Painter Glenn Ligon on the value of difference

Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez: For conductor Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez, an attentive and hungry audience is one of the essential parts of creating a transcendent musical experience. That’s why he scatters his Musica Viva choir at All Souls Church on the Upper East Side throughout the church. So the audience is in the middle of the action. In this conversation, Davis and Hernandez-Valdez talk about the challenges of managing both choirs and audience, the meditative qualities of live choral music, and the capability of music to transcend daily life to a spiritual plane. “In a way it’s like soul saving. I really see music as a spiritual experience. For some people a religious experience. When you’re in the middle of a piece of music that is really really meaningful, you’re transcending human life. You become one with your spirit.” -Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez Subscribe to Helga on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and follow Helga Davis on Facebook. by Helga

41 min listen

Jacqueline Woodson: Author Jacqueline Woodson won the 2014 National Book Award for Brown Girl Dreaming, and this past January began her two-year tenure as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature; her latest book Another Brooklyn was a New York Times best-seller. In this conversation, host Helga Davis sits down to talk with Woodson about family – the alternative one she was born into and the one she made for herself. Finding the ones with whom she can connect has been invaluable for her; here she shares how she made her community and how they have influenced her process. "For me the extended family is about having more parenting tools. [...] And then we have to make other decisions, we're a biracial family, right? We're a two-mom family, we're not going to send our kid to a school where they're the only kid of color, or the only kid in the class with two moms or two dads. So we had to, from a very early age, start investigating which schools are going to see my kid as whol by Helga

48 min listen

Jennifer Koh by Helga

39 min listen

Peter Sellars: From the home of the Peabody Award-winning Meet the Composer, Q2 Music is proud today to launch the first season of a 10-part podcast, Helga. Hosted by internationally acclaimed singer Helga Davis, Helga features probing conversations with creative and performing artists who have fiercely unique voice and a stake in the matter of social change. The premiere episode features opera and theater director Peter Sellars, one of the most all-around inspiring people you'll ever come across. The acclaimed, unconventional Sellars invites himself and audiences to embrace challenge and push their emotional and spiritual boundaries. His outlook on life and creativity is informed by the belief that hell is just a branch of heaven when correctly viewed. Davis and Sellars talk about his work with the Flexn dancers and Bach's St. Matthew Passion, his sister who runs a dance machine arcade for teenagers in Las Vegas, and how he still isn't sure what he's been put here for. “The actual scr by Helga

58 min listen

Henry Threadgill: Henry Threadgill wants to know how to build the house. Whether it's Moby Dick or jazz composition, the 72-year-old jazz composer and multi-instrumentalist has spent his life figuring out what goes into building the greatest works of arts. At three years of age, he started teaching himself to play piano by mimicking the boogie-woogie on the radio. From there, he set to figuring out how to compose his own music. Recently awarded the Pulitzer Prize, Threadgill talks with Helga about giving license to your imagination in order to create, the life energy that connects a performer to his creations, and pushing yourself to go beyond excellence to greatness. “People have different names for the life force in them. But it’s energy. The only thing that science seems to be able to tell us about energy is you can’t destroy it. You can change it but you cannot destroy it. So wherever you house it, it’s only being housed until it has to change.” –Henry Threadgill This conversation by Helga

45 min listen

Sneak Peek: New Podcast 'Helga': Q2 Music is thrilled to offer an advance listen to Helga, a new podcast that features conversations with diverse, uncompromising and socially conscious artists across the creative and performing arts spectrum. Launching next week with two episodes — acclaimed opera director Peter Sellars (Monday, Nov. 14) and singer and My Brightest Diamond bandleader Shara Nova (Tuesday, Nov. 15) — Helga's first season will continue with 10 episodes released Mondays through Jan. 9. Get a sneak peek of excerpts from the first few episodes in the audio above, and please help new audiences discover Helga by giving the show a rating and review on iTunes. “Artists play an important role on the front lines of social change, often confronting issues in ways that touch people more intimately than political rhetoric. I couldn’t be more excited (and nervous!) to launch this podcast, and to speak with artists across the creative spectrum who display a radical autonomy in their wo by Helga

4 min listen

Julia Bullock: When soprano Julia Bullock took the stage recently to sing the legacy and history of Josephine Baker, the groundbreaking African-American singer and performer who fought in the civil rights movement, she didn’t dress it up. There was no marcelled hair, no banana skirt. Just a woman using her voice to speak truth to power and telling the story of a woman who paved the way. Her star ascending, the Juilliard-trained Bullock and Davis talk about what can and can’t be processed through performance and what it means to find your voice and your place in the world. "One of the best things that my teacher from Juilliard and from Bard taught me is: Start from zero every morning. Don’t wake up and say to yourself, 'Oh right, I had so good yesterday.' Don’t think about the past. Don’t think about where you’re wanting to go later. Just start from zero and deal every day with the body that you’ve got. And that might be the best lesson that I’ve ever been taught by anyone." -Julia Bull by Helga

38 min listen

Alan Gilbert: Alan Gilbert believes that conducting an orchestra is a process of “letting go together.” When the energy between a conductor and an orchestra is right, he says, it’s almost impossible to tell who’s leading who. After eight seasons at the helm of the New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert is ready to step down. In his wake, he leaves a formidable legacy of experimentation that expanded not just what an orchestra can and will do, but who it’s for. Gilbert and Davis sat down in his office to talk about what he means by serving a community, the moments in performance he lives for, and how maybe he could've benefited from throwing tantrums and showing his stress more. “You have to set something motion that is so inevitable that it goes that way and you don’t have to continue to do anything in order for it to go that way, because that is the only possible way it could go. And then you just follow. But what you’re doing is that you’re following something that you created. You’ve s by Helga

35 min listen

Sarah Jones: Playwright and stage actress Sarah Jones dexterously hops from one character to the next. In her one-woman shows, she seamlessly slips into characters of different class, race and gender backgrounds. Her award-winning multi-character performances cover topics such as sex work, post-9/11 America and racism in the healthcare system and illuminate the differences and strengths between one another. Jones and Davis talk self-worth and self-love in a culture that teaches self-alienation. "Hurt people hurt people. But guess what? Free people free people. And if I can find the space within where I am free no matter what, where I can find the Mandela on my own scale. All of a sudden, I am a free radical. In a good way. [...] And by the way, this does not elevate me to sainthood. I am messy. I still get in the car and be cranky if the traffic, etc. But just to see it. Just to have enough space and a pause. Get still. What is so unforgivable about this moment?" -Sarah Jones Subscribe by Helga

68 min listen

Shara Nova: After moving to Detroit from New York and separating from her husband, My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden decided to change her last name to Nova. The frontwoman for the indie-rock band, singer and composer talks to Helga Davis about about her upcoming album and Southern roots, about leaning into vulnerability, and why being uncomfortable is crucial in art-making. She also talks about why it was important for her to escape the art scene and rub shoulders with construction workers, and what it means that her new name translates to "new song." “Vulnerability is I think one thing that I, we, I am so afraid of. We want control or perceived control and I think art-making is like subjecting yourself to this admission that you don’t have control. So I think that many, or maybe all, of my decisions are motivated by challenge, and in a way where I find where my vulnerability is, is the exact place that I need to lean into.” –Shara Nova Subscribe to Helga on iTunes or wherever you g by Helga

42 min listen

Kenneth Lonergan: Director, playwright and screenwriter Kenneth Lonergan is widely known for winning the Oscar for best original screenplay at the 89th Academy Awards for his film Manchester By the Sea, and as a co-writer on Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York. In this episode, host Helga Davis and Lonergan work through their shared upbringing at the Walden School in New York – exploring memories both charged and powerfully formative – while also exploring daily rituals and what it means to fuel one's creativity. "Without cultural appropriation there is no culture. Especially in this country. I know what it means, but I know that it's misapplied when it's taken to that [extreme] degree and it becomes meaningless. You can't name an artist, a writer, or anybody who puts anything out in any kind of creative capacity, who doesn't appropriate left and right from all kinds of cultures and influences." -Kenneth Lonergan Subscribe to Helga on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and follo by Helga

62 min listen

Nick Cave: "When I look outside, when I go to the front door. That is my new canvas. Today. It's not really what happens in the studio. It's what happens outside of the studio." Visual Artist Nick Cave joins Helga Davis to talk about the evolution of his sculptural work, his community collaborations, and how to move from Black sorrow to Black excellence. Nick Cave (b. 1959, Fulton, MO; lives and works in Chicago, IL) is an artist, educator and foremost a messenger, working between the visual and performing arts through a wide range of mediums including sculpture, installation, video, sound and performance. Cave is well known for his Soundsuits, sculptural forms based on the scale of his body, initially created in direct response to the police beating of Rodney King in 1991. Soundsuits camouflage the body, masking and creating a second skin that conceals race, gender and class, forcing the viewer to look without judgment. They serve as a visual embodiment of social justice that repres by Helga

37 min listen

David Kyuman Kim: Teacher, author and speaker, David Kyuman Kim shares the concept of "radical love" in halls and on college campuses across the country as well as on his former podcast, Love-Driven Politics. In 2015, David presented a TEDx Talk on the topic at Connecticut College where he is also a Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies and the Peace and Conflict Coordinator. In this episode, David joins host Helga Davis to discuss the role of community and love in this nation during a critical time in our history. "People are eating a lot of things, but I think those things are eating them alive. Like anger, like enmity, like vitriol, like contempt. You eat those things and they eat you. You consume those things and they consume you. And to go to your neighbors, to as you say make an argument, you're not really making an argument. You're actually inviting them into a different way of life. And that's a powerful thing." -David Kyuman Kim Subscribe to Helga on iTunes or wh by Helga

49 min listen

Krista Tippett: “I know that most of us across all of the divisions and differences we could name, don't want to live this way.” Krista Tippett talks about her life as a mother, daughter, lover and leader and the ways that all of those roles converge in her work as host of the podcast, On Being. Krista Tippett is a Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, a New York Times bestselling author, and a National Humanities Medalist who grew up in a small town in Oklahoma. She attended Brown University and was the 2019 Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor at Stanford University. President Obama awarded Krista the National Humanities Medal at the White House for “thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence.” This past January, On Being Studios launched a new podcast with Pádraig ó Tauma. To find out more about her work, head here. by Helga

56 min listen

Bethann Hardison: “I'm literally saying to myself that I'm proud of me. That I'm proud that I have the determination, that I had the natural drive to want to do something about something. That's a revolutionary.” Activist, entrepreneur, and former model Bethann Hardison recounts moments from her unconventional life. She shares personal stories from the streets of Bed Stuy to the runways of Paris and how she sought to hold the “powers that be” in fashion accountable for their actions. Bethann Hardison is active in the fashion industry and continues to speak out around issues of diversity. by Helga

29 min listen

Hilton Als: Hilton Als is an intellectual omnivore who roots his art and criticism in reality and a search for the truth. A writer, New Yorker theater critic, curator, photographer, director and professor, Als’s work gracefully slips between genres to comment on contemporary American politics, pop culture and the African-American experience and to place the current condition in a longer history. In this tenth and final episode of the first season of Helga, Als and Davis talk about what he learned living next to Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, and how to get comfortable owning your anger and art-making. "Don’t worry. Don’t be good. Be ruthless in making the most beautiful thing you can do." -Hilton Als Subscribe to Helga on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and follow Helga Davis on Facebook. by Helga

48 min listen

Solange by Helga

74 min listen

Helga Season III Trailer: Artist, performer and host Helga Davis brings a soulful curiosity and love of people to the podcast Helga. In Season 3, she continues to draw the listener into her profound and intimate conversations with creative people, famous and lesser known. Musicians, visual artists, writers, and chefs join her to share the steps they’ve taken along their paths. Where they started, where they are and where they’re going next. These inspiring conversations expand our world and our imaginations as we explore what we think we know about each other. Season III kicks off on April 14th with broadcaster and bestselling author Krista Tippett. by Helga

1 min listen

Studio Museum in Harlem's Thelma Golden: Thelma Golden is the director and chief curator of the Studio Museum in Harlem, an appointee to President Obama's Committee for the Preservation of the White House, and the recipient of the 2016 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence. In this conversation, the first of the second season of our Helga podcast, Golden discusses being taught canon revision with her father growing up, her first memories of seeing the world through art, and the rituals she need to get through the day. "I exist perpetually, but also for me, very beautifully, constantly in motion. And I love that and it's how I think of myself and see myself. So in order to be with myself, I need to find some stillness." -Thelma Golden Subscribe to Helga on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and follow Helga Davis on Facebook. by Helga

85 min listen

Elizabeth Alexander: “I studied dance and it turned out that I communicate more with words.” Poet and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation President, Elizabeth Alexander joins Helga to share her thoughts on what it means to live a life alongside words, how we maintain relationships with one another, and what the world looks like after loss. Elizabeth Alexander – poet, educator, memoirist, scholar, and cultural advocate – is president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She has held distinguished professorships at a number of Universities across the country and delivered “Praise Song for the Day” for the inauguration of President Barack Obama in 2009. She is author or co-author of fourteen books, including American Sublime, and The Light of the World. Find out more about her work here. by Helga

37 min listen

Judy Collins: “I think transitional moments in our lives... it's very important to put them together like a string of beads for yourself, so you'll remember and know where they are, if you can.” Musician and activist Judy Collins shares the story of her decades long career in music. Alongside loss and addiction she maintains a clarity of voice, of passion and of vision as a conduit for the music. Award-winning Judy Collins has long inspired audiences with sublime vocals, boldly vulnerable songwriting, personal life triumphs, and a firm commitment to social activism. She is as creatively vigorous as ever, writing, touring worldwide, and nurturing fresh talent and continues to create music of hope and healing that lights up the world and speaks to the heart. Find her music and performance schedule here. by Helga

35 min listen

Stanley Whitney: “I think my work is really who I am. And I think, you know, I grew up with freedom, freedom, freedom. So I paint a lot of freedom.” Visual artist and colorist, Stanley Whitney talks about his life as an artist and as a person. He uncovers what it means to be a black abstract painter, firmly rooted in the United States. Stanley Whitney is a painter based in New York City and Parma, Italy. His work is held in numerous public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, National Gallery of Canada, and the Guggenheim Museum. View Stanley Whitney's work online here. by Helga

30 min listen

Maury Rubin: “I think there's something about being an outsider to New York that helped me create a lot of what the sum of City Bakeries parts were.” Pastry Chef, Maury Rubin, is the owner of well-known New York establishment, City Bakery. He joins us just a few months after it shuttered to talk about his unexpected foray into pastry, how he made a place for himself in New York, and what this next season of life might bring. Maury Rubin is a pastry chef and owner of now closed, City Bakery. He is also the founder of Wonderbon Chocolate Co. by Helga

32 min listen

Art Maven Kimberly Drew: Kimberly Drew, also known online as @museummammy, is a unrelenting, taste-making purveyor of art, fashion and culture. Her work has appeared in Glamour and W magazines, as well as Teen Vogue and The Fader. Across her varied platforms, from social media manager at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to her powerful blog, Black Contemporary Art, to her influencer Instagram account, Drew strives to shape a brighter future through inspiring art and advocacy. She joins host Helga Davis in this episode to discuss the importance of mental health, what it really means to work in the art world, and how drinking water helps her keep the beat. "You're inundated with so much information. But when given the privilege of time, it can be an opportunity for intense, expansive interaction." -Kimberly Drew Subscribe to Helga on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, and follow Helga Davis on Facebook. by Helga

53 min listen

Helga: The Armory Conversations Season 4 Trailer: Artist, performer and host Helga Davis brings a soulful curiosity and love of people to the podcast Helga: The Armory Conversations. This season, in partnership with Park Avenue Armory, she continues to draw the listener into her profound and intimate conversations with creative people, famous and lesser known. Artists, scholars, and cultural change-makers join her to share the steps they’ve taken along their paths. Where they started, where they are and where they’re going next. These inspiring conversations expand our world and our imaginations as we explore what we think we know about each other. by Helga

1 min listen

Ranky Tanky by Helga

37 min listen

Writer Macarena Gómez-Barris on finding beauty in ambiguity: This [term] 'femme' becomes more possible to me as a figure for not just embodiment, but for thought, action, engagement, connection. Macarena Goméz-Barris is Professor and Chair of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University, founder of the Global South Center at Pratt Institute, an organization which supports artists, activists, and scholars in their efforts to decolonialize local and global communities. In this episode, Goméz-Barris talks about how one can and must find beauty in the most ambiguous of places, how she uses the word “femme” to escape the embattled histories of the word “female," and how she has—and hasn’t—moved on from a traumatic early swimming lesson with her father. References: Constantine Petrou Cavafy Waiting for the Barbarians Audre Lorde Uses of the Erotic, The Erotic is Power Saidiya Hartman Octavia E. Butler Parable of the Talents by Helga

53 min listen

Karen Finley: "I love to hear humans just gathering and talking and being and making lots of noise. I like to do that too...just being, and making yourself known and present." Author and performing artist Karen Finley spoke with Helga Davis about the evolution of her early work and what she wants to give her audience now. Karen Finley is an artist, performer, and author. She is an interdisciplinary artist working in performance, text, sound, music, poetics, film and video, installation, public and social practice art. Born in Chicago she received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her raw and transgressive performances have brought debate, censorship and controversy. Finley was the named plaintiff for the Supreme Court case Finley v. NEA that challenged the decency provision in government grants to artists through the National Endowment for the Arts. Her performances and visual art have been presented internationally such as the Barbican in London, Lincoln Center, New York by Helga

29 min listen

Glenn Ligon: Usually the things that are the farthest out — that look the least like art to me — are the things that become the most important. American painter Glenn Ligon is one of the most recognizable figures in the contemporary art scene. His distinctive, political work uses repetition and transformation to abstract the texts of 20th-century writers. In this episode, Ligon talks about childhood and what it means to have a parent who fiercely and playfully supports you. He also discusses the essential lesson that there’s value in the things you do differently, and why he won’t take an afternoon nap in his own studio. References: Courtney Bryan Pamela Z Samiya Bashir Thelma Golden Robert O’Meally Romare Beardon Toni Morrison Lorna Simpson Margaret Naumberg The Walden School Mike D - Beastie Boys Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner Davóne Tines Chris Ofili Henry Threadgill Frédéric Bruly Bouabré “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” Saidiya Hartman Fred Moten Jason Moran by Helga

65 min listen

Esperanza Spalding: “It's not fantasy. It's imagining...What does it look like to live with a community of people I get along with and don't necessarily get along with.” Musician, teacher, community member, and caster of musical spells, Esperanza Spalding, joins Helga mere weeks before her most recent Grammy win to talk about sustainability, what it means to be a part of a community and how to find the “the yum” in things. Esperanza Spalding is a bassist, vocalist and composer who, “like most organisms growing in response to their environment… is emerging into something else she does not yet understand…” She is also the 62nd Grammy Award Winner for Best Jazz Vocal for her 2019 album “12 Little Spells” which is out now. by Helga

58 min listen

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Painter Glenn Ligon on the value of difference

Painter Glenn Ligon on the value of difference

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