Pianist and music sociologist Joshua Thompson combines his passions for social advocacy and music education to catalyze social change in classical music. Joshua was recently in residence at the Africana Studies Center for Music and Society at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. Named a Beckmann Emerging Artist Fellow last year by the Arts Council of Indianapolis, Joshua is an accomplished pianist with a personal mission to exclusively program and perform classical masterworks by composers of African descent.
As co-host of Melanated Moments in Classical Music, Thompson makes classical music approachable and pleasurable for listeners by stoking curiosity about little-known Black composers such as William Grant Still. As a musician, Thompson says these stories keep classical music fresh and relevant no matter how many times he performs a piece or when it was written. He hopes the podcast will have the same effect on listeners. Learn more about Thompson here.