🏳️‍🌈 Happy Pride! 🏳️‍🌈

On today’s show we sit down with the fabulous baritone Matthew Maisano to talk about his parallel career as the enchanting drag queen known as Balena Canto.

During quarantine, Matthew and Balena have been incredibly active, exploring different ways to produce online concerts, contests, and drag shows. 

He shares with us some of the creative solutions he’s found to make the online performance experience fun and artistically rewarding.

Follow Matt/Balena on Instagram
Follow Balena Canto on Facebook

We also bookend the interview with our personal reflections about the events of the last few weeks, namely the murder of George Floyd.

We believe that Black Lives Matter, and we are committed to using our platform to amplify underrepresented voices in our industry, namely the voices of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color. 

We would also like to make a call to action: Can we, as independent artists and as artistic institutions, make a commitment to ensuring that at least 50% of our programming has been composed or written by BIPOC and/or women for the coming season?

We think we can, and we’re certain that we should. Will you join us?

Click here for more information about the resources mentioned in this episode.

As always, many thanks to our Season 2 sponsors The Sparkle Twins, The Opera Dolls, and our affiliate Singing Straw. 

Questions, comments, complaints? Want to share your story with us? Email us! info@mysocalledoperalife.com

Music

“Too Cool,” “Basic Implosion,” “Inspired,” and “Rainbows”  by  Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/