"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.

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