MA Top 30 Professional: Loki Karuna

Executive Producer and Host, Trilloquy
President, TrillWerks Media
Director of Artist Equity, American Composers Orchestra

Radio host. Equity advocate. Woodwind player. “Classical agitator” (Minnesota Star-Tribune). By whatever title or sobriquet, Loki Karuna—the broadcaster previously known as Garrett McQueen—would be equally dynamic. In 2016, Karuna left his career as a professional bassoonist for broadcast media. He co-founded the popular podcast Trilloquy with fellow radio host Scott Blankenship, which continues to present figures from every nook and cranny of classical music. As of this writing, recent episodes have featured composer George Lewis, pianist Lara Downes, and musicologist Tammy Kernodle.

Karuna’s radio work eventually led to a job at Minnesota Public Radio, and a move to Minneapolis. Then, George Floyd was murdered.

“The first night of the uprisings, I was expecting the radio station to go into automation or something, because the city was literally burning. The decision was made for that not to happen,” Karuna recalls. “So, I used that national platform to give a perspective on what was going on—programming certain composers that would help me really engage this event.” 

A few months later, MPR terminated Karuna—its only Black classical host—in a controversial decision that made headlines. (The station’s stated reasoning was that Karuna had made “unauthorized changes to playlists” that threatened its “compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act;” Karuna said he made those changes to better suit the sociopolitical moment.) But Karuna more than landed on his feet. He became the American Composers Orchestra’s director of artist equity, creating all-too-rare pathways for emerging composers of color to get their orchestral works heard. He continues to produce radio programs for classical stations across the country.

Amid a tumultuous, traumatic few years, Karuna credits Nichiren Buddhism with keeping him centered. The practice even inspired his new name: “Loki” is short for “Avalokiteshvara,” which translates to
“perceiver of the world’s sounds,” and “Karuna” means “compassion” in Sanskrit.

“I not only attach that to my Buddhist practice, but also to larger narratives surrounding liberation.... I’m very proud to no longer, at least legally, be connected to a name that I associate with slavery, with Jim Crow, with coming from a plantation,” Karuna says.