The Musician's Journey Podcast Ragnhild Wesenberg

She is singing and playing a drum with her foot while playing her cello. How did Diletta Fosso's journey in music begin?

The songs featured in this episode are:
7 years (Lukas Graham)
Makeba (Jain)
and
Counting Stars (One Republic)

Everybody's story is different - why does someone spend countless hours on making cover videos for Instagram? Why not choose a job with a steady income?
In this episode, Ragnhild talks with Madeleine Ladore -a cellist who has been working on her business only for a few years but who has managed to grow a loyal following.

"People like to hear the music that they like."
Madeleine Ladore has walked the path from deciding to play the cello for a living, to make content for social media platforms, to learn about marketing and video making and how to get your songs into playlists on Spotify...
It's a road that demands consistency and dedication before it starts to pay off, and after about 3 years the ball is definitely rolling.

Have you heard of the music box? Could a nebula in space have anything to do with a composer's research?
In this episode, Ragnhild talks with Wilma Pistorius -a cellist, composer and Alexander Technique teacher who is based in Amsterdam.

As a composer today, how do you make connections?
Wilma talks about her approach to this, being herself on the introverted side and would be happy to spend the evening with a book rather than being out socializing.
Being a composer today involves making oneself visible (and audible, of course!), doing one's own PR, taking initiatives and being proactive, and being able to step in at a short notice.
For the past several years, Wilma has walked her path piece by piece, e-mail by e-mail, concert by concert, insta post by insta post... and the ball is rolling.

Kaja Draksler has spent the past several years composing, rehearsing, touring and recording.
Early in 2023 she became a mother and thus a new chapter has begun.

The featured music:
'Trboje' from the album Zürich Concert with Punkt.Vrt.Plastik
'Danas, Jučer Sutra' from the album Out for Stars with Kaja Draksler Octet
'Away!' from the album In Otherness Oneself

Kaja's Website https://kajadraksler.com/

In this episode, Ragnhild talks with one of her cello students about learning the cello as an adult.

Emi Ferguson has many legs to stand on: a busy concert schedule as a flutist, albums recorded, being a faculty member of The Julliard School, and now releasing a book co-authored with Nicholas Csicsko.

Is there room for more books about composers? Yes. 'Iconic Composers' is not just children friendly, but it sticks out in the way that it features lesser known female composers and composers of different skin colors.
In addition, each of the 50 composers is illustrated by David Lee Csicsko.
Boiling down countless hours of research into 250 words per composer was quite a challenge, but the authors found a useful approach:
"How can we make people excited enough to go and learn even more about them?"

Emi's love for research on composers is contagious. Throughout her research she has come across plenty of biases and censorship. How can she trust a source at all? -is my question.
"It's hard to separate the myth of the person from who the person was, and I'm not sure we ever will be able to. What we can do is to get to the spirit of what they were trying to do."

If you, like I do, find research do be rather overwhelming, you might appreciate Emi's take on it:
"I think that distraction is a good thing. I've always followed the distractions because what's the worst that can happen? -That you learn something cool."

I don't know about you, but after my interview with Emi I felt inspired to find a wormhole on the internet and learn something cool.