Hosted by Q2 Music regular Nadia Sirota, this final concert of the 2013 Look & Listen Festival boasts the talents of Claire Chase, Svet Stoyanov, Phyllis Chen, Cuddle Magic, Sybarite5, and the Momenta Quartet.

The second night of the 2013 MATA Festival features experimental multimedia presentations that integrate new-music composition with elements of visual and performance art. The evening is hosted by violist Nadia Sirota.

Q2 Music recently presented a live audio webcast of the Danish art-rock trio Efterklang and the Wordless Music Orchestra from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Listen to the full concert.

So! The good news is that I'll be hosting two brand-new shows that will debut later this fall. The bad news is this is my last week of regular hosting hours. I'm gonna miss our regular time together each week, but will be back soon in new radio clothes!

When faced with a particularly lovely set of circumstances, say an amazing meal in an amazing place, a close friend of mine is wont to exclaim, "I have The Pleasure. " This is a pleasure not in transition, it's an instant, almost a location of total contentedness. Sometimes you are able to kind of back up and notice loveliness.

Last week we talked a little about jockishness in music, while sort of casually mentioning beauty. Maybe this topic is too nuts/obvious/irksome, but what are the categorical elements of composition? In addition to the sports of performing difficult material and gut-wrenching beauty, what are the constituents of a plush musical idea?

Over the past few days, my obsessive Olympics-watching has been mostly gymnastics-focused. Watching these young human people execute the virtually impossible in an extremely high-pressure situation is RIVETING. I think there's DEFINITELY some element of this in our love of virtuosi. 

I was so excited when Alarm Will Sound asked me to sub with them in Missouri for two weeks for their annual Mizzou New Music Summer Festival. In grand summer camp tradition, we have the crazy luxury of rehearsing together for six or seven hours a day for two weeks.

For me, a serial weeper from a long line of weepers, curtain calls are perhaps the most consistently moving element of performances. Works of art that address the behavior of a crowd or manipulate the very way in which masses of people move in space or react to something or even each other are compelling to me, even if they sometimes make me uncomfortable.

Inspired by The New York Philharmonic's groundbreaking "Philharmonic 360" show, Nadia Sirota presents week of music in which a sense of space, or "spacialization," is as crucial to the performance as the music itself.

Probably as a result of sitting on the couch at age twelve or so for HOURS soaking in music videos from MTV and VH1, music and video will forever be tied together for me. From a quick glance across the landscape of new music promotional materials, I know that I am not alone in this connection. Classicalmusicvideos (I’m inventing a German word for them) are more and more common, and they’re getting really, really good!

One of the more provocative concepts introduced to me by a music teacher in my youth had to do with the Hungarian language and accent patterns in the music of Bartok. This week we consider whether a composer's spoken language affects his/her musical language.

Living legend Elliott Carter discusses his musical legacy, including his recently premiered commission at the Met Museum with Nadia Sirota, who also offers recordings of past CONTACT! performances.

This has been one of the raddest years for me in terms of travel, as well as one of the weirdest years yet in terms of time travel. I've spent more days on planes this I ever have before, and as such more hours in suspended animation, more hours in a rosy, unplugged, in-between state which demands the consumption of novels and movies and music and snack boxes. Traveling playlists, in my experience, are best when slightly comfort-tinged.

The path from student to "professional musician" is notoriously poorly-paved. Composers, vocalists, instrumentalists and songwriters have supplemented the early stages of their careers with everything from arts admin to (in Philip Glass' notable case) plumbing and taxi driving.

Nadia Sirota checks in from her tour of Australia with a week of music inspired by the sounds of the natural world.

A child of the MTV generation, music and video will forever be tied together for Nadia Sirota. This week on her show, a look at pieces that have either been adapted visually or incorporate a visual element in performance.