Nadia Sirota

Nadia Sirota appears in the following:

Lenny at 92

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Leonard Bernstein was a man of supreme charisma and fantastic talent. A conductor, composer and educator, Bernstein was an undying advocate for composers, new works, new ideas, and th...
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Sax-Starved

Monday, August 23, 2010

For some reason, I’ve been late to the party on saxophones. I had a good, saxophone-playing friend in college who was so frustrated by what he termed “the musical limitations” of his instrument that I developed an ‘over it’ attitude towards an instrument I was barely familiar with. Ah the folly of youth! In the years since those heady, saxophone-prejudiced days, and as I’ve been slowly adding sax to my listening diet, I’ve come to a realization: I like the saxophone!

Comments [9]

The Q2 Awards

Monday, August 16, 2010

These shows originally aired the week of January 18, 2010. For the original show page click here.

A hot tip: If you ever find yourself in sophomore Music History class, arm yourself with the following information, as it can be referenced for approximately one-half of the questions on your mid-term.

Comments [2]

What's Up Chamber Music

Monday, August 09, 2010

These shows originally aired the week of January 11, 2010.Click here for the original show page.

New Music is flush with chamber music these days! Small ensembles of virtuosic musicians are popping up left and right. But how does an ensemble of saxophone, electric guitar, piano, and percussion fit into the classical canon?

Comments [3]

Video Crazy

Monday, August 02, 2010

These shows originally aired the week of February 1, 2010. Click here for the original show page.

There’s no doubt that electronics, indeed electricity has had a huge impact on classical music; the recording industry alone has revolutionized the way we play, interface with, listen to, and share music.

Comments [2]

Red White and Blue

Monday, July 05, 2010

Every so often, a week comes around which is sort of pre-packed with a thematic conceit; ergo, hey, it’s Independence Day! Let’s play American things! Well... we play a lot of American things anyway, so we figured, why not make this week’s theme a lot more esoteric, and infinitely weirder!

Comments [4]

Hurray for the Home Team

Monday, June 28, 2010

As a New Yorker, I must admit I am horribly lax about going to see orchestra concerts by the “home team” New York Phil. Perhaps I was unmotivated by the lackluster programming of the aughts, perhaps it was the… well, really, it was basically just that.

Comments [1]

Hot Town

Monday, June 14, 2010

Aside from hellish subway station climates, trash season, and solid walls of humidity, New York is pretty genius in the summer.

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Volcanoes, Scandinavia, etc.

Monday, June 07, 2010

I am so happy (finally!) to be back from my ash-extended hiatus. To celebrate (and partly to facilitate a smooth radio re-entry), I thought it might be fun to feature music by northern European and Scandinavian composers this week. Tuesday in particular is going to be a crazy ride, with 24 straight hours of Finnish music!

Comments [7]

Skál from Iceland

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

I’ve had quite the month. For the most part, I’ve been on a bus tour of Europe with the Bedroom Community label (Iceland). This label is unique in that the organizing principle is not really style or genre so much as quality, or interest or something.

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Battle of the Piano Titans

Monday, April 12, 2010

This week, to gear up for the launch of our new show Hammered, which will feature all sorts of fabulous keyboard works, we are focusing on colossal piano works of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Comments [3]

Speak Up

Monday, March 08, 2010

I’ve been fascinated with the idea of “speech melody” ever since I first heard Steve Reich’s Different Trains performed outdoors by the Kronos Quartet during one of many adolescent summers at music camp. There’s something hyper-human about re-contextualizing the basic cadences of speech into a melodic arc that struck me then, as now, as incredibly moving and, not coincidentally, communicative.

Comments [7]

Collaboration! And Meet Helga Davis!

Monday, March 01, 2010

So! I'm playing too much viola this week to host Nadia Sirota on Q2 (literally! Perennially a punch line, the word "viola" always threatens to suck seriousness out of sentences), but you are being left in the very capable hands of Ms. Helga Davis.

Comments [12]

Iannis Xenakis: New Music Rockstar

Monday, February 22, 2010

Iannis Xenakis was a brilliant composer who has an almost cultish following. When I was in college, mentions of the word Xenakis were often accompanied by Ozzy Ozbourne-esque fists of rock and tongue-waggling. Why would a post-war, Greek-French composer, mathematician and architect be the source of such rabid devotion?

Comments [8]

Just Us Folk

Monday, February 15, 2010

In my opinion, the influence of folk music on classical music is often underrepresented. Music History is taught as a linearly-evolving thing, perhaps diverging along French and German lines (Ned Rorem famously divided all Classical Music into “French,” and “German,” regardless of the composer’s nationality). There’s more to composers, however, than their arty predecessors.

Comments [7]

Dance Music

Monday, February 08, 2010

The connection between music and dance is maybe as old as the genres themselves. People were compelled to move from the minute rhythm appeared on the scene and compelled to make music since the inception of purposeful artistic movement. Weirdly, the daily lives of Classical musicians and dancers too often rarely intersect.

Comments [6]

Video Crazy

Monday, February 01, 2010

There’s no doubt that electronics, indeed electricity has had a huge impact on classical music; the recording industry alone has revolutionized the way we play, interface with, listen to, and share music. Similarly, the impact of electronics and electronic instruments on the composition of classical music has been monumental; in fact we are only just beginning to understand the possibilities of these new technologies.

Comments [1]

Composer Caleb

Monday, January 25, 2010

You may have noticed we've got a thing for composers over here at Q2. It was, ergo, really only a matter of time before we started our new Composer Intoduction series.

Comments [6]

The Q2 Awards

Monday, January 18, 2010

A hot tip: If you ever find yourself in sophomore Music History class, arm yourself with the following information, as it can be referenced for approximately one-half of the questions on your mid-term.

Comments [1]

What's Up, Chamber Music?

Monday, January 11, 2010

New Music is flush with chamber music these days! Small ensembles of virtuosic musicians are popping up left and right. But how does an ensemble of saxophone, electric guitar, piano, and percussion fit into the classical canon?

Comments [14]