Alum Jonathan Overby Pursues Higher Ground' of World Music

WISCONSIN GAZETTE -- The power of diverse music is nothing new for Overby. He grew up on the corner of Second and Burleigh Streets in Milwaukee’s Harambee neighborhood, the son of a white mother and a black father. His father owned the Club Chateau Lounge on what is now Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, which opened Overby’s eyes to the depths and variations found in African-American music. “All that music ignited a fire in my soul,” says Overby, who holds an undergraduate degree in voice and choral conducting from San Francisco State University and a Master’s degree from Edgewood with an emphasis on African-American sacred music. “I wanted to unpack that music and flesh it out.” “If in listening to the show people find it in any way, shape or form transformative in what they have learned, enjoyed and found educational, then that would be an enormous gift to me,” Overby says.