About the music diary
What is the Purpose?
The Music Diary: Between the Notes is a space for listening beyond sound. Each episode is treated as an entry—an intimate conversation that brings together musicians, non-musicians, and professionals across the musical world to reflect on their personal relationship with music. Through these voices, the podcast seeks not just to discuss music as an art form, but to explore it as a lived experience—something that shapes memory, identity, emotion, and connection. By placing diverse perspectives side by side, it invites listeners into a shared, evolving diary of how music exists within and around us.
At its core, the purpose of this podcast is both exploratory and reflective: to understand what music is, why it exists, and what role it plays in our daily lives. Beyond technique and theory, it asks deeper questions—what does music do for us, how does it move us, and why do we return to it in moments of joy, uncertainty, or silence? Through thoughtful dialogue and personal storytelling, The Music Diary: Between the Notes aims to uncover the meaning that lives between the notes—the unseen, often unspoken presence of music that continues to shape the way we experience the world.
Episode 01 — Hesheng Guan: Stillness Between the Notes
In the first entry of The Music Diary: Between the Notes, we begin with a conversation that feels as calm and reflective as the music it explores. This episode features pianist Hesheng Guan—a musician whose relationship with sound is rooted in stillness, sensitivity, and quiet depth. Originally from China, Hesheng brings with him not just a refined musical voice, but a way of listening that is patient, thoughtful, and deeply personal. Whether at the piano or in conversation, he carries a composed presence—one that reveals humor, warmth, and insight in subtle, unexpected ways.
At the heart of this episode is our ongoing collaboration on a project inspired by Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies—a work that resonates strongly with Hesheng’s musical preferences for slower, introspective repertoire. Through this dialogue, we explore what it means to shape music together while simultaneously living inside it—as composer and performer, as collaborators, and as listeners. Alongside this, we move beyond music into the rhythms of everyday life—travel, food, memory, and the quiet ways in which music weaves itself into all of it. This episode sets the tone for the series: not just a discussion about music, but an entry into how it is felt, shared, and understood—between the notes.
Episode 02 — Alex Cardenas: Stillness Between the Notes
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