Gabriel Bolaños co-founded Proyecto Eco, Nicaragua's first new music ensemble, during a Fulbright stay while finishing his dissertation. Working with conservatory faculty and collaborator Guillermo Norori—a musician trained at the Royal Academy but rooted in Nicaragua's pop scene—they presented experimental chamber music at bars, cultural centers, and conservatories. Audiences proved remarkably open, even to hyper-experimental pieces that might alienate US listeners, perhaps because expectations about classical concerts were less rigid. Bolaños and his wife also launched Palenque Vivo, a home concert series funded by ticket sales from wealthy attendees, with free follow-up shows open to the public. The projects were flourishing when political crisis shut everything down. But Bolaños learned to conduct by necessity, and watching Norori pitch contemporary orchestra music to beer companies taught him how to frame the work's value from the ground up.

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Hannah Selin traces the origins of her Pieces of Place project—a cycle of works that weave together memory, geology, and ecology. She and Tyler talk about composing during the pandemic, the ache of distance from nature, and the challenge of translating vast natural processes into human-scale sound. Through landscapes like the Chesapeake Bay and the Catskills, Hannah’s music becomes a way to listen for what’s shifting—within the Earth, and within herself.

micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday and Friday!

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micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears.

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Austin Hammonds shares a lesson from composer John Powell that reshaped his thinking: you don’t have to know what you’re doing — you just have to be in control of what you’re doing. He and Tyler talk about the gap between confidence and uncertainty, and how learning from mentors (and tackling new creative challenges) helps keep the process alive, curious, and deeply human.

micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday and Friday!

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micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears.

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Michael Frazier reflects on how birdsong entered his music not as a technical exercise, but as an extension of a long-standing, personal relationship with birds themselves. What began as visual fascination gradually expanded into sonic exploration, shaped by listening, whistling, and close attention rather than transcription alone. Drawing inspiration from Messiaen while diverging from his methods, Frazier describes how access, travel, and the internet have changed the possibilities of birdsong today—and why he now prioritizes sounds he has encountered firsthand. By grounding his work in local environments and lived moments, birdsong becomes less a historical reference and more a living record of place, time, and identity.

micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday and Friday!

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micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears.

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Vanessa Ague talks about her creative rituals — daily listening, long walks, and the rhythm of language — and how each plays a role in shaping her work as a writer. She discusses the subtle tensions between repetition and variation, and how her process combines deep thought with lived experience and stylistic precision.

micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday and Friday!

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Support Loose Leaf Transmissions on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/LooseLeafTransmissions.

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micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears.

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Mahdis Golzar Kashani opens up about the profound challenges women face in Iran—and how those obstacles have shaped her life and work as a composer. In this excerpt, she reflects on restrictions placed on women performers, the societal pressures she’s navigated, and the courage of a new generation rising to create change. Through it all, Kashani’s music carries both anger and hope, serving as a powerful outlet for self-expression in a system that often seeks to silence women’s voices.

micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday and Friday!

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micro/Maker is a production of Loose Leaf Transmissions: Made for All Ears.

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What if high schoolers were given permission to make noise—messy, weird, beautiful noise—and call it music? After finishing his PhD in 2019, Nathan Hudson launched a virtual project teaching families to perform non-traditional notation. That experiment grew into the Forage and Flourish Contemporary Music Festival, a weeklong celebration of graphic scores, unconventional sounds, and creative ownership. From libraries and breweries to arts centers, Hudson and his faculty invited Atlanta-area students to discover the joy of making choices, not just following directions. The result: a ripple effect of schools programming non-traditional works and student composers taking the leap.

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Beyza Yazgan describes how the idea of Anatolia—rather than Türkiye as a modern nation—quietly surfaces in her music through instinct rather than intention. Layered histories, blended cultures, and inherited musical language emerge only after the music is written, often revealing themselves as something familiar yet untraceable, like a half-remembered dream. Her process begins with improvisation as an emotional, almost therapeutic act, followed by careful listening, notation, and refinement. Meaning, geography, and identity arrive later—never planned, never imposed. What results is music shaped less by concept than by trust: allowing sound to lead, and understanding to follow.

micro/Maker episodes release every Tuesday and Friday!

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