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.

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

A live Webcast of the Ecstatic Music Festival

“On Wednesday, February 8 at 7:30 pm ET, John Schaefer of WNYC’s New Sounds Live hosts a live audio Webcast on Q2 Music of Son Lux, Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry, and new-music heavyweights yMusic as part of the Ecstatic Music Festival‘s continued collaboration between classical and indie musicians.

John Schaefer

yMusic

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Richard Reed Parry, of the Grammy-winning rockers Arcade Fire, is also a founding member and producer of the Montreal-based instrumental group Bell Orchestre. Ryan Lott, who as Son Lux melds elements of electronica, indie rock, and classical composition, has earned accolades for his two LPs, At War with Walls & Mazes and We Are Rising, a record composed during a single month in response to an NPR challenge.

yMusic, a sextet of classically-trained New York-based composers, released their debut album, Beautiful Mechanical last fall. The record was rated the number-one classical release of 2011 by The New York Times and included compositional contributions from Son Lux along with indie rock luminaries St. Vincent and Shara Worden as well as from composer and Ecstatic Music Festival curator Judd Greenstein. The ensemble’s collaborative spirit is a microcosm for that of the festival: its members have collaborated with Grizzly Bear, The National, Björk and others.”

See the full article here.

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

“On Friday, February 3 at 7:30 pm ET, Q2 Music and New Sounds Live team up again for another live audio Webcast of live scores to the silent films of acclaimed American filmmaker Bill Morrison. Tonight, enjoy Michael Gordon’s riveting score to Morrison’s 2002 masterpiece, Decasia, as performed by The Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble at World Financial Center Winter Garden. The evening will be hosted by John Schaefer of WNYC’s New Sounds Live.

Michael Gordon

John Schaefer

Hailed as a “stirring, haunting modern masterpiece…” by The Guardian, the 72 minute Decasia is an evocative assemblage of deteriorating, black and white video footage over which Gordon has pieced together a texture of detuned piano and out-of-phrase orchestral sonorities.”

See the full post here, including an audio of the composer speaking about the composition.

[A personal note: this is one of my favorite pieces of music. I think that I first heard it on wnyc2, the predecessor of Q2. I bought it in .mp3 while it was still being streamed.]

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

The Wordless Music Orchestra Performs Jóhannsson’s Score to Bill Morrison’s The Miners’ Hymns
Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Jóhann Jóhannsson

“On Tuesday, January 31 at 7:30 pm ET, Q2 Music and New Sounds Live present a live audio Webcast of Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson’s visceral score to filmmaker Bill Morrison’s silent film, The Miners’ Hymns. The music will be performed by the Wordless Music Orchestra conducted by Guðni Franzson and introduced by New Sounds Live host, John Schaefer.

Wordless Music Orchestra conducted by Brad Lubman

John Schaefer

The Miners’ Hymns from Bill Morrison, who Variety heralded as ‘one of the most adventurous American filmmakers,’ is a meditation on the daily lives of coal miners in the industrial city of Durham in northeast England during the early 20th century. Conceived with composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, The Miners’ Hymns contrasts archival footage, some dating back 100 years, with sweeping aerial views of a transformed modern-day Durham.

Jóhannsson’s score to the 52 minute film provides a moving account of the miners’ lives, simultaneously heroic and hardscrabble, with a rich brass and electronic-heavy texture. The music also harkens back to the colliery brass bands caught in the film’s archival footage. “

See the full article here, including “…a taste for the film from the film’s preview and this interview with Morrison and Jóhannsson discussing their collaboration.”

KEITH JARRETT – SOLO PIANO

“An Evening of Piano Improvisations
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 – 8:00 PM

CARNEGIE HALL
Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage

Keith Jarrett returns to New York’s Carnegie Hall on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 8:00 PM to perform one his rare solo piano concerts. The concert will feature an entire evening of solo piano improvisations.”

See the full post here.

While you are at it, check out these wonderful interviews of Keith Jarrett at WNYC.

An Hour With Keith Jarrett – Produced and hosted by Sara Fishko May 29, 2003

A Conversation with Keith Jarrett – John Schaefer, New Sounds PGM 56 April 13, 1987
Recorded at Keith’s home in New Jersey

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

Thursday, December 22, 2011

“Each Thursday at 7 pm this winter, stream Q2 Music for weekly Webcasts of new-music shows as recorded live at premiere venues around New York City. This week, the adventurous ETHEL String Quartet performs the eccentric, boundary-bending music of Dutch composer Jacob Ter Veldhuis.

ETHEL

A Reich-influenced Dutch composer with a political agenda, composer Jacob TV is in fact at home enough in the culture he satirizes so astutely to have won ardent champions among the highest ranks of American performers. His music is presented here by ETHEL, a celebrated post-classical string quartet that performs adventurous music of the past four decades, with emphasis on works composed since 1995.

The original webcast was the launching point for JacobTV on the Radio: an immersive 5-day festival that began March 17 and celebrated the music of JacobTV. Featuring introductions by phantom host JacobTV himself, hours of previously unheard pieces–from extensive European-only and private recordings of recent premieres, including his Piano Concerto No.2, Sky Falling, exclusive downloads and previous insightful appearances on WNYC, JacobTV on the Radio was an in-depth and far-reaching exploration of TV’s experimental sound.

JacobTV

This concert, hosted by John Schaefer of WNYC’s New Sounds and Soundcheck, was recorded live from Merkin Concert Hall on March 11th, 2010.”

See the full article here.

Three Delayed Webcasts of The New York Philharmonic’s New-Music Series CONTACT!

Clockwise from top left: Alexandre Lunsqui (Luiz Machado), Magnus Lindberg (Sara Vuorjoki/FIMIC), HK Gruber (Lea Suzuki)

“Q2 Music is proud to announce three delayed Webcasts Wednesday, December 21 at 8 pm, Saturday December 24 at noon, and Thursday, December 29 at 8 pm of The New York Philharmonic’s CONTACT! series featuring music by HK Gruber, Magnus Lindberg, and Alexandre Lunsqui.

This final CONTACT! program of 2011 features HK Gruber’s celebrated 1978 pandemonium piece Frankenstein!!, Magnus Lindberg’s Gran Duo for woodwinds and brass, and the world premiere of Alexandre Lunsqui’s Fibers, Yarn and Wire.

These concerts will be recorded live in-concert at the Metropolitan Opera (hosted by WNYC’s John Schaefer) and Symphony Space on, respectively, December 16 and 17, and will include interviews with the composers and well as New York Philharmonic conductor, Alan Gilbert. Full audio from CONTACT! will be posted on this page for a period of two weeks following the first Webcast.

See the full post here.

On Friday, December 2, 2011, New York Public Radio celebrated JS-30, 30 years of John Schaefer at WNYC. It was 30 years ago that John’s New Sounds program got going. In 2002, WNYC, moving away from daytime music programming to talk, called on John to keep music as a subject in the afternoon with Soundcheck.

You can view the video, just under 2 hours, here at the Soundcheck page for December 15, 2011. I hope you enjoy it.

This article is copyright protected, so just a couple of notes.

“…the world of young, inventive and often populist composers is exploding…These young composers may hold the key to classical music’s future, and the future they create might not be what you expect. Increasingly they have come to consider the machinations of the big-ticket musical organizations — and debates about how to get them to accommodate new music — as beside the point….”

This article is an in depth look at the new serious music universe. This universe includes the new composers themselves, their record labels (or the lack of them) and the venues which they find amenable to their musical pursuits. Among the labels mentioned are “…New Amsterdam, Cantaloupe and Tzadik, all composer run and stylistically freewheeling….” To this list, I might add Innova, from American Composers Forum, St Paul, MN.

Among the venues we find Le Poisson Rouge, Cornelia Street Café, Galapagos, The Stone, Issue Project Room, Roulette, all in New York City. Composers noted in the article include Nico Muhly, Missy Mazzoli, Du Yun, Judd Greenstein, Caleb Burhans, and Bryce Dessner. The only groups I saw noted were ETHEL and Victoire. But others which might have been included are ACME, ICE, yMusic, eighth blackbird, and itsnotyouitsme.

Not at all mentioned in the article (if I missed it, I hope that someone will correct me), is New York Public Radio’s 24/7 New Music web stream Q2. This stream takes these and other composers and musicians out to a wide world, with an international listenership. A stand-out at Q2 is the work of Nadia Sirota. She hosts a four hour program which includes several themes, e.g, Hope Springs Atonal. Her program streams at noon and midnight. Two other standout focused programs are Hammered! which is concerned with keyboard music, and The New Canon.Also important to the success of what has been called “New Music” are two programs on WNYC, New York Public Radio’s original outlet service. For thirty years, John Schaefer has been bringing new composer to the public on the nightly program New Sounds. For a somewhat shorter time, we have been able to hear them on John’s other program, Soundcheck.

Something that I personally would like to see added into the mix for New Music would be the advent of long form music videocast. The best examples I can cite for this are three videos produced by and for ICE, which were made available at Q2. Just to give one example, the music of Steve Lehman in a 46 minute video can be found here. I just actually searched this up also at Google Video here. Both of these examples are free to the public.But, I would personally like to see these videos made available at the music groups’ web sites, based upon a membership fee for a user id and password, and then some sort of fee, maybe $5 or $10 as a “ticket” price. This would greatly universalize the availability of musical experience to populations living no where near to actual concert events. To whit: ICE just did a heavily promoted concert in Chicago. But, I am in New Jersey. I might be very interested in that musical experience. So, if it were made available from a videocast archive, and if I was registered with ICE, I could pay a small “ticket” price and have that experience.

This is a huge and important article. The items I note as missing from the article do not in any way diminish its thesis or importance. See the full article here.

You cannot get more “today” than Ben Frost, member of Bedroom Community. What? You don’t know Bedroom Community? Check them out with the supplied link.

If Brian Eno is your guy, you are in good company.

Thanks, John, for 30 great years. I just caught PGM 2067, the 20th anniversary show, on my Zune. It used to be a lot of work to get those shows, recording them. Now, with RSS feeds to tell us what is going on, and downloads, it is a snap.