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Daniel Medina on Soundologia podcast.

Episode 07: Creating a “Haiku” Theatre with Dr. Daniel Medina

In this episode, we present Daniel Medina—a poet, painter, musician, public schoolteacher, and ordained minister with the United Church of Christ. American Pop Haiku and the Beat Generation influenced his poetry. Medina shares that writing and performing haiku has helped him express his artistic brokenness. His poetry, music, and paintings form an endless palette of words, sounds, and colors, used as dreamcatchers to transform memory into matter and to incarnate lived experiences within his work.

He is the author of Kigo: Four Seasons in Haiku.

Medina reflects on building self-esteem, cultivating authenticity as an artist, and exploring what it means to be a better human being.

Daniel is also the founder of Atomic Theatre, a Miami-based electronica/avant-garde jazz ensemble. This eclectic group draws inspiration from the indeterminacy of John Cage, early UK alternative music (Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, New Order, and The Psychedelic Furs), John Cale and the early Velvet Underground, as well as the works of Sun Ra, Milford Graves, Don Cherry, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Dark Jazz, Cabaret Voltaire, and 80s Miami Freestyle. The ensemble’s creative philosophy is further shaped by DADA, world music, and the writings of Jack Kerouac, Hermann Hesse, Yann Martel, Edgar Allan Poe, Flannery O’Connor, Miguel de Unamuno, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and American Transcendentalism.

Daniel’s book recommendations to our listeners include:

Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra by John Szwed

Cosmic Scholar: The Life and Times of Harry Smith by John Szwed

Where the Heart Beats John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists by Kay Larson;

The Bride and the Bachelors by Calvin Tomkins;

Piet Mondrian: A Life by Hans Janssen;

Memoirs of A Dada Drummer by Richard Huelsenbeck;

Girl in a Band: A Memoir by Kim Gordon

To contact Daniel: dmedinacc@gmail.com

Find more about Daniel Medina and Atomic Theatre

Atomic Theatre

Music by Atomic Theatre

Kigo: Four Seasons in Haiku

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Pedja Kovačević
Pedja Kovačević

Pedja Kovačević is a Serbian-born musicologist, curator, and music producer, and the founder of Soundologia — a curatorial platform, record label, podcast, and festival dedicated to contemporary and experimental music. He moved to the United States in 2018 and holds degrees in musicology from the Faculty of Music, University of Arts in Belgrade, and in Music Management and Production from Florida International University’s School of Music.

As curator and executive producer of the Soundologia Anthology series, Pedja has commissioned, produced, and released three volumes documenting the work of South Florida’s contemporary composers and sound artists, presented in connection with the Soundologia Anthology Festival in Miami. He has taught experimental and electroacoustic music at FIU’s School of Music and has worked as a program coordinator and music administrator at music and arts schools in Miami.

As a musicologist and music writer, Pedja has published articles and presented research at international conferences and forums in the United States, Poland, Greece, and Serbia. His writing explores the relationship between music and other art forms, including painting, architecture, poetry, prose, and photography, as well as questions of listening, sound, and musical perception. His research has also examined Deep Listening, a concept introduced by American composer Pauline Oliveros, as a way of reconsidering the aesthetic dimensions of sound. Through Soundologia, Pedja promotes contemporary and experimental music and presents extended conversations with composers and sound artists about their work.

Articles: 24

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