other people, and they will sense that you aren't, in some way, right?

Nina Shekhar  08:04

Right, exactly. Yeah, it's the sense of needing approval is... it's so interesting because I think about that in many aspects of my personal life, you know, and many aspects of my life. But I think in a career sense also, it's like we're constantly looking for, you know, a good review for some sort of well-known institution to program us or commission us, like approval from all of these other entities. You know, getting into a degree program, like approval from, like academia, like all of these things, and yeah, it's like, wait, what is it that we actually want to do? Like, what is it that we want to say? And yeah, I think it's, it's tough to kind of opt out of that like constant need for approval by these other entities. But I think it's really important that it's almost like building your own network of approval, like a different, like opting out from these structures that you can have your own space to do what you want to do, or a different community community of people who have the same values as you, and and like share your goals, you know, which might be different than like these other entities' goals. So it's a challenging thing to kind of mediate, but ultimately, I think that's really important.

Nanette McGuinness  09:35

I agree, totally agree.

Nanette McGuinness  09:37

Here's what Carla Lucero had to say.

Carla Lucero  09:39

I would say, yeah, advice in general is to seek out your own community and write authentically, write from the heart, because that is where the fire in your heart is going to give you the passion that you need to succeed. I think that there are a lot of people who are trying to chase something, like chase a style of music, or chase be the next big big thing or the new thing or whatever it is. That I mean, maybe that's authentic to some people, but but I think that if you're writing from a place of authenticity in terms of yourself that you will succeed.

Nanette McGuinness  10:28

Yeah, those are good pieces of advice. And finding your community is something that keeps coming up in these chats as well. Both of those things.

Nanette McGuinness  10:39

[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]