"I can't say that I'm an activist in any way. I'm hoping that through the work of being a musician there's something positive that I can bring to the conversation or people's experience."
"If this helps to open your eyes to what is more just, what is more equal, then that is one of the things to take away from this experience today."
"Sitting with the unknown brought up some new things I'm interested in and things that I'm not interested anymore in in a very clear way that it might have just taken a lot more time to find had we not had that experience."
Revisiting our conversations with six of this year's nominees!
"There's a lot of magic in music that I am not in control of, but that I love being a part of. Maybe just triggering it and then sitting back and watching and listening."
"What struck me when I just got here was how it was just absolute fun. Now it's not just 'fun' for me anymore. It's trying to do the right thing."
"Let's be honest, men aren't telling those stories and I think that women have been shortchanged. I want to be part of changing that."
"Unlike the movie, the women will not become better women by virtue of this man dressing as a woman. He will become a better person by being surrounded by the women in the piece. "
"I think it's about wanting something so bad and knowing that you've got something in you, but the world doesn't know yet. And damn it, you're not going to stop until the world knows it."
"The most enjoyable thing about what we do is we get to spend time investigating music often that has so many layers and so much to investigate."