The Hope Littwin Podcast

Aliya Ultan — cellist, composer, singer, community builder — joins Hope from the hollers of eastern Kentucky, a beautiful conversation follows.

They talk about what conservatories won't tell you, why the box-checking version of a music career is a trap, and what it actually costs to be a woman in underground art-making. About mushrooms, animal medicine, the year of the horse, streaming, scarcity, and choosing the slow road.

And at the center of it all: what does it mean to live your art — not perform it, not sell it, but live it?

Aliya's new album Looks Far Woman drops June 26. Release show at Roulette Intermedium, NYC, June 24.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Hope LIttwin Podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation please consider liking and subscribing to this channel and remember to turn on the notification bell so you can be updated when new episodes are published. This is an interactive project aimed at building a meaningful musical community here online I would love to hear your thoughts and musings or even a song recommendation in the comments below. If you’d like to connect you can find me or @hopelittwin.com

In this episode, Hope guides listeners through the ceremony she led at the Salt House in Hopewell, New Jersey,  a healing space where she was invited to build a series of gatherings for a community experiencing overwhelm and creative stagnation. 

This episode includes:

Opening the 4 Directions — an elemental invocation honoring East/Air, South/Fire, West/Water, and North/Earth

The Equinox / Threshold — a meditation on the energy of the Spring Equinox, balance, and what is emerging in your life

The Egg Meditation — a somatic, symbolic guided meditation using an egg as a living symbol of renewal, rebirth, and what is quietly beginning in you

How to Prepare If you'd like to go all in, have a physical egg ready to hold during the Egg Meditation. If not, choose any object that carries personal symbolic meaning around rebirth or new beginnings.

About Hope Hope Littwin is a musician, composer, and ceremonialist currently completing her PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University, where she is also interning at the Center for Theological Inquiry. Over the last year, she has traveled extensively gathering practices, philosophies, and experiences around ritual, ceremony, and music. This podcast is her way of making that body of work accessible.

Mentioned in This Episode

The Salt House, Hopewell, New Jersey

Creative Fire Retreat

Spring Equinox ceremony and its energetic significance

Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Hope LIttwin Podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation please consider liking and subscribing to this channel and remember to turn on the notification bell so you can be updated when new episodes are published. This is an interactive project aimed at building a meaningful musical community here online I would love to hear your thoughts and musings or even a song recommendation in the comments below. If you’d like to connect you can find me or @hopelittwin.com

What this episode covers

I. Beauty as a fundamental human need

Theaster Gates' Stony Island Arts Bank, and the idea that a healthy creative ecosystem is one where we are all artists — not a pyramid with a few at the top.

 

II. Beware the seduction of the archive

Why archives alone cannot cultivate community and why the "you had to be in the room" experience is irreplaceable. A meditation on dialogue, presence, and the sensual world.

 

III. Artistic linguistics

The artist as translator and wisdom keeper. Language as an early technology. How Hope's collaborations at Princeton pushed her toward a new language of musical leadership.

 

IV. Sanctuary Studios

Hope's vision for a school and production company rooted in community, social-emotional pedagogy, and the belief that people support what they create.

Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Hope LIttwin Podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation please consider liking and subscribing to this channel and remember to turn on the notification bell so you can be updated when new episodes are published. This is an interactive project aimed at building a meaningful musical community here online I would love to hear your thoughts and musings or even a song recommendation in the comments below. If you’d like to connect you can find me or @hopelittwin.com

This episode explores the work of French composer Éliane Radigue, whose devotional approach to sound and deep listening challenged Hope to reconsider the role of the composer entirely. Drawing on the writing of Julia Eckhardt, the vision of composer/director Heiner Goebbels, and the sonic world-building of Maryanne Amacher, Hope traces a new paradigm: composer as curator, as beekeeper, as ambient host of experiences that bypass the thinking mind and land somewhere deeper.

Featured references:

Éliane Radigue, L'Île Re-Sonante

Julia Eckhardt, Intermediary Spaces

Heiner Goebbels on artistic experience

Maryanne Amacher on episodic work

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Hope LIttwin Podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation please consider liking and subscribing to this channel and remember to turn on the notification bell so you can be updated when new episodes are published. This is an interactive project aimed at building a meaningful musical community here online I would love to hear your thoughts and musings or even a song recommendation in the comments below. If you’d like to connect you can find me or @hopelittwin.com

I discovered Kaki King in high school, spending hours at Borders Books with headphones on, cycling through the CD listening stations. A woman making experimental solo guitar music felt like a conceptual rarity then, and in many ways it still does. Kaki has encouraged so many women of my generation to explore the guitar with courage and curiosity. Her voice on the instrument is unmistakable: double-hand tapping, intricate fingerstyle textures, and lyrical melodic lines that twist and unfurl in unexpected directions. There’s a sense of play and architectural precision at once. Meeting Kaki for this episode was a joy. She was playful, quick to laugh, and completely open to improvisation. She also introduced me to some new music that I’m still thinking about. I hope you enjoy this episode of Three Songs Podcast with guitarist and sonic explorer Kaki King. 

Spotify Playlist for 3 Songs podcast Season One https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Tq... 

Follow Hope Littwin on Instagram @hopelittwin 

Thank you for joining us on this episode of 3 songs. If you enjoyed this conversation please consider liking and subscribing to this channel and remember to turn on the notification bell so you can be updated when new episodes are published. This is an interactive project aimed at building a meaningful musical community here online I would love to hear your thoughts and musings or even a song recommendation in the comments below. If you’d like to connect you can find me or @hopelittwin.com

Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Hope LIttwin Podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation please consider liking and subscribing to this channel and remember to turn on the notification bell so you can be updated when new episodes are published. This is an interactive project aimed at building a meaningful musical community here online I would love to hear your thoughts and musings or even a song recommendation in the comments below. If you’d like to connect you can find me or @hopelittwin.com