Cut and Paste

The chorus specializes in music by African-Americans, from 19th century spirituals arranged for 120-voice chorus, to contemporary gospel and pieces by black composers. The melding of black-American and European classical styles is heard vividly in the path-breaking “Gospel Mass” by IN UNISON’s founding director, Robert Ray. We hear from chorus members Gwendolyn Wesley and Brittany Graham, and Ray reveals the origins of his opus. Its different flavors are heard in excerpts from performances by Morgan State University Choir with orchestra, Angeles Chorale, Chorus of the Medical School of Białystok(Poland) and a rehearsal of the mass by IN UNISON Chorus.

Syrhea Conoway isn’t a DJ, and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis isn’t a dance club. Yet Conoway — in the guise guide of her solo project, Syna So Pro — is CAM’s new DJ-in-residence. She’ll fill monthly, two-hour sets with instrumental pieces she’s writing in response to the art on display at the museum, beginning with Christine Corday’s cosmic-minded sculpture collection “Relative Points.”

Winner of the National Book Award for poetry, Justin Phillip Reed discusses navigating his identity as a queer black man in America. Topics include the challenges of literary recognition, erasure in urban spaces, and the struggles of artists in a capitalist society.

We talk with Dino Taca and Adrian Gough, who ran the Upstairs Lounge in its final months, after a run that began in 1991. The Upstairs was home to various forms of underground electronic music. 

Rising-star conductor Gemma New talks about her approach to working with an orchestra, and the increased demand for conductors to be the public face of their organizations. We also hear an excerpt from St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's rehearsal of Elgar's "Enigma Variations." 

While shooting his documentary on an encampment of homeless people living near the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Paul Crane set up his own tent and moved in.