55 Taylor Street, San Francisco, CA, 94102/ E4TT.org/ (510) 684-0505

Media Contacts:
Nanette McGuinness/ nanette@E4TT.org
Laura Huey/ laura@E4TT.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 4, 2024

Ensemble for These Times

Is Proud to Launch
the Second Season of

“For Good Measure”

A Podcast with BIPOC, Women, and LGBTQIA Creative Artists

New Episodes Every Monday, Starting June 10, 2024

San Francisco, CA — San Francisco contemporary music chamber group Ensemble for These Times (E4TT) is proud to announce the start of the second season of its podcast, “For Good Measure,” an interview series celebrating diverse composers and other creative artists from underrepresented communities, with a special focus on women composers. Episodes will be released weekly on all podcast platforms including Apple and Spotify, among many others. Each podcast episode also includes a transcript to increase accessibility and is available at no cost to listeners.

“For Good Measure” is produced and hosted by soprano and E4TT Artistic Executive Director Nanette McGuinness, co-produced and engineered by composer Stephanie Neumann, and designed by composer and E4TT Assistant Director Brennan Stokes. E4TT celebrated the release of the 100th episode of the podcast on April 29, 2024.

Why Focus on BIPOC and Women Artists?

The marginalization of diverse creators, especially BIPOC women, is an inequity that prevails throughout our society. Women composers are in particular need of advocacy, as their work is seriously underrepresented in mainstream classical concerts, as repeatedly shown by programming statistics. Moreover, structural racism continues to plague the classical music field: access and advancement opportunities for BIPOC composers are much fewer than for white composers, and, while women artists in other creative fields—even the performing arts—have witnessed impressive advances, women composers continue to struggle to gain a foothold in classical concert halls. Further, when BIPOC and women artists do have their music performed, it is most often relegated to "their" months or time periods: Black History (February), Women's History (March), and/or Latinx/Hispanic Heritage (Sept. 15-Oct. 15), rather than integrated into regular season programming.

“For Good Measure”: SEASON TWO

The second season of “For Good Measure” will run from June 10, 2024 through Dec. 31, 2024, with new episodes released every Monday. The season will feature interviews with six California BIPOC women and LGBTQIA composers: Nina Shekar (b. 1995), Carla Lucero (b. 1964), Zanaida Robles, Hitomi Oba, Ursula Kwong-Brown (b.1987), and Rajna Swaminathan (b.1991).

The History of “For Good Measure”

Following the 2020 success of curated interviews with composer Elinor Armer, visual artist Corinne Whitaker, and soprano Chelsea Hollow, E4TT expanded its “#Meet the Artist” interview series in 2021 with month-long spotlights on individual BIPOC composers and musicians. The series began in January 2021 with composer/performer Pamela Z (b. 1956), continued in February with composer/educator Jonathan Bailey Holland (b. 1974), March with Anthony R. Green (b. 1984), April with inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993), May with Sakari Dixon Vanderveer, June with Gabriela Lena Frank (b. 1978), July with Shannon Sea (Sea Novaa), August with Marcus Norris (b. 1991), September with Brice Smith, October with Nicolas Lell Benavides (b. 1987), November with Angélica Negrón (b. 1981) and December with Darian Donovan Thomas (b.1993), continuing in 2022 with Dawn Norfleet, Juhi Bansal (b. 1984), Vivian Fung (b. 1975), Valerie Liu, Erika Oba, and Monica Chew (b.1977).

ABOUT ENSEMBLE FOR THESE TIMES

Winner of The American Prize in 2021 for Chamber Music Performance, ENSEMBLE FOR THESE TIMES (E4TT) consists of award-winning soprano/ Artistic Executive Director Nanette McGuinness, cellist Abigail Monroe, pianist Margaret Halbig, and co-founder/ Senior Artistic Advisor composer David Garner. E4TT made its international debut in Berlin in 2012; was sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Budapest for a four-city tour of Hungary in 2014; and performed at the Krakow Culture Festival in 2016 and 2022, and at the Conservatorio Teresa Berganza in Madrid in 2017. E4TT has performed locally at the German Consulate General, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Old First Concerts, JCC Peninsula, Trinity Chamber Concerts, and Noontime Concerts, among other venues. E4TT has released four albums, all of which have medaled in the Global Music Awards: “The Guernica Project” (2022), commemorating the 85th anniversary of the horrific carpet bombing of civilians and Picasso’s masterwork in response; “Once/Memory/Night: Paul Celan” (2020), honoring the centennial of the seminal 20th century poet; “The Hungarians: From Rózsa to Justus” (2018), with works by Hungarian émigré Miklós Rózsa, and three of his compatriots who perished in the Holocaust; and “Surviving: Women’s Words,” (2016), new music to poetry by women Holocaust survivors. E4TT’s fifth recording, “Emigres & Exiles in Hollywood” will be released on the Centaur label on July 12, 2024.

“For Good Measure” is available at https://forgoodmeasure.buzzsprout.com and on all major podcast platforms. For more information about E4TT’s 2021/22 Bay Area Home Season, please visit our website. High resolution jpgs are available for download at http://www.e4tt.org/presskit.html.

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