From Cued Up at Q2: “Millennial Mavericks”

Cued Up On Q2 streams Sundays at 2PM on Q2; encores Tuesdays at 8PM and Thursdays at 4PM on Q2

Live performances by NOW Ensemble, Victoire, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and More

“As Q2 Music prepares to go all-American Mavericks all the time next month, we’ve been doing a lot of listening to Varèse, Copland, Harrison, Cage, Monk and more. But while we’ve been excited to see the return of a concert series given in 2000 by Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, we can’t help but think of the new mavericks.

So taking as a springboard the styles of our 20th-century Mavericks, we’re looking today at in-concert recordings from composers who in this century challenge and redefine the way music is created and consumed.

There are nods to the greats of the past (such as Sergei Prokofiev’s grandson, Gabriel Prokofiev), but the present has a mightily different face. We’ll hear from Missy Mazzoli’s rockstar quintet Victoire live at Chelesea’s Look and Listen Festival, blending the lines between rock and classical (we’ll hear more to that end with music from Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood). And we’ll hit up the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for a trio by juggernaut composer Kevin Puts.

There will also be hints of social consciousness in by the NOW Ensemble of Judd Greenstein’s Change and Ensemble 212 of Tahrir by Mohammed Fairouz, and selections from concert series like the Ecstatic Music Festival and SONiC. All told, various threads of the contemporary zeitgeist will weave together in two hours of musical bliss.”

This edition of Cued Up is hosted by Olivia Giovetti

Olivia Giovetti

I wish to again remind readers that rthey can still access, enjoy and learn from the original American Public Media radio project American Mavericks.

While Minnesota Public Radio has taken down most of the audio, you can still access the text materials.

From The New Canon at Q2: “Maverick Roll with Jennifer Koh “

The New Canon streams Fridays at 1PM on Q2 Music; encore presentations Wednesdays at 10AM and Sundays at 8PM on Q2.

Bringing the “M” Word Back to Music

“On The New Canon this week, we gear up for American Mavericks with the festival’s featured violinist Jennifer Koh, asking: What makes a maverick?

Jennifer Koh

Twelve years ago, Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony presented twelve concerts honoring American composers who pushed the boundaries of classical music in the 20th Century, redefining the parameters of American sound and our contribution to a European-born genre. Twelve years later, as the SFS celebrates its own centennial, American Mavericks is back with a vivacious vengeance starting in the Bay Area before docking at Carnegie Hall.

We welcome to The New Canon Maverick violinist Jennifer Koh, who has no small relationship to some of the featured composers (from Adams to Cage), indulging in a sonic star-spangled banner of daring musicians that have forged our national sonic identity. As we listen to some of these composers in action, we invite you to join us in asking Koh, What makes a maverick? And who are our 21st-century mavericks?”

See the full article here, complete with some interactive utilities.

Q2 did not mention the American Public Media project inspired by MTT’s SFS and also named American Mavericks, a 13 week radio project guided by MTT and hosted by Suzanne Vega. While some of the audio features are no longer available, there is a vast treasure trove of material still available. Pease visit the site to learn more.The thirteen essays by Kyle Gann give quite a history of all of American music.

The New Canon on Q2 is hosted by Olivia Giovetti

Olivia Giovetti

From Hammered! at Q2: “Loops, Ladders and Wind-Up Birds”

Hammered! is a focused keyboard program at Q2. The program streams weekdays at 11AM and 11PM on Q2.

Exploring Brooklyn-based composer Ryan Francis‘s box of musical toys

Ryan Anthony Francis

“Among diverse cast of characters informing Brooklyn-based composer Ryan Anthony Francis’s musical language are author Haruki Murakami, artist M.C. Escher and poet Wilhelm Muller. Hear what they’ve told him this week at 11 am and pm on Hammered!.

You can hear Escher in the interlocking motivic infinities in Francis’s Etude Jacob’s Ladder, Murakami’s polished elegance in the Wind-Up Bird Preludes, and Muller’s prophetic solemnity in Consolations.

This is to say nothing of the musical personalities sitting on his other shoulder, a lineup of composers beginning with Frederic Chopin and filing through Henri Dutilleux and Richard D. James of Aphex Twin. Each of these voices are considered, adapted and synthesized by Francis into an aggressively original musical language that uses nuance, precision and stylistic-variance to create music that is at once lush, probing and inventive.

Accompanying Hammered!’s week-long survey of his piano music are works that interact with Francis’s language in especially intriguing ways. You’ll hear songs by Franz Schubert, movements from Harrison Birtwistle’s Harrison’s Clocks, a recent work from Arlene Sierra and, to balance Francis’s mammoth Moonlight Fantasy, a remarkable performance from pianist Sergei Babayan of Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit.

See the full article here.

Hammered! is hosted by Conor Hanick

From Cued Up at Q2: “Acoustic Music That Sounds Like Electronic Music”

Cued Up On Q2 streams Sundays at 2PM on Q2; encores Tuesdays at 8PM and Thursdays at 4PM on Q2

Works by Tristan Perich, Michael Gordon, Ingram Marshall, and more.

“It’s the 21st Century and it’s pretty safe to say that there’s no shortage of composers today who have been inspired by the sounds of electronic music, whether through the tape collages of Stockhausen and Xenakis, the electroacoustic manipulations of Pauline Oliveros, or the beat-driven textural experiments of lap-top sample-ists like Flying Lotus and DJ Shadow.

This week on Cued Up, we’ll be exploring live performances of acoustic and electroacoustic music that take on the sonic quality of electronic music. We’ll hear works by Tristan Perich and Todd Reynolds that pair live strings with electronics, and Ingram Marshall’s seminal Fog Tropes II. Alarm Will Sound offers a startlingly fresh take on The Beatles’ Revolution #9 and the Young People’s Chorus of New York and Kronos Quartet accent the other-worldly textures of Michael Gordon’s Exalted.

The program will also feature two brand-new live recordings that blur the lines between acoustic and electronic from So Percussion’s Jason Treuting (taken from a live show at The Greene Space in February 2012) and composer/Slow Six bandmember Christopher Tignor, recorded at this year’s Ecstatic Music Festival.

This week Cued Up is hosted by Olivia Giovetti

Olivia Giovetti

This Week From Hearts of Space: PGM 972 ‘SUPERNATURAL’

About this program from Hearts of Space Stephen Hill tells us:
“The worlds of fantasy and imagination have a cherished history in popular fiction, with legions of dedicated fans around the world. Inspired by mythology and folklore extending back to the earliest human cultures, fantasy fiction emerged as a genre in the mid-19th century and came to prominence in the 20th with medievalist classics like Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” C.S. Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia,” and J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series.

While born in literature and later extended to popular films and computer games, musicians have also been exploring this rich field of imagery to create ambitious concept albums. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, imaginary worlds, spectral and ethereal sounds, and fantastic themes — on a program called SUPERNATURAL. Music is by PRISCILLA HERNANDEZ, PSICODREAMICS, KLAUS SCHULZE, STEVE BRAND, BUILDING THE CATHEDRAL, BETWEEN INTERVAL, THIERRY DAVID and PAUL AVGERINOS.”

Stephen Hill

From the program:

The weekly program is FREE on Sundays

Enjoy Hearts of Space in a variety of ways on your iPhone and many phones in the ANDROID system

From Q2 Music: Composer Portals

Q2 is the 24/7 New Music Stream from New York Public Radio

Ever-Expanding Access into the Minds of Your Favorite Composers

Q2 tells us, “We here at Q2 Music will always strive to bring you the best and brightest in new-music. But now we are beginning to explore the spaces between the music. You will now be able to hear the voices of the composers themselves as they provide exclusive, concise introductions to subsequent music.

Q2 Music affirms its commitment to enshrining the insights and wisdom of today’s composers. We will archive these introductions online and continue to add more composers to the mix both in-stream and online. Check back as we look to add more of your favorite composers to this page!

| Derek Bermel | Sebastian Currier | Osvaldo Golijov | Michael Gordon | Judd Greenstein | Aaron Jay Kernis | Paul Moravec | Nico Muhly | Angélica Negrón | Paola Prestini | Steve Reich | “

Please visit this Composer Portals page, where you will find all of the composers above in hot links to access their comments and hear their music.

From Cantaloupe Music: “Big Beautiful Dark and Scarey” Releases February 28, 2012

Cantaloupe Music is the recording arm of Bang On a Can, the original New Music DIY organization.

Bang On A Can All-Stars Big Beautiful Dark and Scarey
Cantaloupe CA21074 releases 02/28/12

“The Bang on a Can All-Stars have recorded their first studio album in five years and is the first to include the All-Stars’ current line-up: Ashley Bathgate, cello; Robert Black, bass; Vicky Chow, piano; David Cossin, percussion; Mark Stewart, electric guitar; and Evan Ziporyn, clarinets. With Big Beautiful Dark and Scary, the Bang on a Can All-Stars show off their blazing speed, polyrhythmic virtuosity and all-world versatility in a return to the core Bang on a Can sound – an uncategorizable supermix of classical and electric instruments that is part classical ensemble, part rock band.

The album is the first in a decade that features the All-Stars exclusively, rather than as part of a collaborative project. Each of the pieces on the double-CD calls upon a different kind of virtuosity, demonstrating the range of musical abilities and experiences arguably unique to this ensemble. Recorded in New York City, all of the music on Big Beautiful Dark and Scary (including the arrangements of the works by Conlon Nancarrow) were written for and premiered by the Bang on a Can All-Stars.”

From Q2 Music: “Nick Zammuto & Jason Treuting: Live at Merkin Hall”

Q2 is the 24/7 New Music Stream from New York Public Radio

“On Thursday, February 23 at 7:30 pm ET, Q2 Music and WNYC’s New Sounds present a live audio Webcast from Merkin Concert Hall of musical cross-pollination and experimentation from composer-performers Nick Zammuto (The Books) and Jason Treuting (So Percussion). The concert is hosted by John Schaefer.

Composer, vocalist and cellist Nick Zammuto is a founding member of the eclectic electro-acoustic duo The Books and, more recently, the four-piece indie rock band Zammuto. A member of So Percussion, Jason Treuting has been a mainstay of New York’s new-music scene for over a decade, and has worked with artists such as David Lang, Paul Lansky and the electronic duo Matmos.

The two composers are joined on-stage by guitarist Grey McMurray of the ambient “classical” group itsnotyouitsme, new-music flute/viola/harp trio janus, and vocalist Daisy Press.

See the full article here.

From Hammered at Q2: “Piano Plus”

Hammered! is a focused keyboard program at Q2. The program streams weekdays at 11AM and 11PM on Q2.

A survey of modern piano concertos from Ravel to Rakowski

“Talk about a genre with a lot of baggage! How does a composer even think to write a piano concerto today when the masterpieces of Mozart, Brahms and Ravel are your compositional context? This week on Hammered! we hear some of the magnificent creations of this historical dare.

We recently offered one such concerto as our Album Of The Week, Jonathan Harvey’s Bird Concerto With Piano Song performed by the exquisite pianist and Ensemble InterContemporain member, Hideki Nagano.

In this wonderful new concerto Harvey accepts the historical baggage of the genre, in this specific case the piano and orchestra music of Olivier Messiaen, and reinvents it. This extraordinarily inventive concerto incorporates digitized bird song, recorded by the composer in California, and completely rethinks the pianist’s roll in this avian consort. Rounding out Monday’s hour of bird concertos are works by — duh — Messiaen and a “concerto” for piano and electronics by Ezequiel Vinao.

Throughout the week we’ll insert a few modern classics, including the “Left Hand” Concerto by Maurice Ravel and the Piano Concerto of Aaron Copland, certainly one of his masterworks.

Also on the docket is music from David Rakowski (in a stupendous performance by Marilyn Nonken), John Adams (both his Riverrun and Century Rolls), Poul Ruders (introduced by the composer!) and one of the singular creations of the genre in the last century (in history?), the Piano Concerto of Gyorgy Ligeti.”

See the full article here.

Hammered! is hosted by Conor Hanick

This Week From Hearts Of Space: PGM 971 ‘WINTER HARMONIES’

About this program from Hearts of Space Stephen Hill tells us:
“It seems the farther north you go, the warmer the music. It’s a generalization to be sure, but whether the genre is North Country folk music, classical, jazz, electronics, or some creative hybrid — northern musicians have a history of chasing away the chill with melodies and harmonies that please the ear, warm the heart, and nourish the soul. More often than not those harmonies are consonant, derived from the great European romantic tradition, and extended with love and care.

On this transmission of Hearts of Space…a midwinter collection of instrumentals that bring us that sought-after feeling of warmth and space…on a program called WINTER HARMONIES. Music is by BILL DOUGLAS, SECRET GARDEN, WILLIAM ZEITLER, JEFF PEARCE, KETIL BJORNSTAD & DAVID DARLING, FRANCOIS COUTURIER, THE TYTINGVAG ENSEMBLE, and introducing M.K.SOL.’

Stephen Hill

From the program:

The weekly program is FREE on Sundays

Enjoy Hearts of Space in a variety of ways on your iPhone and many phones in the ANDROID system