Jason Heilman
Host, Classical TulsaMusicologist and Classical Tulsa host Jason Heilman is no stranger to Tulsa’s concert audiences, having been a frequent speaker at concerts by Tulsa Camerata, Chamber Music Tulsa, and other local groups.
Originally from Wisconsin, Jason grew up in Tulsa, where he began playing trumpet in his middle school band. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in trumpet performance from the University of Tulsa, a master’s degree in music history from Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. in musicology and European Studies from Duke University. Jason’s area of expertise is the music of Vienna circa 1900, and while he was completing his dissertation, he lived in Vienna for a year and a half. Officially, he was there as an invited fellow at the IFK International Research Center for Cultural Studies, but in reality, he spent most of his time attending concerts and sampling the city’s many bratwurst and kebab stands.
Jason has taught music courses at Duke and at the University of Texas at Austin, but his real calling is inspiring people to experience the vast diversity of classical music firsthand. After returning to his hometown of Tulsa, he and three other local musicians co-founded Tulsa Camerata in 2010. In addition to his innovative role as Tulsa Camerata’s concert narrator, he also served for two years as its executive director. When Tulsa Camerata commissioned Michael Daugherty’s This Land Sings: Songs of Wandering, Love, and Protest Inspired by the Life and Times of Woody Guthrie, Jason wrote the narrator’s part and performed it at the world premiere in Tulsa in April 2016.
Jason met his wife, Rosalyn, when they were both sixth graders at Byrd Middle School and they married twenty-five years later. His three passions in life are music, beer, and coffee, and he doesn’t consider a day complete without all three.
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It started out as a celebration of France’s musical past, but it became a very personal tribute to seven close friends who perished in World War I: Classical Tulsa host Jason Heilman introduces Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin in 10 minutes or less. You can hear Imani Winds perform this piece as part of Chamber Music Tulsa's 2021-22 season on March 12.
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Season 3 of Masterworks in 10 Minutes or Less, a podcast co-presented by Public Radio Tulsa and Chamber Music Tulsa that features host Jason Heilman introducing six pieces of classical music in a convenient format, with works by Schubert, Mendelssohn, Ravel, Beethoven and Mozart.
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Although he was famous throughout Vienna as a songwriter, Franz Schubert secretly yearned for something more. It was only in the decades after his death…
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A century ago, as Europe was coping with both the aftermath of World War I and the influenza pandemic, concerts were pretty far from most people’s minds.…
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To call pianist Lara Downes “busy” is an understatement. In just the past year, she’s released three albums, including one of my favorite new releases of…
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Every now and then on my show, I like to explore some of the genres and ideas we take for granted in classical music. I’ve covered subjects from…
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What does it mean to be an American? And who gets to define the American experience? These are questions we often ask ourselves, particularly around the…
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Here’s a bit of trivia: no one knows when Ludwig van Beethoven’s birthday really was.Peanuts readers may remember Schroeder celebrating every year on…
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This week on Classical Tulsa, we’ll give the radio premiere of a new composition by Tulsa Opera Artistic Director Tobias Picker. Tobias has composed six…
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Chamber Music Tulsa and Public Radio Tulsa present Season 2 of Masterworks in 10 Minutes or Less, with six new podcasts from musicologist and Classical…