Episode 85: Timothy Long - Music, Migration, Metamorphosis
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Episode 85: Timothy Long - Music, Migration, Metamorphosis
-
Narrated by:
-
By:
About this listen
Timothy Long is a musician, conductor, and music professor based in New York City and Rochester, NY.
Instagram and all episodes
(00:00) Chasing bigger towns, landing at Juilliard in 1994
(03:45) Small-town Oklahoma roots and mixed tribal identity
(07:10) Two churches, two worlds, learning to “assimilate”
(10:35) Language, humor, and realizing “Indian” on TV
(14:05) Muskogee and Choctaw history, Trail of Tears context
(18:40) Dawes rolls, blood quantum cards, slow-burning erasure
(22:30) Opera “Missing” and using privilege as a platform
(26:10) Mother’s TB survival and Beethoven as childhood soundtrack
(30:05) First lessons, theory coloring book, obsession takes hold
(33:40) The Oklahoma City audition that changed everything
(37:20) Eastman intensity: practice culture, peers, confidence
(40:55) Ten instruments, no goals—just following the music
(44:10) Accidental conducting: offers first, skills later
(47:55) Neurodivergence: sleepwalking, recognition issues, synesthesia
(50:05) Getting fired in 2010 and rebuilding from scratch
(53:20) New York as freedom: anonymity, reunions, “small town” life
(55:40) Coming out, AIDS-era shame, and family acceptance
(57:40) Success as truth: Indigenous Songbook, Sky Mother, foundation beginnings