The Piano Pod - a global hub for innovation, education, and connection in classical piano music
Jun 2, 2026 · 1 hr 42 min · 19 segments
What does it mean to become a "Sound Liberator"? In this episode of The Piano Pod, pianist, composer, educator, filmmaker, scholar, and advocate…
Joe WilliamsGuest
Yukimi SongHost
Anyways, going back to our conversation, so Dr. Nnenna Ogwu, so who is the founder of the Juneteenth LP, she was, like, encouraging me to reach out to you multiple times, and especially because of the work you're doing to help reshape this classical music landscape through your performance, curation, and composition.
So, and you move across so many spaces as a composer, pianist, and what you call a sound liberator? Wow.
Well, I'm fortunate enough to wear many hats, and I was thinking about a term that could be inclusive of all, all the modalities and disciplines that I wanna take up space in and, you know.
And I think about calling myself a composer, that sounds so pretentious, you know.
I'm trying to get away from the ego, right? So pianist, you know, I can't really play that well, so I don't really like calling myself pianist, right? And, you know, I just thought, "Okay, what's the core, the core thing that I'm doing in everything, curation, scholarship, performance?" And I was thinking to myself, "You know, my kuleana or my responsibility is really to free people through my art," right? And I think a lot of musicians hold similar philosophies, but I really wanted to just anchor myself in ancestral truth and responsibility.
That exac- that's exactly what you're doing through music and teaching and curation.
So, so if you had to define your artistic identity, I mean, maybe you already explained, but, uh, your passion and mission in, uh, in a few sentences, what would you say?
Anyways, going back to our conversation, so Dr. Nnenna Ogwu, so who is the founder of the Juneteenth LP, she was, like, encouraging me to reach out to you multiple times, and especially because of the work you're doing to help reshape this classical music landscape through your performance, curation, and composition.
So, and you move across so many spaces as a composer, pianist, and what you call a sound liberator? Wow.
Well, I'm fortunate enough to wear many hats, and I was thinking about a term that could be inclusive of all, all the modalities and disciplines that I wanna take up space in and, you know.
And I think about calling myself a composer, that sounds so pretentious, you know.
I'm trying to get away from the ego, right? So pianist, you know, I can't really play that well, so I don't really like calling myself pianist, right? And, you know, I just thought, "Okay, what's the core, the core thing that I'm doing in everything, curation, scholarship, performance?" And I was thinking to myself, "You know, my kuleana or my responsibility is really to free people through my art," right? And I think a lot of musicians hold similar philosophies, but I really wanted to just anchor myself in ancestral truth and responsibility.
That exac- that's exactly what you're doing through music and teaching and curation.
So, so if you had to define your artistic identity, I mean, maybe you already explained, but, uh, your passion and mission in, uh, in a few sentences, what would you say?
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