Bonus Episode – Celebrating Juneteenth with Dr. Nnenna Ogwo

Hi everyone, this is Yukimi Song with Yukimi Song with the Piano Pod with Yukimi Song. In this special bonus episode, I am honored to welcome back Dr. Nana Ogubo, the brilliant pianist, educator, and founder of Juneteenth LP. Juneteenth LP is more than a concert series; it's a movement that reclaims space for Black classical musicians by centering history, celebrating legacy, and creating a future rooted in liberation and joy. As the organization marks its 10th anniversary this year, Nena reflects on the journey from its beginnings at Joe's Pub to becoming a powerful platform for education, performance, and community. We talk about what inspired her to launch Juneteenth LP, what audiences can expect from this year's milestone concert, and why honoring Black voices in classical music is essential, not just in June but all year round. So let's dive in.

Jenna, thank you so much for being here. And first of all, I want to express my heartfelt appreciation to you and your organization, Juneteenth LP, for sponsoring the final episodes of The Piano Pod, uh, Season 5. It truly feels like the perfect way to wrap up this season dedicated to authenticity and joy with your support and vision.

Thank you for having us, and it's our honor and our pleasure to sponsor the last 2 episodes of what has been a stellar, stellar season. We have been enthralled by the guests. They have been absolutely spectacular.

Oh yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate your really support. Now we're featuring 2 remarkable guests this, the last month, and Dr. Leah Clayborne on June 3rd, and our season finale would be with Dr. Maria Thompson Corley. Both conversations were deeply inspiring. And it's all thanks to you, Nena, for bringing us together.

You give me too much credit, but they are wonderful people. And it— I, we were very fortunate to have that all come together in the way that it did. And I'm so glad that you got to— I'm glad that you personally got to meet them. But also, I'm glad that the larger community is going to get to meet them and know them as the people that they are, but the musicians that they are and the educators that they are.

All together. Oh, incredible people. And I'm just feeling so fortunate. So now, for those who may be new to Dr. Ogbuonenna's work, if you haven't heard our full conversation with her from last season, Season 4, Episode 4, where I got to invite and interview Nena as—

was it Season 4? Was it Season 3?

Season 4. The only last season. I know.

I feel like it. Oh my gosh, you're right.

Yeah, yeah. But the thing is, it was toward the early season 4, so it feels like really long time ago.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I encourage you, my friends who are listening, tuning in today, to go back and listen to her episode. You can find the episode link in the description. Today I just wanted to take a few minutes to highlight Juneteenth LP, Dr. Oguo's amazing, amazing organization, The Ensemble, and then her passion project that grew out her first Juneteenth concert celebration 10 years ago at Joe's Pub, a cornerstone of New York's creative music scene. So let's start with the basics, Lena. For anyone just discovering the Juneteenth LP, what does that organization do and how does it carry out its mission?

Well, this ensemble was born out of this concert that I gave In 2016, I was invited to be a part of Toshi Reagan's Good Folks series at Joe's Pub. And it was originally supposed to be the preceding year, but my mother passed away in that year in the spring. And so of course I didn't do it that year. And it was, it was a very hard thing because I wanted to do a Juneteenth show. And so the following year, my mother and I were very close, so that hit me very, very hard. And, you know, Toshi's a really sort of intuitive and compassionate person. And so I was talking to her about it, and she just sort of said in a very kind way, "Do you want to share the show?" You know, sort of not have to carry the whole thing yourself. And I kind of just said, "Yeah, you know, yeah." And so I shared the set with Juliet Jones, a fabulous violinist arranger. And at the time she lived in New York. Now I think she's based in LA. And so we put on this show and it was an amazing experience. And what was significant about it, aside from it being great and great fun was that in Juliet's set there was a cellist performing named Eric Cooper. And the following year I came back and I shared the show with Tarek El-Sabir, fabulous singer-composer. And so I asked Eric if he would be on my set that year. And he agreed. He was really into it. And so, and so he was on my set that second season, that second year. And we had a great time again. And he said to me, I think that what you're doing is really special. And I just want you to know that whatever you decide to do, I want to support you. And, you know, he's younger. Than I am. And I don't know about how old you are, but, you know, my generation did not actually work collaboratively, collaboratively, right. And we definitely were raised to sort of hoard our resources and not share opportunities. And, you know, if you found out about something, you didn't tell other people about it, you just sort of kept it to yourself and you, you know, sort of a scarcity mindset. And his generation is a little bit different. And they're very much like, we support our friends and we see someone doing something really good and we support them. And we, you know, we sort of like put our backs to the task together and collaborate. And so I didn't really respond to him saying that right away. Right? And he had to say it to me a few times for me to say, "Oh, okay." You know, like, I really couldn't respond to that. And so then when I finally— and we had worked with a singer, we brought in a singer, and she said the same thing. And so then I find— so then all of a sudden, I had a little bit of a team. And we were like, oh, I think we're doing this. And so the next season, we were basically an ensemble that, you know, so the third season was when Juneteenth LP was basically an ensemble that presented that concert. And we weren't official that year. You know, we weren't official until 2021, but that was basically the year that we were, we came together in this sense of, We present Black music, and we present Black music with this focus on introducing the audience to Black classical composers, and then also playing all kinds of genres so that the space is welcoming to anybody who happens to come in, and they aren't intimidated by a classical space, like, I don't know what this music is, and I feel intimidated, and I don't know when to clap, none of that. So if you feel moved to clap, that's fine. That's fine. If you don't know when to clap and you clap at the wrong place, that's fine. And we acknowledge that, you know, if you're moved and you clap in the middle of, you know, in between a movement, and that's not the right place, the right time and place to clap, you know, we acknowledge that and we express appreciation and we put people at ease. You know, that whole, the classical elitism is something that we try to dispel and we try to make Black and brown people feel as welcome as possible. And so our mission is to grow the classical music audience by meeting people where they are. So if you did not grow up hearing classical music, you can come to one of our concerts and hear music by Stevie Wonder and hear music by Lizzo and hear music by musicians that you're probably hearing on Spotify or whoever's, you know, on your— playlist rotation, as well as music that your grandmother's listening to or music that I might be listening to. But then we're also going to introduce you to music by Burleigh, and we're going to introduce you to music by Courtney Bryan, and we're going to introduce you to music by Nkiru Okoye, and you're going to start to hear a through line of like what Black classical composers are writing and their influences that are very much the same as, you know, your influences and what you're listening to. And we're trying to put everything into a historical context so that you understand that all of this music actually belongs to you. And that there's none of the— you know, that classical music has always been popular music. And just because we rarefied it and put it in spaces that feel intimidating to you, that we don't believe that that actually is real. We think that that's a construct. And so that's the mission of Juneteenth LP, to play music of all of the African diaspora regardless of genre. And in doing so, grow the classical music audience. Because the fact of the music— the fact of the matter is that classical music's audience is shrinking, and if we don't do something radically different, we're gonna— we're going to sort of, you know, elite ourselves out of jobs and an existence, and it doesn't have to be that way at all.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's true. And what's great about is those music that you're going to play, but performed by mainly classical musicians.

Classical musicians. Exactly.

Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, I attended last year. It was fantastic. I attended the one that you hosted. You were hosted by Metropolitan Museum last year. You were presenting the, yeah, the composition by Samuel Coleridge Taylor, right? And then also a few days later, of course, I attended the June 19th last year, the Juneteenth concert at Joe's Pub and with your group. So basically, how do you carry out this mission? So you have several different events in a week of Juneteenth, am I right?

Yes, a week, sometimes two weeks, depending on, you know, when we can get things scheduled. But The events range in scope. So for example, last year, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to present a Met Expert Talk. And what I did was I selected an instrument to focus on, and I got to play a beautiful period piano, an Arcades piano. Gorgeous. And what was amazing about it was that it was a piano. It was a French piano from 1904, I want to say, '04, '05.

Yeah, something like that. I remember. Yes.

'05, '06. My memory's not so great on that. But the point is, is that it was a French piano, but they had a factory in London. So it's actually entirely possible that piano could have existed in, you know, that was a possible intersection point of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's life. Like, he could have actually— not that he could have played that piano or owned that piano, but it's entirely possible that he could have played, you know, one of those pianos. Right, because, you know, those pianos were being sold and made in London, you know, and that's where he lived. And he was writing these pieces, these Opus 59, 24 Negro Melodies around that time. And so it was a wonderful opportunity to be able to— I cannot believe that I cannot remember the name of this French piano. It's this medication.

It starts with E?

Yes.

Erard?

Erard! Oh my gosh! I could not believe I could not remember it. Thank you so much. So this Erard piano. Anyway, and it's a beautiful art case piano with a swan on it. It was absolutely stunning. But what was amazing was to be able to present about Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's music, this particular collection of pieces. I played a couple of them. And to talk about him, the composer, and his sort of his musical inquiries about his life and his history, you know, his African father and his explorations into his personal and cultural identity as he wrote these pieces. So it's his cultural history, and to be talking about it in the context of Juneteenth and our cultural history in this nation and to be playing it in the Met in this sort of, you know, institution that houses, you know, cultural history on this historical instrument. And it was a really rare moment, right, to be able to give that lecture on that instrument in that space at that time, you know, for Juneteenth week. So that was sort of special. But this, this year we're doing Date Night at the Met, right? And normally, you know, Date Night at the Met, that's a gig. But what's really special about this date, these two date nights at the Met, is that the Met has been working to sort of reimagine its Africa wing, and so it's doing a renovation and there's going to be a special exhibit. And if you're someone who pays attention to, um, the Met Gala, you know, there's this exhibit, you know, Superfine about Black dandyism. And so that was the theme of the Met Gala.

It was great.

And so, right, fantastic, right? And so, um, June 13th is going to feature Sterling Strings, and they're going to do a lot of Afro-pop, which is going to sort of lean in, um, to the, the African wing and Afro-pop and Afro-beats. So that's going to be the music that they're going to be playing on Friday the 13th. And on Saturday the 14th, violinist Edward Hardy and I are going to be playing a show that leans into Black dandyism. And so we're going to be playing some beautiful— we're going to be playing Summertime and, you know, some Jazz and It Don't Mean a Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing. We're going to be playing a little bit of Edith Piaf, and we're going to be playing a little bit, you know, just really wonderful things that sort of lean into that sort of suave, elegant, joie de vivre, you know, that kind of programming. And so it's going to be a lot of fun to explore this idea of elegance and flair and style, but sort of explored in a sonic framework.

Yeah, and then you also have some other events as well in Harlem also, didn't you? We do.

No, well, not quite in Harlem. I guess it's Morningside, the Interchurch Center. We're going to be giving a concert, cello and piano music, music by Shostakovich, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Evan Williams. And it's going to be this interplay of composers, how they treat melodic material, right? So it's the Shostakovich Cello Sonata, Evan Williams' Cantigas for cello piano, and then Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, we're going to revisit the Negro Melodies. And that's a noonday concert. And so that's, I think, 108th and Claremont. I'm not quite sure the exact address, but we're really excited to do that. The Noonday Concerts at Interchurch are a longstanding tradition, and we're so happy to be a part of it and be a part of their Juneteenth programming there. And then our Portrait of the Artist series that we've just started, we love this thing that we've created where we take an artist that's established and we invite them to come and perform something that they really love, that they're emotionally attached to, that they've performed for a long time, and talk to them about how playing a piece for a long time and the ways in which they've changed as an artist, and they've noticed that they've changed as an artist, and how that's reflected in their interpretations over time. So this fabulous soprano Indira Mahajan is going to come and She's going to do two songs that focus on the headiness of summer. One is Gershwin's "Summertime," and the other is Valerie Capers' "Summer" from "Songs of the Seasons." And the— it's not about so much a heavy lift in terms of performing. It's going to be about the performance, but then the discussion that we have afterward about their life in music, but also this process of interpretation and how it changes over time. And so it's like looking through a kaleidoscope and you see it shift and change and shift and change and shift and change. And it's something that we really wanted the audience to get to experience, getting to know the artist in a very specific way as reflected through, you know, beloved pieces of music. So I'll be interviewing her, but then the audience gets to ask questions.

Oh, wonderful. So basically, Juneteenth LP events start nearly 2 weeks earlier, and then just 2 weeks full of events that showcase Black artists and composers and then compositions, and just to that geared toward up to the point of June 19th, where the iconic concert happens. Every year at 6:30.

That's just time. Yeah, it's now.

Yes, get your tickets now.

You can get your tickets at publictheatre.org, or you can find a link in the show notes.

So thank you, Nana, for sharing your vision and for all the incredible work you do. You are such an inspirational person, and to really center Black voices in classical music, it's so So important. The inclusion is so important. You have no idea what incredible work you're doing.

So you are very, very kind, and thank you for encouraging the work that we do. I do want to say that while the performance element is definitely important, we are— it has been a, as you know, you know, establishing anything is a steep learning curve, right? If you've never done it before. And We are, we sort of finally have gotten our footing and we are now sort of moving into the educational component where we're creating educational modules that we are designing to be able to be used for early grades from like kindergarten up through high school and into college because we do feel like You know, I had this interesting conversation with a clarinetist who said, you know, she said, I wish I knew, I wish school was taught differently. You know, if you had been taught in chemistry about the ways in which chemical compounds applied to, like, for example, like the lacquer that, that is used on your instrument, and like how the discovery of certain compounds changed like, you know, lacquers and on, you know, clarinets or whatever, you know, like you would have been much more engaged, for example, in chemistry, or you would have been much more engaged in science if you had understood how like science is used in everything, in every way in which we engage in our world. And it takes, like, it's a heavy lift. It's a lot to ask, you know, overworked public school teachers to find all the ways in which to engage in, like, a class with 40 students who probably have different interests. But I think that there might be a way in which different organizations might be able to find ways in which to engage students who have different interests. You know, like, isn't this fascinating? This is what Black composers were doing at this particular time in history, and maybe it's not talked about in your class, but we can bring this— we can bring these educational modules in that might make history more interesting, or that might make science more interesting, or that might make whatever more interesting. And that's something that we can do to facilitate making school more fascinating for children without having to overburden the teachers who are in the classroom every day just trying to, you know, wrangle 25 to 45 students, you know, in an overburdened classroom situation. So we're trying to figure out ways in which we can, you know, create modules that are interesting and dynamic and engaging. So that's our next step.

Great. There's so many opportunities waiting for you. Yeah, with your organization. So friends, Do not miss Juneteenth LP's 10th anniversary celebration in New York City, kicking off on June 8th with Portrait of an Artist featuring soprano Indira Mahajan, right?

Mahajan.

Mahajan. And wrapping up with the iconic Juneteenth LP concert at Joe's Pub on June 19th at 6:30 PM featuring the full Juneteenth LP ensemble. Get your tickets now at joseph.org, and for the full lineup of events, visit juneteenthlp.org. Thank you, Nana.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.