So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People

In this episode, Megan & Jennifer are joined by Ian Carleton Schaefer, Partner at Sheppard Mullin, legal advisor to Fortune 100 companies and global institutions, and conductor of the Second Ending Ensemble. Ian’s story is anything but linear, and that’s exactly what makes it inspiring.

Ian shares the powerful story behind his “second ending,” a musical term turned life philosophy that helped him reconnect with a lifelong passion for music while navigating a high-powered legal career. He talks about studying conducting at Juilliard during the pandemic, how music and law are related to each other, and why every professional deserves permission to pursue the thing that lights them up.

This episode closes with a special performance excerpt from A Solar Symphony, a commissioned piece by Welsh composer Katie Jenkins, played by Ian’s Second Ending Ensemble at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

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Creators and Guests

Host
Jennifer Ramsey
Host
Megan Senese

What is So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People?

Welcome to So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People. Where we explore behind-the-scenes of work, life, and everything in between. We're your hosts - Jennifer Ramsey and Megan Senese, and we're here to showcase the human side of the legal world, from marketing and consulting to the very real struggles of balancing work with being human. This isn’t your typical, dry legal show. We're bringing you real stories, candid conversations, and smart insights that remind you that outside of being a lawyer or legal marketer - what makes you human? So whether you’re navigating billable hours or breaking glass ceilings in a woman-owned practice, this podcast is for you. Stay human. Stay inspired. Namaste (or whatever keeps you human). 

Ian Carleton Schaefer: [00:00:00] So in music, a second ending is, is a different conclusion or a different pathway forward. It, it's really a metaphor for life, but it's that inner voice of the thing you always wanted to do before life got practical and thinking that the choices we make early in life are those that we are stuck with for forever is not the conclusion. It's about giving yourself permission to access that witch lights you up.
Megan Senese: Welcome to So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People, where we dive into the beautiful chaos of work life and everything in between. Outside of being a lawyer or a legal marketer, we wanna know what makes you human. And with that, let's get started.
It's our show so we can do whatever we want Ian, right? And so we can cut it and, and do whatever. So fantastic. This will not come as a surprise to you and you have to perform. But sometimes weird things happen when you press record, [00:01:00] right? And then all of a sudden everything goes to shit. Um, but I think we got all of that out of the way.
We got it. We're really, really excited to have you. Thank you so much for agreeing to, to be on our show. It's always such a. Like a treat, a, a blessing. We're just excited to have you and learn more about your story and shed some human side to, to lawyers, and you have a really great story and we're excited to kind of dig in and, and kick it off.
Jennifer Ramsey: I had not had the pleasure to meet you, Ian, and so I did my research and I was like, whoa. I, this guy is a triple threat: a lawyer, a classically trained musician, and a conductor. So I, I had, I just had to open with my own words with that because I was like, this is, this is really cool. And then I, I read an article too where about you that says, why have one job when you can have two.
So I know [00:02:00] we're going to get into that because it's just for sure. It's such a good hook. So. Without further ado, Ian Carlton Schafer is a partner in Shepherd Mullen's Labor and Employment Group in New York. He is a trusted advisor to Fortune 100 companies, sports leagues, media organizations, and performing arts institutions, and is frequently featured in outlets like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Bloomberg.
But music has always been his first love, and I also learned that New York City is your second love. Ian started trumpet at age eight and by 16 performed with the New York Youth Symphony at Carnegie Hall. He continued music while studying industrial and labor relations at Cornell, and later pursued law at Fordham.
During the pandemic, Ian finally embraced a long held dream of conducting studying at Julliard's Extension Division with Maestro Mark Shapiro. He continues his studies with Maestro Far Udv at the University of Texas, Austin. In addition to his full-time job as [00:03:00] partner, he is also the music director and conductor of the second ending ensemble.
Finally, Ian is a passionate advocate for arts education, particularly and underserved and underrepresented communities. Having served on the Board of Jazz at Lincoln Center with Winton Marcellus, and, and now as incoming president of the board of trustees of the uh, Grammy Award-winning New York Youth Symphony. Muzzle top. Congratulations. Um, do you sleep?
Ian Carleton Schaefer: I do. I do. I get a solid eight hours of sleep. I just immediately conk out. I know that's it. That's where I thought we'd be opening this conversation with my REM cycle and circadian rhythms. But for, so, for sure, I, I sleep, um, and sleep is kind of a big deal. Uh, and so I, I prioritize, it doesn't always work out perfectly, but I try.
Megan Senese: I wanna get into, obviously your, your story and you, you talked a little bit during our prep session about the jump [00:04:00] that you made during the pandemic and, and taking those courses on Zoom, and so it was a great story and I'd love to hear a little bit about that.
But I'm also imagining right, that. You need to be very physical while you're conducting. So I'm starting kind of backwards and we can, we can get back into also little Ian with his trumpet at eight, which I'm sure your parents loved.
Ian Carleton Schaefer: I, I, I, I, it took me about, um, 35 seconds to choose the trumpet because actually first I wanted to play the drums in third grade public school and so did everybody else.
And so they said, Nick, something else, and I'm like, trumpet. That's about as much thought as they give to it. I said, if you're really serious about the drums, come back to us in a year. And I never really did. So, so, and and you hear that with a lot of professional musicians, like, how did you choose the contra bassoon?
It's like, I dunno. And sometimes it sticks, sometimes people change it up and, but like, that was, that was how it worked out for me. I.
Megan Senese: Talk to us about your journey. So you're, you pick up the trumpet because the drums were not available, and then what?
Ian Carleton Schaefer: So I, I, I think as I, [00:05:00] as I look back on this whole experience of being, uh, a lawyer but also a musician, I've actually been a musician longer than I've been a lawyer, and I'll go back before eight, but I promise I'll do the Reader's Digest version.
Apparently when I was in the womb. Okay, my, my parents would go to a lot of concerts of all different genres, and they went to see Frank Sinatra, Paul Lanka, Sammy Davis Jr. The Rat Pack, what have you, and as it's been reported by my mother, so I have no reason to doubt her. I would kick and just go absolutely bananas in the womb when I heard music.
Music has been sort of in my DNA in some level. Almost before I took my first breath of air and my entire journey of music and this other more practical side of me as it relates to the law has always been this counterbalance. But, but it, it, it's, it's always been [00:06:00] something that has been a part of my life in, in conjunction with not in opposition to.
Throughout my life and navigating that has not always been easy. So when I was eight, I was not a serious musician. Um, and it was for auditions and I had never heard of the New York Youth Symphony. I played, I still played in in bands and in our local school orchestra, and I started getting a little bit more serious, but not anything like this.
Um, and so I, I called, um, they mailed you back in the day, orchestral excerpts. I had the wrong trumpet. I had the wrong teacher, and I did what any teenager would do in that situation. I crammed, I crammed. For the audition and it was not great. And like I, my teacher, I found out later, told my parents on the side, don't have any realistic expectations that he's gonna get into this.
Because people who do get into this go to conservatory, they go to [00:07:00] Julliard, they become professional members of, you know, the orchestral world and you know. This might be a push, and by, by some grace, I came into New York. I did the audition for, uh, my first maestro, uh, Miguel Harth Bedoya, who were honoring again at our gala in October.
So again, another full circle moment. And he saw something in me. I had the wrong trumpet. I had the wrong teacher. I had the wrong everything, but I had the passion for it, and I think he saw that. So I was like one of seven and I thought this was gonna be it, but what it did was I came into New York every weekend.
And I rehearsed and I found my tribe. I found my community of people who were between the ages of 12 and 22, and I was 16 at the time, who were amazing. And that really turned everything in and changed everything for, for me. To the point where when I was a freshman at Cornell, [00:08:00] I auditioned for, even though I was up in Ithaca, New York, I auditioned for the New York Youth Symphony.
I won the co-principal trumpet position and I, and I said to my parents at that point, I have to do this. Um, and so I'd get up at Sunday morning at five o'clock in the morning and get on a Shortline bus from West Campus in Ithaca, New York. And this is also before cell phones were like really a thing.
And I'd get on the bus, I'd come into the city five hours, four hours of rehearsal, and I'd catch the last bus to Ithaca from the Port Authority. And if I didn't catch it, you were SOL Yeah. You just didn't make it right. And it just, it just, this whole experience and journey largely through my experience with the New York use of me was, was watershed in terms of exposing me to not only, uh, an art form, uh, but also, uh, a community of people that I didn't know existed.
And also some of my most profound teachers. There's just something [00:09:00] deeply profound, almost spiritual about what you can learn from maestros, which probably one of the most misunderstood professions there are out there.
Jennifer Ramsey: That is a incredible, incredible passion. Incredible discipline. I did read, I did read about you taking the train or the short line bus, um, for a few hours in the city and then coming back.
And so I, it's interesting sometimes the people who say the fewest words are, are actually the most interesting people. I, I can imagine that the maestros and the conductors command such a presence that, that they don't have to say it, you know, it's just ubiquitous. So hearing about your musical.
Upbringing and, and your roots, what prompted you or inspired you to pursue law?
Ian Carleton Schaefer: Um, it was not an easy decision. Um, I think I struggled with it in many ways because I had the very practical side of [00:10:00] me. I was given sort of the three choices of you're gonna be a doctor or lawyer, an accountant. Blood and numbers scared me, like most lawyer, like most lawyers.
So I became a lawyer, but I didn't, I never gave up on music. I've been playing. Even through law school and post law school and you know, in community orchestras like music has been the through line, uh, throughout my entire, entire life, and I've always, I think, struggled to find what is the right place for it at, at a particular time in life.
And when I was thinking about law school, I, I, I was interested in the law and I thought to myself when, even when I was at Cornell, I, I sort of knew I was heading in the law school track. I remember making a promise to myself out loud, walking through the halls of Cornell saying, whatever you do in the law, stay close to music.
And I had no idea how that would turn out. But from a legal perspective, one of the, one of the reasons why I went into employment law, and labor and employment law was because of the [00:11:00] ability or the potential to be near and have access to musicians, artistic citizens, people in the arts who have very unique jobs.
And I didn't know how that would intersect, if it would at all. Um, but I thought that would be a pretty interesting space to, to practice in. It resonated with me on a, on a, I think from the musical side, uh, on a, on a deeply human level. 'cause what we're doing at the end of the day, even though I'm representing management, is I'm dealing with people issues all day and keeping in mind that, you know, it's, it's humanity.
We're dealing with the intersection of the law and humanity. And that's a, a tremendously profound place to, to spend your time, which I do not take lightly at all.
Megan Senese: I don't want us to lose sight of the good story that you told when we first connected about deciding [00:12:00] to, to during the pandemic, right? That you wanted to pursue conducting, and I don't know anything about music really.
Uh, I like music. I sang in chorus. My claim to fame is I participated in Isma. I couldn't sight read. And so that was basically the end of it. Right. And, and so I didn't know or even appreciate that there was like conducting classes and schools and certifications and all of these things. So talk to us about that realization during the pandemic where you're like, I'm going to do this.
What does that process look like? And then tell us about what it was like to show up on Zoom because it was, that was a good, it was a good story and I, I wanna make sure that we get to memorialize that right now on this podcast.
Ian Carleton Schaefer: So it, I, I guess it wasn't a sudden revelation that I wanted to do this right before the pandemic.
I turned 40, so, you know, not to be, uh, you know, totally stereotypical and have like your stereotypical midlife, whatever you wanna call it. [00:13:00] I was like, if there's gonna be a time where I actually try this thing that's been gnawing at me for a long time, it's now. So this was a couple months before the pandemic, and so I learned that there are, in addition to, you know, you can get a doctorate degree in conducting, I mean, you can, and many people do, but for those of us who have full-time jobs and aren their day jobs anytime soon, that's an FYI to my firm.
Uh, but I, I was fortunate that, that I lived down the street at the time. From the Julliard School and they have an amazing extension evening division program and one of the courses was conducting. Um, and I said, perfect. Let me go after work all suited up, um, and go talk to the professor and see if I can get in.
I did not prepare for this. So this is another audition where I was completely underprepared for. Okay. Seems to be a trend here.
Ian Carleton Schaefer: Yeah, yeah. Don't, don't, don't follow My lead lawyers are very prepared. I was like, listen, [00:14:00] I've been, you know, involved in music for years. I have a credit card, they're gonna let me in.
It's gonna be fine. Not, not quite the case. So we did it like kibitzing for two minutes. This is with, uh, Maestro Shapiro. Um, why do you, who are you, what do you wanna do? This, okay. Shows me a score of music. I'd see him scores. Which has all the parts that in, in the Symphony Orchestra, the score, I wish I had one on me, I can cut to it later.
Has every single instrument and every single bar of what's going on for a piece. Whether the piece is five minutes or an hour and a half, everyone's part at the same time. You read it vertically, you read it horizontally and you read it vertically. And so he would have me sight sing. Which to your NMA point Yeah.
Is not an easy thing to do. Um, first he'd have me read the treble clef. I was, okay. Trumpet is a treble clef instrument. I can do that. What about base cliff? Not so good at base cliff. What about alto cliff? There's an alto cliff. I had no idea. What about tenor cliff also blank stairs? Nothing. Um, so this is going really well.
Um, and [00:15:00] I have no idea what's happening. And then he says, okay, well I want you to conjure a piece of symphonic music in your mind. And I want you to conduct it for me as if there is an entire symphony orchestra in front of you. It's just myself, the professor, there's a piano. He is not at the piano, there's no music.
So I'm scrolling through my Rolodex. I'm a trumpet player, so the first thing I uh, go to is Tchaikovsky. I said, I'm gonna conduct the opening of Tchaikovsky's fifth Symphony. He says, go. And so I'll, I'll pantomime here. And I start conduct, get, get all of my courage, and I start conducting. I'm not singing, I'm just conducting, and I start conducting.
A big three pattern. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2. Any, and I'm, I'm gesturing, I'm queuing, I'm, I have this imaginary orchestra Stops me after 30 seconds and he says, you know, you're conducting the opening of Tchaikovsky's. Fourth symphony, not the fifth, which I didn't realize because I was so nervous. [00:16:00] But I didn't know what I wanted to do.
But I, it conflated five and four as a word. Sure. That's how nervous I. Mm-hmm. And I was like, well this is a bomb. Forget it. I'm not gonna get in. And he said, we have really good instincts. And I walked out and I was like, well, this is probably not gonna happen. And then I got an email saying that I got in and it was like I'd gotten into Harvard, which I'd never gotten into before.
Right? Um, and, and so we started in a laboratory environment, 10 people of all different, um, backgrounds, all different ages, um, all different instruments. Coming to the class for all different reasons and we would conduct, um, often the class, the class would be the instrument. We'd sing a lot of singing. Uh, we had a pianist that accompanied it and played sort of a reduced score.
Um, and then once a quarter we would have students from Julliard sit in and we would conduct a, a quartet or a quintet, and that would be our laboratory. That [00:17:00] was awesome until the pandemic hit. Which was not much later than, that was like maybe, you know, six months later. Um, and then we went to Zoom, which as I.
Alluded to in earlier conversations, it was one of the most bizarre things you can do on Zoom, and we've acclimated very well to Zoom or whatever your platform of preference happens to be. So it was 10 people, again studying the same piece of music. One person was up at a time. There were no musicians and there was no keyboard because you couldn't do it in in sync.
So let's say I was conducting Beethoven five, I would be up, everybody would be watching, everybody would be following their score, and I would be conducting and, and I would be stopped. And the professor would say, you know, in bar 16, measure 16, I don't think you were really hearing the viola. Now, keep in mind there is no audio happening, right?
Ian Carleton Schaefer: This is the part, there's no music. Not say there's no music happening, there's music happening, [00:18:00] but it doesn't have an audio oral component to it. You are, you are the music as the conductor. And I wasn't showing, not that I wasn't queuing, I wasn't showing that it was in my ear, their rhythm. What was happening between the violas and the violins?
In this case, I think it was. And that blew on, and he was totally right by the way. A hundred percent right? A hundred percent. Right. So we did, we went on like this through the pandemic. I took some music theory courses to get, you know, sort of up to a level where I thought I was, I should have been if I had gone to conservatory, studied music.
And then we come outta the pandemic. We come back into live class, we're back into the conducting students and, and doing all that. And I've then at that point, done it for four years and I thought to myself, this is probably a time to see if I can really do this or at least try. Is
Jennifer Ramsey: that when and how the second ending ensemble was conceived.
Ian Carleton Schaefer: Yeah, it's, [00:19:00] it's interesting. I had a lot of, one, one consistent thing I've had from, from the New York Youth Symphony days through today is that I've had a lot of encouragement from people who don't necessarily need to say nice things about my musicianship, my conducting my play, my my aspirations at all.
Uh, but throughout. 30 years of doing some kind of music, and particularly in the last four years of conducting, people have been nothing but, um, supportive and just saying, you gotta keep doing this. One of my friends is a, a dear friend. She's, um, the principal, second violinist in the New York Philharmonic named Chin, chin Li, and I would send her little snippets of my conducting at Julliard and just feedback, you're a professional musician of the highest level, what do you think?
She's like, well, I can follow you. I'm like, she's like, I'd play for you. I'm like, well, but how do I get an orchestra? And she said, call my friend. She hires orchestras and so. For one night when I thought, [00:20:00] and when I told people this could very well be my debut and finale. Yeah. This time just to manage expectations.
Uh, I wanna do a, a, I wanna do a proper concert. I wanna put on a proper concert, and my teacher far said, you know what? Why don't you commission a up and coming composer to pair with that? And that'll be the concert. I said, you're out of your mind. First of all, I had never conducted for more than 10 minutes at a time, and by the way, conducting is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.
It's the hardest thing because it's physical, it's emotional, it's intellectual at the same time. We, we did this no intermission, which is something I picked up from the pandemic. 'cause when people came outta the pandemic, they got rid of intermissions for a while because they didn't want people socially congregating.
And I found the concert going experience so much more invigorating by having to sit there and not having this interruption be able to hear pieces really back to back. [00:21:00] And so I adopted that into our programming and I said, we're gonna do a new piece that may or may not be inspired by the slightly older piece that was written hundreds of years before that, and let's have people hear it like that.
It came off really, really well. And from that, like the second ending ensemble, which I made up like the week before the concert went on, I didn't even have a name. That's how it was born. It was an experiment. And musicians who were in the, in the orchestra from the met, from the Philharmonic would come up to me and say, how long have you been doing this?
And I said, this is the first time I'm really doing this. And they could not believe it. And they said, you have to keep doing this.
Megan Senese: I love that you were not afraid to take the risk. And a lot of. Poor lawyers get bucketed in, like, you know, risk adverse. They don't wanna try anything new. They're not, they're not creative.
They're, there's, [00:22:00] you know, they fall into these, these kind of traditional black and white roles. And so I love that you followed your passion and then you tried something super risky and vulnerable too, right? Like you're inviting your colleagues, you're inviting your friends and family to come and see something that.
You love is near and dear to your heart. You're inviting them to say like, look what I've created. Look what I've made. And that's a lot. That takes a lot of courage, that takes a lot of courage and, and a lot of confidence to, to welcome people into that. So you've been quoted saying you can, you know, you can have two jobs at once.
You can, you can do these two things. How do you think those two roles help each other or don't help each other?
Ian Carleton Schaefer: So I, I view for myself it very much being a composite. Mm, I, I don't think of myself as now I'm lawyer Ian, and now I'm musician Ian. I think the law keeps me very grounded in the world and music lifts me out of it.[00:23:00]
And I think there are. Just in terms of pure, practical, you know, overlap in application. I think there are a lot of things that help feed each other, um, in these spaces. I mean, to, to be a, a lawyer at a high level, at a, at a big firm, um, or to be a conductor requires a, a certain amount of, of leadership skills that are developed over time.
I think it requires. A tremendous amount of listening skills. And that's one of the hardest things as lawyers, um, that I think people struggle with. 'cause we always wanna be, uh, you know, the one being the loudest with the best argument and, uh, controlling. But listening actually, uh, in conducting, the more conducting you actually do physically, the less you're actually able to hear.
It's, it's wild. So the more you back off. The more you can hear what's going on in the orchestra, and it's not just a wash [00:24:00] of sound and I think it's just about, you know, how do you, how do you inspire people and what do you, what do, what are the people on your team, whether it's a orchestra or a legal team, what do they need?
What do they need to see from a conducting perspective? You can give them too much stimulus and then they're gonna tune, tune you out, or be confused. Or you can give them too little direction. And then also, maybe that's a little scary. Um, same thing if you're managing a team of lawyers. You're on a case.
You're on a deal. You're on what, what have you. And trusting, trusting them. Trust the orchestra is a, is a mantra that I didn't make up. It's, it's, you have to trust the orchestra because you're not actually playing a single note to make the music happen. And so the ability to detach a little bit, relinquish control is not something lawyers are particularly good at.
Delegation. We were not taught. Uh, and [00:25:00] it, and, and it takes a while to get there. And so I, I think there's a lot of, I think there's a lot of that. How do we build relationships? How do we build rapport with people? How do we bring the best out of them? How do we inspire them? How do we get them to be on the same page?
You a hundred musicians on, uh, you know, you have a hundred musicians or a hundred people on a hundred lawyers on a deal? You gotta get to an outcome. That makes sense. And someone's gotta set the direction and not everyone's gonna agree with it, but at some point, you, you know, it, it can't be chaos. It can't be chaos.
You have to come and bring this beautiful piece together, whether it's a transaction, a, a, a, you know, a jury trial or a symphonic piece of music, you have to bring it together. In a way that is beautiful, that tells a story, uh, and that's cohesive, even if the sum of the parts don't have their, you know, uh, don't completely agree, which is never gonna happen.
And so I think, I think, you know, there's a lot of, [00:26:00] there's a lot of overlap in what you're putting out there, so you have to believe it. Just like you're presenting to a judge or a jury. You've gotta believe it, even if you're believing your own version of it, right. You're owning that narrative. You're owning, this is my interpretation of Divorce Act.
You may have a totally different interpretation of what he was saying in the second movement, but here's how, what it means to me, and here's how I'd like us to play it, and, and getting them to do that. Um, so, so there's a lot I have learned that have informed my law practice where I step back a lot. I trust my team, I figure out who needs what, when it's like being an air traffic controller at the busiest airport in the world.
And it's also, this is the last thing I'll say about this, is it requires you to be in three time zones at once. So you have to live, and I think this is true in the law too. You have to, you have to understand what happened before. [00:27:00] Whether it's in your case or case law or precedent or the deal or whatever.
What's happening right now? What are we tasked with today? And then anticipating what's about to happen and then being prepared to improvise when things don't go exactly as planned, which happens in both worlds. You better be really efficient with your time. So to an earlier question of how do you do all this and sleep.
You learn time management in a way that probably the law firm helped me learn time management. Mm-hmm. Because I have to account for my time in six minute intervals for 20 years. Yep. Right. So I know what six minutes feels like.
Megan Senese: Yeah,
Ian Carleton Schaefer: that's a good point. In the law and in music, I know that could be a long time or no time at all.
They feed each other, they very much do. It is a composite. It's not one versus another. And now I'm gonna take this hat off and I, I am my full self every single day. But to [00:28:00] your point earlier too, like, I think everyone has the capacity to do their version of a second ending, which we can talk about. And it does take a, a little bit of courage, like a lot of, and, and a plan, and like being willing to fail.
Where like we're not used to failing. You know, we are used to doing this linear path. It's a mess, but it looks linear on LinkedIn, but it's not. And failure seems like catastrophic and it's not. And you have to be willing to have the beginner, the beginner's mindset, and be willing to fail and just like embrace.
That and learn so much from that. And you're gonna learn so much more from, from the failures than you do from the successes. That's, that's true in life and law and music for sure.
Megan Senese: Talk to us about how second ending came to be, how you thought of the name and why that name.
Ian Carleton Schaefer: Uh, so there's a literal meaning of second ending in, in music.
If you're familiar. There's a notation, [00:29:00] um, and it really says you're, you're playing a verse of music. Uh, a theme of music and it goes, it can go in two different directions. So, uh, classic example is Twinkle, twinkle, little star, twinkle Little How? Star How I wonder what you are. I'm not gonna sing it because you wanna have viewership, right?
Show. Um, and, and, and then it a above world, so high like a diamond in this guy, right? Then it goes back. So there's repetition, twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder. Second ending, how, I wonder what you are, right? That's the second ending. Okay. And so that there's, so it's demarcated in music, that there's repetition and you go on to a different.
In a different direction. So in music, a second ending is, is a different conclusion or a different pathway forward, and it's what happens after repetition. Um, but I think more metaphorically, it, it's really a metaphor for life. And, and I'm [00:30:00] living proof of that, that, that everyone has the possibility of a second ending.
It doesn't mean quitting your day job, it doesn't mean you have to have a side hustle, but it's that. Inner voice of the thing you always wanted to do before life got practical and thinking that the choices we make early in life are those that we are stuck with for forever is not the conclusion.
Everyone can have a second ending if they choose to do it, and it's not about failure or pivoting or giving up, it's about giving yourself permission to access that which lights you up. And so one of the things we're trying to do, and that's already been borne out by these concerts, is that people have responded to that.
It's become more of than a concert. It's become a movement to say that anyone can do this and, and just give yourself permission to do that. [00:31:00] You've earned it, and it'll make you a wholer, more fulsome, more satisfied human in the world.
Megan Senese: So, so, so beautiful. And I, I, I want to, you had sent us a piece of music, and so I want to, we're gonna play that.
What is the piece, how should we think about it? What should we be listening for as, as we start to put it on?
Ian Carleton Schaefer: So this was a piece that I commissioned, uh, for our last concert at Jazz Lincoln Center. The companion piece to this was Divorce Act nine from the New World. And this piece that you'll hear is written by a Welsh composer whose 26-year-old Katie Jenkins, who's a double Julliard grad and like programs in the past.
I gave her the same instructions. Please use the same instrumentation. You have 10 minutes. Go for it. It so happened that the concert fell on the weekend of the solstice. The longest day we didn't play on that. And the program, [00:32:00] it was really about a couple things. It, it, it, it was about what does it mean to be home?
Dvorak wrote from, from the New World, um, after he came to the United States from Czechoslovakia. He was invited to teach here and he wrote it in New York City. Uh, also inspired by his travels throughout the United States. So it was a blending of his homeland in in, in Czechoslovakia. Um, what he had heard growing up, but also his journey here and his experiences here.
Native American sounds, African American sounds, the hustle and bustle. He lived in Gramercy Park when he was here. The hustle and bustle of New York. And the excitement of being in a new world, but also longing for home. And she took from that to a different level. Um, and so her piece is called a solar symphony, and it talks about what is our place in the universe.[00:33:00]
It talks about, you know, again, bringing in rhythms that and, and themes and motifs that, and, and soundscapes that she would've experienced growing up in Wales infused with those experiences that she had, um, living, working, studying here in New York. But it looks at it from a cosmic existential perspective.
It's meant to be a snapshot of. Of the universe.[00:34:00]
It is beautiful. It's triumphant. It could be set to a movie. It could be something you meditate on. It could be something you go on jogs to. It's very accessible. It is an amazing composition. I think it will have a very long life. We're gonna be recording that commercially in London with the London Symphony Orchestra.
At Abbey Road Studio, and so we're bringing it home. So these pieces that we commission, the hope is that they don't get played once, but that they have a long life.[00:35:00]
Megan Senese: I, I feel really lucky that we get to share this piece and thank you for letting [00:36:00] us share it with, with our podcast audience. And, um, we're excited to, to tack it on and, and have people experience that.
Ian Carleton Schaefer: I think people really enjoy it and, um, stay tuned. That's gonna have a long life as well.
Jennifer Ramsey: Well, I am a yogi and, and you mentioned meditation earlier, Ian, so I'm going to meditate to this.
So in that same vein of meditation and spirituality and yoga, we just wanna say to our audience, stay human, stay inspired, and namaste until we meet again. Thank you so much for listening today.
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