Podcasts · Episode

Courtney Bryan

Program: NoteWorthy
Aired: Monday, December 11, 2023
Hosted by Loki Karuna

There are many things that make the millennial generation unique, including our coming of age when technology made huge leaps forward, shifting the way people engage their work/life balance, and of course, continuing classical music's trajectory into new territories. Greetings – I'm Loki Karuna, and on this edition of Noteworthy you and I are gonna spend a little time with one of today's most highly celebrated millennials – composer Courtney Bryan. 

Courtney hails from the city of New Orleans, which played a huge role in her perspective on what so-called classical music should be. Her uniquely jazzy spin on music has had an impact on audiences of all ages, but the ways in which she's engaged her fellow millennials is unprecedented. She even named this work after our generation – a tune here called Generation Y. 

Among Courtney's awards and honors are a Herb Alpert Award, the Samuel Barber Rome Prize, and a MacArthur Genius Grant that she was awarded in early 2023! Courtney Bryan's young, hip, contemporary take on writing instrumental music is a beautiful glimpse into what generations to come will have to enjoy when it comes to the classical genre, making her one of today's most Noteworthy composers.

Noteworthy is a production of WDAV classical public radio. 

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