Beyond the Notes with Vonn Vanier

There are some stories that time itself cannot bury. Composer Danaë Xanthe Vlasse transforms ancient Greek myths into music that feels both classical and cinematic, intimate and epic. Her Grammy-winning Mythologies and Grammy-nominated Mythologies II explore beauty, tension, and transcendence through voices that sound as if they’ve crossed centuries to reach us. 

In this conversation with Vonn Vanier, Danaë shares how her Greek heri...

The internet rewards speed, volume, and constant stimulation. Claire Ritter makes music that does the opposite. Her album "Songs of Lumiere" feels like light painted with sound. Calm, spacious, and deeply intentional, it sits far outside the noise-driven logic of modern culture. In this episode of Beyond the Notes, Vonn Vanier talks with jazz and classical pianist and composer Claire Ritter about the musical lineage that ...

Mike Post has spent decades writing music to serve story.

Scenes. Characters. Picture lock. Timing. Emotion under constraint. 

In this episode of Beyond the Notes with Vonn Vanier, the legendary Law & Order composer talks about what happened when, during COVID, that structure suddenly fell away — and an entirely different idea took shape. 

While driving late at night and listening to bluegrass, Mike had a question: What if an orch...

Oh, you definitely know the tunes. You can hum them right now: 

• Law & Order
• The Rockford Files
• Magnum P.I.
• Hill Street Blues
• The A-Team. 

And that's not even all of them! 

But you probably don't know the name of the man who wrote all of them. 

Meet Mike Post. He's defined the sound of television for 50 years. In this interview, we talk about the "obsession" required to write 7,000+ hours of music, why ...

How do you get Gen Z to care about a 400-year-old art form? 

Matthew Shilvock, General Director of San Francisco Opera, has spent his career finding out. The stories he shares reveal exactly why opera still matters. 

In this episode, he talks about the moments that still give him chills, why staging Wagner’s Parsifal next to a brand-new Monkey King excites him, and what it feels like when 20,000 people cheer for opera at a baseball s...

Imagine you're a professional musician. You've flown halfway across the world for a big concert in Istanbul. You walk out on stage... and there are three people in the audience. The band literally outnumbers the crowd. So what do you do?

That one story from violinist Jeremy Cohen got host Vonn Vanier thinking: In a creative life full of uncertainty, in a business known for being brutal, what is the engine that actually kee...

Grammy-nominated composer Peter Boyer joins Vonn Vanier on Beyond the Notes to share the story of his two most ambitious new works: 

• "American Mosaic", commissioned by the Kennedy Center for America’s 250th anniversary, blending Boyer’s music with the imagery of Americana photographer Joe Sohm. 
• "A Hundred Years On" is an equal collaboration between Peter Boyer and librettist Mark Campbell for the Mann Center ...

Leslie Ann Jones: GRAMMY-winning engineer behind Apocalypse Now, Herbie Hancock, & Halo | Beyond the Notes 

What’s the secret sauce behind the music that stays with us? Legendary engineer Leslie Ann Jones turns session chaos into clarity—whether for Apocalypse Now, video games, or jazz albums. 

In this interview with composer Vonn Vanier, she shares: 

• The studio trick that made bands rethink what's possible 
• Taming chaos d...

"The most rapacious exponent of artist abuse are the major record companies. By far. They steal. It's terrible." 

In this episode, we sit down with legendary producer and founder of the iconic Artists House label, John Snyder. With a career spanning five decades, over 300 albums, and 35 Grammy nominations, John has worked with a staggering list of legends, from Stevie Wonder and Eric Clapton to Paul Simon, Etta James,...

What if one of the most-heard violins in history wasn't locked away in a museum, but was still making music today? On this episode of "Beyond the Notes," host Vonn Vanier sits down with the instrument's current steward: 8-time Grammy-nominated violinist, composer, and educator Jeremy Cohen. 

This isn't just any violin. Forged in 1868 and later serving as the principal violin for the MGM Studio Orchestra from...