Hello and I'm the Sticky-notes, the classical music podcast. My name is Joshua Wilerstein, I'm a conductor, and I'm the artistic director of the

Lozan Chamber Orchestra in Lausanne, Switzerland. This podcast is for anyone who loves

classical music, works in the field, or is just getting ready to dive in to this amazing world of incredible music.

Before we get started I want to thank my new Patreon sponsors Mark, John, Heather, Rob, Zapata,

Foyvos, Andrew, Margaret, and all of my other Patreon sponsors for making season six possible.

If you'd like to support the show, please head over to Patreon.com slash Sticky Notes Podcast.

And if you are a fan of the show, please just take a moment to give us a

rating your review on Apple Podcasts. Every rating your review helps more people find

the show and it is greatly appreciated. Now I've gotten a lot of

messages over the past couple of months that this show has been a great escape from the news and honestly I'm really happy about that

It's been an escape for me as well to write to record and to share the show with you, and I'm so grateful to everyone

who has kept listening throughout the pandemic. And today's show is just the same, with a conversation

with Stephen Huff about his childhood, finding joy during the pandemic. conversation with

somewhat of a conversation, a conversation, and much more.

But I just feel as someone with somewhat of a platform,

that it would be an abdication of that platform

to not mention something that's been on my mind quite a bit over the past two weeks.

In the arts world, the intensity of the global protests and the national mood over the murder of George Floyd and the systemic racism

that people of color face in the United States has once again laid bare our shameful neglect

of minority composers. Now the typical rationalizations are in one sense true.

Every time an orchestra programs music by a composer who is less known, whether living or not,

whether a person of color or not, ticket sales noticeably drop.

...