The Rose Room: Women-Led Podcast at DU

The Rose Room is a podcast at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music, fully created and founded by women. I had the honor to sit down, via Zoom, with the co-founders, Lilli Bailey-Duran and staff member Angela Mitchell.

The idea for the podcast sparked in the midst of COVID-19 when students from around the world were sent home, automatically dissociating them from school. Duran recognized Lamont’s potential for a podcast that centered around interviewing alumni, Lamont staff and faculty, students, and guests, all while discussing pertinent issues that music students are faced with.

The Rose Room consists of eight people. The staff meets one hour a week, and is divided up into research, writing, advertisements, social media, and editing. The editing process takes about four to five hours per week.

The podcast and audio engineering industry is mostly male-dominated. This poses many obstacles for a woman-created podcast as they tackle demanding topics, such as mental health and being a woman in music. The Rose Room is meant to openly discuss and facilitate productive conversations on important topics within Lamont. The Lamont School of Music has been extremely supportive and excited about the podcast.

The Rose Room got its unique name from the student lounge in Lamont which displays a beautiful rose carved in Indiana limestone. From this room, one can see amazing views of campus and the Rocky Mountains. Mark Rodgers, the architect, used a rose from the University’s rose garden as inspiration for the design. The rose is a trademark for the Newman Center, as roses are a traditional gift to give performers at the end of a show. It is only fitting that a student-led podcast would have its name based off of a student-oriented room.

Lilli emphasized that there is an “untapped resource of amazing individuals [in Lamont] that desperately need to have their stories told.” The podcast’s tagline is, “where music and ideas blossom.” 

The Rose Room creates podcasts that relate to a variety of themes. July contained a four-part series that focused on black musicians and their stories. A fan-favorite episode, hosted by Angela, titled “Then & Now: Black Composers in American Classical Music” aired on August 3rd. This was a productive conversation with professor, David Byrd-Marrow, and grad student, Jenny Thompson, about the experience of African American classical composers, from our country’s founding to the modern day.

Other themes have included staff spotlights and modern music. A series of women in music is currently on hold because of the Coronavirus pandemic. This will be a round table discussion with females at Lamont who will answer difficult questions on what it is like to be a woman musician. For the staff spotlight series, Angela met with Maddy Kuhl, the manager for concert production and facilities. This episode focused on the difficulties of opening a music school safely in the midst of the pandemic. Another part of the series was an interview with Michael Furry, the leader of a bluegrass ensemble. This episode focused on how and why Furry created the ensemble, as well as his passion for bluegrass.

The next episode airs on October 26; it will be a feature on the rhythm section and falls under the theme of modern music. This series captures other departments, such as jazz, classical and even the recording and production side of Lamont.

The Rose Room can be accessed on Apple Music, Spotify or through Anchor. They can also be found on Facebookand Instagram, @lamontroseroom. If you have any suggestions, comments or pitch ideas for them, you may contact The Rose Room at lamontroseroom@gmail.com.

• mental health
• music
• podcast