There’s a generation of younger musicians who grew up with rock, pop, and punk, but studied classical composition and love the diversity of sounds it offers. Shara Worden is one of this new movement's brightest upcoming stars. Worden trained as an opera singer, but classic American pop has been just as strong an influence. "I grew up listening to a lot of soul music and there are strings and horns all over those Motown records,” she tells Kurt Andersen.

She premieres “We Added It Up,” a song inspired by a speech by President Obama in 2010, after the Democrats did poorly in the midterm election. “At the end of the speech he said 'We need to learn to disagree without being disagreeable,’” Worden remembers. “So I started thinking about that, about politicians and ideas and lovers and atoms — things that have opposite characters and yet they work together… Our entire planet is held together by opposites."

Shara Worden will perform with Gabriel Kahane at Carnegie Hall October 25, 2012.

(Originally aired: January 21, 2011)

Video: Shara Worden and yMusic, “We Added It Up”

Video: Shara Worden, “In the Beginning”