Alma Deutscher's First Dance - The celebrated young composer collaborates with the American Contemporary Ballet

The Unspeakable Podcast

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.8 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Alma Deutscher, often described as a modern-day Mozart, was a prodigy whose early accomplishments include composing a piano sonata at age six, a short opera at seven, a violin concerto at nine, and her first full-length opera at ten. At twelve, she was profiled on 60 Minutes, and in 2021 began conducting studies in Vienna with Johannes Wildner.

Now 20, Alma has just written her first ballet score—a collaboration with Lincoln Jones, founder and director of American Contemporary Ballet (ACB) in Los Angeles.

Lincoln joined me on the podcast just over two years ago, offering unique insights into the complexities of running a dance company and the profound art of dance itself.

In this episode, Lincoln and Alma discuss their new ballet, The Euterpides, inspired by Euterpe, the ancient Greek Muse of Music. This piece follows the Muse’s goddess daughters as they descend to dance with a mortal, exploring the age-old connection between inspiration and craft.

We recorded this conversation on Memorial Day to get it out ahead of the ballet’s world premiere, which runs June 5–28 in Los Angeles. If you’re local (or can make the trip!), you’ll also hear about an audience support campaign, offering a rare chance for the public to get involved in bringing this ballet to life.

GUEST BIO

Alma Deutscher has composed a number of acclaimed orchestral works, including a full-length opera, by the age of 10. Her music has been performed at Carnegie Hall and the Vienna State Opera. She’s earned the admiration of classical music luminaries like Zubin Mehta, who called her “one of the greatest musical talents of today.”

Lincoln Jones is the founder, director, and principal choreographer of the American Contemporary Ballet in Los Angeles. Their collaboration, The Euterpides, premieres on June 5.

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HOUSEKEEPING

📖 Order my new book, The Catastrophe Hour: Selected Essays, on Amazon or directly from the publisher here.

📘 The Catastrophe Hour book club for yearly paying subscribers starts June 11 and will run for 14 consecutive Wednesdays, 3-4 pm ET. We will meet on Zoom.

📹 The Unspeakeasy Live livestream takes place every Thursday at 3:00 p.m. ET. Look for a notification on your Substack app when we’re live.

Stuff to read and listen to:

New York Times, Jan 31, 2025: The L.A. Fires Taught Me To Accept Help

Recent(ish) solo episodes :

📺 Visit The Unspeakable on YouTube.

✈️ The Unspeakeasy’s 2025 retreat season is underway. It includes a just-announced COED retreat with more attendees and multiple speakers. October 11-12 in New York City. Programming and ticketing info here.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi there. This is just a quick note to tell you about an incredibly exciting event that's coming up this October 11th and 12th in New York City. It's an unspeak-easy retreat on steroids. It is not only co-ed, since you guys have been asking for it. It is going to be bigger than our usual retreats with more speakers and more participants.
0:23.3	The lineup of speakers is still in the works. We're still adding more. But at the moment,
0:27.8	it includes, are you ready? So many friends of the podcast, John McWhorter, Carol Hoeven,
0:34.6	Mike Pesca, Peter Moskos, Alana Newhouse, Andrew Hartz, Ben Appel, and Lisa Sullen Davis,
0:41.7	just to name a few. The way it's going to work is that the speakers will do panels or be interviewed,
0:48.3	sometimes by me, sometimes by others, and pretty quickly those panels will open up to include the attendees and it will turn into a
0:57.0	larger discussion, not just an audience Q&A, but a real conversation where you can interact with
1:03.0	your intellectual heroes. Again, this is happening October 11th and 12th in New York City. It'll go
1:09.5	from about 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. Lunch is included.
1:14.6	As with all unspeak easy retreats, it is off the record. No social media. We're going to sit down.
1:20.5	We're going to concentrate. We're going to spend an amazing two days together. Spaces are limited.
1:25.5	So go to the unspeak easy.com slash retreats to find out how to sign up.
1:32.3	Hope to see you there.
1:34.2	When I was a child and I saw an opera on stage, for example, I really believed that it was real.
1:41.0	I really believed that those were the characters and when I saw Magic Flute for the first time
1:46.7	and then I would re-watch it every day I became obsessed with it and I really believed that
1:53.9	Papagena was going to hang himself.
1:56.0	So I would run and hide in the cupboard so every time that that music came, and even now, I conducted magic
2:04.3	fruit last year. And even now, whenever I hear that music, without even, without even
2:09.7	realizing it, I shudder just inwardly because I remember that childhood trauma.
2:20.6	Welcome to the Unspeakable Podcast.
2:22.7	I'm your host, Megan Down.
	...

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