Ana’s Thanks, Plus the Hunt for a Long-Lost Musical Masterpiece

Summary

Podcast Summary:

Our Common Nature—Ana’s Thanks, Plus the Hunt for a Long-Lost Musical Masterpiece
Podcast by WNYC
Aired: December 24, 2025

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Main Theme / Purpose

This special episode, introduced by Ana González, weaves together gratitude for listener engagement with a “podcast swap” feature: an episode from WUNC’s The Broadside, hosted by Aneesa Khalifa. The episode embarks on a quest to rediscover Mary Lou Williams’ unfinished final composition, written while she was teaching at Duke University. Through interviews, archival sleuthing, and reflections on Williams’ legacy, the episode illuminates how music, memory, and cultural preservation intertwine—revealing both an unsung jazz matriarch and the devotion of those who keep her history alive.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Listener Engagement and Thanks

• Ana González thanks listeners for sharing nature photos using #ourcommonnature, with intentions to follow up on their significance. [00:00]
• “I want to go there and go on a hike with you and I just might be reaching out to some of you to hear more about why you chose those photos…” – Ana González [00:11]

2. Introduction to Mary Lou Williams and the Lost Composition

• Aneesa Khalifa introduces Mary Lou Williams as a central but often overshadowed figure in jazz’s evolution. [01:19]
• “I venture to say she was the matriarch, the mother of the modern jazz movement.” – Dr. Tammy Kernodle [01:19]

3. The Mystery: Williams’ Final Work Disappears

• Anthony Kelly, a composer and Duke professor, notices footage in a documentary where Williams, in her hospital bed, listens to students rehearsing her unpublished composition. [04:52]
• Kelly realizes, “They’re looking at scores, they’re looking at parts. These have to be somewhere.” [05:37]

4. The Treasure Hunt Begins

• Kelly and Dr. Verena Mösenbichler-Bryant, current chair of Duke’s music department, start searching the music office “dungeon”—once Paul Bryan’s (Williams’s collaborator) office—filled with decades of sheet music. [07:01]
• Despite an exhaustive search, no trace appears: “We went through, like, file after file and score after score… It was chaos.” – Verena Mösenbichler-Bryant [08:14]

5. Archival Sleuthing

• A tip from a Duke alum leads Kelly to Duke’s Rubenstein Library, where archivist Ani Karagianas presents a promising lead—box 27. [10:20]
• “I walked in, and Ani said, ‘I think we have a box you’re gonna like…’” – Anthony Kelly [10:20]

6. Discovery: The Score Resurfaces

• Inside the grey archive box: a brown folder marked “MLW History”—Williams’s unfinished symphony. [12:10]
• The composition attempts to sonically trace Black American music’s journey, including sections titled “Suffering,” “Spiritual,” “Ragtime,” and “Gospel.” [12:58]
• “Inside that folder was more than just a fragment...it contained the broad strokes of an entire unfinished symphony.” – Jared Walker [12:18]

7. The Rarity and Significance of the Find

• Dr. Tammy Kernodle situates the find in historical and gendered context: “It is very common [to find unfinished masterpieces]. But what’s unusual here is that this composition was known, and people had been searching for it actively.” [13:56]
• She underscores Williams’s pivotal influence and past marginalization, describing a surge of scholarly reassessment over the past 30 years. [14:54]

8. Completing the Unfinished Work

• Kelly takes on the task of orchestrating and completing Williams’s work: “The hardest part was when she would throw a curveball…she probably would have one-upped me.” [16:44]
• He immerses himself in Williams’s records, rehearsal tapes, and television appearances (notably on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood) to emulate her voice. [17:27]
• Some sections are cryptically notated: “A few pages in, there’s three clarinet parts...it just says ‘ragtime’ and ‘who stole the lock off the henhouse door’ in parentheses…” – Anthony Kelly [18:07]

9. Preparing and Premiering the Performance

• With support from Mösenbichler-Bryant and the Duke Wind Symphony, Kelly leads the preparation for a public debut after almost a year of work. [18:35]
• “I had decided…oh, I’m going to do this now. As soon as I saw that it said MLW History…” – Anthony Kelly [16:15]
• On premiere night, more than 60 musicians (with a jazz trio of soloists) perform to a packed hall in Durham, NC. [21:17]

10. Reflection and Legacy

• Kelly reflects on his motivation: “The possibility that someone...might really get the fire lit about how wonderful she is…that is just kind of one of the miracles of what she’s left us with.” [19:28]
• The performance concludes to a standing ovation, symbolizing not just fulfillment of Williams’s artistic vision, but a celebration of the community that ensured her music endures. [21:51]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Ana González [00:11]:
  “Mountains, forest, rivers, oceans. I want to go there and go on a hike with you and I just might be reaching out to some of you...”
• Dr. Tammy Kernodle [01:19 & 15:43]:
  “I venture to say she was the matriarch, the mother of the modern jazz movement.”
• Anthony Kelly [05:37]:
  “They’re looking at scores, they’re looking at parts. These have to be somewhere.”
• Verena Mösenbichler-Bryant [08:14]:
  “[The search] was chaos. Even more chaos than it is today.”
• Anthony Kelly [16:44]:
  “The hardest part was when she would throw a curveball at my kind of conservative classical training.”
• Dr. Tammy Kernodle [14:54]:
  “The last 30 years has been a reassessment of Mary Lou Williams...reclaiming her from the margins.”
• Anthony Kelly [19:28]:
  “The possibility that...somebody’s going to be as excited about her as I have been in the past year...is just kind of one of the miracles of what she’s left us with.”
• Anthony Kelly [20:27]:
  “There’s nothing to be nervous about...because I did the work I needed to do. Now it’s up to them.”
• Anthony Kelly [22:22]:
  “There’s so much of her all over this piece, and I heard her spirit come alive through the tubas, through the bassoons... It was magic. So I can’t imagine she would be any less pleased than I am, because it’s a fulfillment of her vision at the end, right?”

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00: Ana González’s holiday thanks and introduction
• 01:19: Dr. Tammy Kernodle on Williams’s role in jazz
• 03:41: Anthony Kelly discovers the documentary clue
• 05:37: Kelly inspired to begin the search for the missing score
• 07:01: Kelly and Mösenbichler-Bryant’s initial search in the Duke “dungeon”
• 10:20: Discovery in the library/archive
• 12:10: Opening of the “MLW History” folder
• 13:50: Dr. Kernodle contextualizes the historic find
• 16:44: Kelly discusses completing the piece
• 18:35: Preparation and rehearsal insights
• 21:17: Premiere performance and standing ovation
• 22:22: Kelly reflects on the emotional culmination

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Tone & Language

The episode blends warmth, reverence, and inclusive enthusiasm. There’s a respectful awe for Mary Lou Williams’s work, paired with a sense of adventure and gratitude, both for the journey of preservation and for the community involved in music (mirroring Ana’s thankfulness for listeners’ connection to nature). The host and contributors speak conversationally, with sincerity and personal investment.

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Summary Flow

• Ana’s Introduction: She sets a grateful, communal tone, blending appreciation for listener contributions with a segue to the featured story.
• Introducing Williams: Khalifa and guests unfold the story of Mary Lou Williams, highlighting her trailblazing yet under-recognized influence.
• The Hunt: Through alternating first-person accounts and investigation, the episode narrates the intensive search for a musical treasure, emphasizing both trial (the seemingly fruitless physical search) and triumph (library breakthrough).
• Completion and Performance: Kelly’s artistic process is detailed, including respect for Williams’s idiosyncratic voice, immersion in her idioms, and the challenges of inferring unwritten instructions.
• Legacy: The episode culminates in performance, public acknowledgment, and reflection on the persistent work needed to keep marginalized histories alive.

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For Those Who Haven’t Listened

This episode transcends a simple music history lesson. It’s a detective story, a tale of devotion, a celebration of cultural memory, and a testament to the impact of recovering—and reviving—the art of an often-forgotten musical giant. Listeners are left inspired, not just by the music, but by the passion and persistence required to bring hidden history back to life.

Transcript

[A]

Hey, it's Anna and I hope you've been doing really well during this holiday season. I want to thank so many of you who've been sending in photos to the our common Nature hashtag on social media. I want to visit every single place that I've seen their, their breathtaking sunset, sunrises, mountains, forest, rivers, oceans. I want to go there and go on a hike with you and I just might be reaching out to some of you to to hear more about why you chose those photos and we might just share some of your story. That's for later, but for now, I want to share an episode of another podcast that I just listened to and that I think you would also really like. It's from WUNC down in North Carolina and their show the Broadside. This episode is about the final years of the life of composer and pianist Mary Lou Williams, a giant in the jazz world. And I've known a little bit about Williams's playing, but I didn't know that much about her life and until now. So here's Broadside host Anissa Khalifa to explain more.

[B]

Perhaps more than any other art form, the 20th century was shaped by jazz. And piano player and composer Mary Lou Williams was there at nearly every turn, from the swing clubs of Kansas City to teaching students in her Harlem apartment.

[C]

I venture to say she was the matriarch, the mother of the modern jazz movement.

[B]

In recent years, historians have documented and dissected her career and its big impact on American music. But the final chapter of her life spent teaching at Duke University has always been shrouded in mystery. Until now. I'm Aneesa Khalifa. You're listening to the Broadside, where each week we dive into one story from our home in North Carolina at the crossroads of the South. Today, my colleague Jared Walker tells us about one man's journey to resurrect Mary Lou Williams final work.

[D]

I'm Ira Flato, host of Science Friday. For over 30 years, our team has been reporting high quality news about science, technology and medicine research. News you won't get anywhere else. And now that political news is 24 7, our audience is turning to us to know about the really important stuff in their livescancer climate change, genetic engineering, childhood diseases. Our sponsors know the value of science and health news. For more sponsorship information, visit Sponsorship wnyc.

[B]

What's all this noise, Jared?

[E]

That's the sound of Biddle Music building on the campus of Duke University here in Durham, North Carolina. I don't know if it's always like this, but on the day that I visited. It was filled with this beautiful cacophony. A half dozen or so music students were in practice rooms, and the noise was just spilling out into the hallways.

[B]

Honestly, kind of reminds me of music class growing up. So what were you doing there?

[E]

I was there to chat with the hero of our episode today. Can you introduce yourself? My name is.

[F]

And what I do. My name is Anthony Kelly. I'm professor of the practice of music at Duke University. I'm also a composer in residence with North Carolina Symphony.

[E]

We met up at Anthony's office. That's where he told me a story that started during the beginning of the pandemic, when the halls outside of his door were completely silent. Like a lot of us, he was working from home at the time. And to pass the time, he started to watch a lot of movies, and he got a little obsessed with one in particular.

[F]

So there's a documentary called Music on My Mind by Joanne Burke. It was made in 1990, and I put the DVD on.

[E]

This film is about legendary jazz pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams, and it follows her long career, which stretched from the early 1920s right up until her death in 1981. Marilu was instrumental in creating the sound of swing music and wrote for some of the most popular big band leaders of the 1930s and 40s. These were superstars, people like Benny Goodman and Cap Calloway. To give you an idea of the level, these were like the Beyonce and the Taylor Swift of their days. But she actually spent the last few years of her life teaching at Duke. And near the end of that movie, a scene filmed at the university caught Anthony's attention.

[F]

I got to this portion where my former band director, Paul Bryan, shows up on screen, and I thought, wow, PB is what we call him. PB is in this, and he's talking to the students, and he's saying, unfortunately, Mary Lou can't come to this rehearsal, so we'll just have to make this recording.

[E]

The documentary then cuts to Mary Lou Williams, who was receiving treatment at nearby Duke Hospital.

[F]

And there is Mary Lou Williams herself. She has a patch on her neck because she's going through cancer treatments. She's in bed, in a hospital bed, and she's listening to the playback of that recording, and she's kind of smiling and she has a furrowed brow. I mean, she's working to the very end of her life on these excerpts.

[E]

And that's when it hit him.

[F]

And immediately I'm thinking, wait, they're looking at scores, they're looking at parts. These have to Be somewhere.

[B]

These have to be somewhere. What does he mean by that?

[E]

Well, nobody knew where this unfinished score was. This was Mary Lou Williams final composition before her death. But it was never performed in public and never published. And so for 40 years it had been missing.

[B]

Oh, my goodness.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

So today's episode is about music, but it's also a treasure hunt.

[B]

I love it. Let's go.

[E]

By the way, that's Grammy nominated piano player Chris Pattishall. He wrote the score for today's episode. Chris, can you play something that would be like a scavenger hunt? Something playful.

[F]

Yeah.

[E]

So Anthony sat on this clue for a while. Life happened. The lockdowns ended. He went back to in person teaching and he took on some high profile work with the North Carolina Symphony. But last year, he started to think about the lost composition again. That's when he shared the info with his friend, Verena Muzembichler Bryant. She's the chair of Duke's music department. She's also the conductor of the university's wind symphony.

[G]

So Anthony brought this to my attention, said, I'm sure there must be fragments somewhere of this, perhaps in your office. And my office in this building is like a dungeon.

[B]

Why did they think to start in her office? Slash dungeon?

[E]

Yeah. Well, Verena's workspace is the same office where Mary Lou Williams collaborator Paul Bryan, the guy in the documentary film, worked for decades.

[F]

Okay, can you explain what we're looking at here?

[G]

So we are looking at the dungeon. And it's a large office space with no windows. It's very beige in color. There are several tables set up in the center which carry random things. But all around us are these file cabinets that. That are full of sheet music and documents and papers that we have been collecting in this office, I think since the 60s, probably. You totally can open one.

[E]

So in these file cabinets together, Varana and Anthony rifled through all of them. Dozens of these drawers.

[F]

Yeah, we went through like file after file and score after score and, you know, it was just great. It was like a walk down memory lane because I used to help file those.

[G]

It was chaos. Even more chaos than it is today. You know, took out one drawer after the other and just tried to look for anything that looked like, like handwritten music that just stacks. There's stacks of. And stacks of paper that just.

[E]

So not the most efficient filing system.

[G]

Not anymore, Jared.

[B]

This is beginning to feel a little like a needle in a haystack type of situation.

[E]

Pretty much. They didn't find a single trace of Mary Lou's music in those cabinets. And it was. It was a pretty big setback. But Anthony wasn't bummed out. If anything, he was more determined than ever to find the score.

[F]

And there's a little selfish part of me, I'm not gonna lie, there's a little selfish part of me that said, you know what? I got on this case, so I'm gonna finish.

[B]

Okay, so he was committed. I can respect that. What was the next step?

[E]

Well, he started tracking down people who were involved in the original project back in the late 70s and early 80s. And eventually, a Duke alum who had played in the wind symphony gave him a tip. He told Anthony that he'd seen a box labeled with the number 23 or 27. He wasn't entirely sure, and he said that that box had some documents in it that he thought were related to Mary Lou Williams.

[B]

And he didn't know where this box was?

[F]

No.

[B]

That doesn't seem very helpful.

[E]

Well, you wouldn't think so, but by this point in his search, Anthony had enlisted the help of some professionals at Duke's Rubinstein Library. They have a massive collection of rare books and manuscripts, and he suspected that it might actually be located there.

[B]

Yeah, someone who's done research in the Rubenstein Library before. That is like a treasure trove of old documents and photographs. I mean, it's just amazing.

[E]

Exactly. So in spring of 2023, Anthony set up an appointment there with Duke archivist Ani Karagianas.

[F]

I walked in, and Ani said, I think we have a box you're gonna like. She had looked in, and she knew what was up. She said, I think we have something you're gonna like. And I said, oh, no. And it's a funny thing. I also kind of knew this was a day because I actually had my iPhone on. I was like, I video recorded myself. I'm gonna send you that audio.

[B]

Okay.

[F]

I'm on my way to the Rubenstein Library. Look at box number 27, which I think might score in it.

[B]

Incredible instincts. So what did he find?

[E]

Something amazing. Something that got him so excited that he forgot to record his reaction.

[B]

Oh, no. Okay, let's make this up. After a short break.

[E]

Foreign.

[D]

This is Ira Flato, host of Science Friday. For over 30 years, the science Friday team has been reporting high quality science and technology news, making science fun for curious people by covering everything from the outer reaches of space to the rapidly changing world of AI to the tiniest microbes in our bodies. Audiences trust our show because they know we're driven by A mission to inform and serve listeners first and foremost with important news they won't get anywhere else. And our sponsors benefit from that halo effect. For more information on becoming a sponsor, visit sponsorship.wnyc.org.

[B]

So what did Anthony Kelly find?

[E]

The motherlode.

[F]

So ANJ comes out with this gray box, and it's just box 23 or whatever. It has a number. When you open the top, there's this brown folder inside, and it just said MLW History.

[B]

M L W. Does that stand for Mary Lou Williams?

[E]

Yeah. And the word history was also written on it. That was the name of the lost composition. And inside of that folder was more than just a fragment of one or two sections of music. It contained the broad strokes of an entire unfinished symphony. And it was a big idea. She was trying to create a sonic interpretation of the entire history of jazz music.

[B]

How do you wrap your arms around that in a single composition?

[E]

It's sprawling jazz music is intertwined with the history of black American music. So the piece starts with a section inspired by slavery called Suffering. And then that was followed by sections titled spiritual and ragtime and gospel. Just hundreds of years of music inspired her work.

[B]

That's incredible. I feel like finding this kind of unfinished magnum opus must be pretty rare, right?

[E]

I had a lot of questions about that, too, so I reached out to Dr. Tammy Kernodle. She's a renowned music historian and musicologist who teaches at Miami University in Ohio. Tammy literally wrote the book on Mary Lou Williams. How common is it to find a masterwork from a foundational musician like this that has been unseen for 40 years?

[C]

I'd like to tell you it's not uncommon, but it is very common. It's very common, huh?

[E]

Right. I was shocked to hear that. But Tammy said that's one of the reasons musicologists like her do what they do. They all hope to find stuff like that during their research. And it makes sense when you think about it. Musicians are constantly writing, and they oftentimes leave behind unfinished work when they die. So every once in a while, an academic does stumble upon something big. But what's unusual here is that this composition was known, and people had been searching for it actively for a lot of years with no luck.

[C]

It's a work that I have personally been in some ways, trying to locate since the first time I went to the Mary Lou Williams Archive in 1995. You know, scholars have been on this search for this piece for quite a while.

[E]

And Tammy also pointed out another important thing about this discovery, and that's the.

[C]

Timing I think the last 30 years has been a reassessment of Mary Lou Williams. My work has been part of that larger conversation about reclaiming her from the margins. And while we don't know her name as readily as we might know Duke Ellington or Benny Goodman or Dizzy Gillespie, these are all people that she not only had relationships with, professional relationships, but she also wrote for them.

[E]

And that reappraisal has also included a general acknowledgement that she served as a mentor and a teacher to many of the greatest jazz musicians of the 20th century. We're talking about absolute giants like Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Thelonious Monk.

[C]

I venture to say she was the matriarch, the mother of the modern jazz movement.

[B]

So Anthony uncovered a pretty important piece of history here.

[E]

Yeah, and that would have been a good enough story.

[A]

Right.

[E]

But here's where things get even more interesting. He was determined to complete the work, and he wanted to perform it at Duke, where it originated.

[F]

I had decided when I saw that big brown folder and how thick it was, I was like, oh, I'm going to do this now. As soon as I saw that, it said MalW history. And that whole folder was dedicated to it, I was definitely going to do this.

[B]

Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa. This wasn't finished right at the time.

[E]

Of her death, she had completed maybe half of it.

[B]

So how exactly do you do that?

[E]

Very carefully.

[F]

She's so brilliant and so advanced as a harmonic and orchestral thinker that the hardest part was when she would throw a curveball at my kind of conservative classical training. So the hardest thing is making those executive decisions and knowing, you know, she probably would have one, upped me on some of this. You know, I'm being a little safe.

[E]

But he did his research, everything he could to try to emulate Marilu's riding style. He read books and articles that had been written about her. He studied old rehearsal tapes that were found in that box at the Rubenstein Library. And he listened to all of her recordings, even a TV appearance she made on Mr. Rogers neighborhood in 1973.

[F]

Oh, come on in, friend. I want to meet my friends. This is Mary Lou Williams, and this is Milton Suggs. Fred Rogers. 1, 2, 3, 4. A Scooby Doo doo bee doo a dee doo be doo A doo doo.

[B]

Be doo that was delightful. But did it help?

[E]

Well, sort of. Some of the composition was completely finished. Anthony's pretty sure the first section was done, but other parts were riddled with holes. And he said Mary Lou had a habit of leaving behind really unhelpful and Cryptic notes.

[F]

I'll give you an example. You know, a few pages in, there's three clarinet parts. Harmonies of each other. Only clarinet. There's no other instruments or anything. It's just this 16 bar thing. It just says ragtime and it says who stole the lock off the henhouse door in parentheses, like she's taking it from some folks tune or something that she had written before.

[B]

Or something that sounds like a riddle. Which I guess is appropriate given that this started as a treasure hunt.

[E]

Yeah, I mean, at some points this is just informed guess work. But after months and months of working on it, he was really happy with the result. So he reached out again to his friend Verena Moozin Buechler Bryant. And they began rehearsals with the Duke Wind Symphony. That's when I was there. During the final week of rehearsals before a big public performance.

[F]

It's just that gospel section. And he'll show you. Kind of like the bones. Yeah, yeah, like that. But bigger. Bigger. Even bigger.

[B]

Why do you think he was so driven to do this?

[E]

I asked him about that, and he said there were two things that excited him initially about the project. Part of it was kind of selfish. He just got obsessed with it and simply wanted to hear it. But he also had a deeper motivation.

[F]

The second thing I'm excited about is the possibility that someone who didn't know as much about Mary Lou Williams or is just kind of casually kind of interested in the concert might really get, you know, the fire lit about how wonderful she is and how wonderful her music is and how wonderful a final work by her would be. That possibility that, you know, somebody's going to be as excited about her as I have been in the past year. It is just kind of one of the miracles of what she's left us with.

[B]

So with all of these moving pieces and so much work on the line, how was he feeling right before the performance?

[E]

I think he was relieved that it was almost over. I think he poured everything he had into it. Are you nervous?

[F]

Not at all. Not at all. Uh, no. I. Yeah. There was a guy, an old composer from Europe named Edgar Verez. They used to ask him, are you an experimental composer? He said, I did all my experimentation before you ever got to the concert. Huh. So I can relate to that. It's been a year, it's been a long time working on this. There's nothing to be nervous about at this point because I did the work I needed to do. Now it's up to them. I'm outsourcing now. Without Further ado. Y' all gonna make some history tonight. You ready? And I think you are. Enjoy.

[E]

Almost a full year after Anthony Kelly discovered Mary Lou Williams long lost history, the piece debuted at a packed concert hall in Durham, North Carolina. Varana was there conducting the Duke Wind symphony with over 60 musicians, including a trio of jazz artists and soloists.

[B]

And did they get the payoff that they were hoping for? Was was it all worth it?

[E]

I I thought it was incredibly powerful and poetic that it ended where it began. And I'm not alone. They got a nearly two minute long standing ovation at the end of.

[F]

How does it feel to see the.

[E]

Culmination of over 40 years of work?

[F]

I think based on this performance that she would be pleased that everybody is now really fully invested in her music, her memory. There's so much of her all over this piece and I heard her spirit come alive through the tubas, through the bassoons, through the harpoon. It was magic. So I can't imagine she would be any less pleased than I am because it's a fulfillment of her vision at the end, right?

[B]

If you want to watch video of the performance of Mary Lou Williams History by the Duke Wynne Symphony, we've dropped a link in this week's show. Notes this episode of the Broadside was produced by Jared Walker. It was edited by Charlie Shelton Ormond. Our executive producer is Wilson Sayre. Special thanks goes out to Chris Pattischall. Chris was the featured pianist during the performance. Incredibly, he wrote and recorded most of the score for this episode as an improvisation during a 15 minute break before a rehearsal. The Broadside is a production of WUNC North Carolina Public Radio. You can email us at broadsideunc.org if you enjoyed the show. Leave us a rating, a review or share it with a friend. I'm Aneesa Khalifa. Thanks for listening, y'.

[D]

All.

[B]

We'll be back next week.

[F]

Sam.