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Since 1940, WNYC's American Music Festival has provided a vital and much needed showcase for the domestic classical music scene. This year we continue the tradition, as hosts Terrance McKnight and David Garland curate the 68th annual AMF, featuring "America's Classical Music."

Weekday Evening Music host Terrance McKnight examines key figures such as Duke Ellington and Paul Robeson, and spins his own favorites from "America's Classical Music." Guests throughout the week include acclaimed jazz pianist Jason Moran, composer and musicologist Gunther Schuller; culture critic John Rockwell, and Pulitzer prize-winning composer William Bolcom.

Weekend Evening Music host David Garland launches the festival with a special edition of Spinning on Air, featuring Grey Reverend. During Evening Music, David spins orchestral Jazz rooted in European tradition, as well as the "American Primitive" tradition. Later in the week, maverick composer John Zorn contributes his own diversified conception of "America's Classical Music."

Sunday May 25, 2008

Monday May 26, 2008

Tuesday May 27, 2008

Wednesday May 28, 2008

Thursday May 29, 2008

Friday May 30, 2008

Join the discussion at the Evening Music Blog

Terrance McKnight: America's Classical Music
David Garland: American Music Video Festival

American Music Festival 2007

About the Guests

With his melancholy, muted vocals, modest stage demeanor and emotive finger-picking guitar style, LD Brown — a.k.a. Grey Reverend — makes compelling songs with reverence for the gray, undefined areas of style, and without concern for standard musical, social, or even racial expectations.

One of the most successful composers of modern times, William Bolcom has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, three Grammy Awards, and the Detroit Music Award. His one-act comic opera "Lucrezia" — described by the composer as "a zarzuela... as imagined by the Marx Brothers" — recently received its premiere at the New York Festival of Song.

Since his formidable emergence on the national music scene in the late 90s, pianist Jason Moran has become a leading light and a man to watch in modern jazz. In almost every category that matters — improvisation, composition, group concept, repertoire, technique and technological experimentation — Moran has challenged the status quo each time out.

Gunther Schuller, a Pulitzer Prize winning recipient of the Down Beat Lifetime Achievement Award and an inaugural inductee of the American Classical Music Hall of Fame, is widely known for his holistic view of music, seminal jazz history books, and his role as the father of the Third Stream movement.

John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. In addition to his jazz, improvised and contemporary music, Zorn has written music for documentaries, underground films, television advertisements and cartoons, and runs his own record label, Tzadik Records. His latest project, "The Prophetic Mysteries of Angels, Witches & Demons," was recently premiered by the Miller Theater at Columbia University.

Longtime New York Times arts critic and founder of the Lincoln Center Festival, John Rockwell makes personal sense out of New York City's wildly diverse cultural scene in his weekly podcast series for WNYC, Rockwell Matters.