"One way for me to work through things like gun violence and civil rights issues, things I really struggle with, is to set it to music and build a community around it. I found that this really speaks to singers, which is healing and affirming for me. What's more therapeutic when you're struggling than having a community around you? We build that for each other. I can't write the music and just stop there. It has to be performed. I need a choir around me. I need a community around me.”

Michael Bussewitz-Quarm is an award-winning composer and conductor based in New York whose choral music frequently engages questions of identity, social justice, violence, belonging, and human connection. Her works have been commissioned and performed across the United States and internationally, including at Carnegie Hall, the Kimmel Center, Orchestra Hall, Lincoln Center, DAR Constitution Hall, and the ISCM World New Music Days. Her large-scale choral-orchestral work US, commissioned for Sing Democracy 250, is scheduled for national broadcast and streaming on PBS in September 2026. In 2021, Bussewitz-Quarm won The American Prize in Composition in the Professional Choral Division, and Where We Find Ourselves received support from New Music USA’s Creator Development Fund. Her current major project, This Borrowed Earth: The Rising Forest, is a new choral-orchestral work exploring climate change and humanity’s relationship with the living world. Her music is published by Peermusic Classical, Hal Leonard, and Listen Afresh Publishing.

To get in touch with Michael, you can find her on Facebook (@mbussewitzquarm) or Instagram (@mbuqu) or visit her website, listenafresh.com.

Email choirfampodcast@gmail.com to contact our hosts.

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Photo in episode artwork by Trace Hudson

"Working with the MTC Women’s Prison Glee Club was life-changing, taking women who had never been in a choir, teaching them about head voice, consonants, vowels, and diction and all the musical things that we talk about all the time in choir. We went down to the very basics and that was remarkable for us as conductors to see you have the ability to teach anybody if you learn how to sequence and understand where people are and how you can take them to the next level."

Dr. Brandon A. Boyd is the Director of Choral Activities, Graduate Choral Conducting Program Director, and Associate Professor of Music at the University of Missouri, where he conducts MU University Singers, Sankofa Chorale, and Choral Union Symphonic Chorus. In addition to his conducting duties at the university, he teaches graduate courses in choral conducting, choral literature, and choral arranging.

As a proponent of choral singing to build community, his research interests include organizing choirs for the homeless, identifying the social and physical effects of choral singing on senior citizens, creating authentic field experiences for music therapy and choral music education students. For three years, Dr. Boyd co-directed three choral community partnerships in Florida: The Tallahassee Senior Choir, RAA Middle School Partnership Choir (university students and middle school singers), and the MTC Women's Prison Glee Club (university students singing with women housed in a correctional facility).

As an active composer and arranger, his music is sung regularly by ensembles throughout the United States and abroad. Dr. Boyd served as Santa Fe Desert Chorale’s Composer-in-Residence and Community Engagement Leader for their program Giving Voice to the Voiceless. As a global collaborator in the orchestral world, Dr. Boyd has served as chorus master, assistant conductor, and guest pianist with the London Symphony in London, England. He has made multiple performances at Carnegie Hall in the capacity of guest conductor, composer, and collaborative pianist.

He holds two degrees from Florida State University (Ph.D. in choral music education and M.M. in choral conducting) and earned a B.S. in music education (emphasis in piano) from Tennessee State University.

To get in touch with Brandon, you can find him on Instagram (@baboydmusic) or email him at boydba@missouri.edu.

Email choirfampodcast@gmail.com to contact our hosts.

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Photo in episode artwork by Trace Hudson

“Transitions are key to all of the rehearsals that I run. We lose a lot of very valuable rehearsal time when we switch from one task to the next, whether they’re taking their music out or they start talking to a neighbor. Every time we switch tasks, there’s a ‘switch cost,’ which is the time it takes for our brain to transition from one experience to the next experience. I’ve developed transition strategies that help minimize that time. The goal of a transition is to continue the music making through that changing experience.”

Morgan Luttig is a dynamic choral conductor, music educator, and clinician known for her philosophy of "make serious music unseriously." She currently serves as Director of Choral Activities at the University of Alabama where she conducts University Singers, Treble Chorus, and Druid City Chorus while overseeing undergraduate and graduate conducting programs. Her innovative approach to teaching and rehearsing has been recognized through national and state performance invitations, award nominations, grant acceptances, and fellowships. During her tenure, the University of Alabama choral program has nearly tripled in enrollment.

To get in touch with Morgan, you can find her on Facebook (@morgan.luttig) or Instagram (@m.luttig) or email her at mluttig@ua.edu.

Email choirfampodcast@gmail.com to contact our hosts.

Podcast music from Podcast.co
Photo in episode artwork by Trace Hudson