On Demand
Evening Music
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John Adams
The Small Scale Minimalist
Before bursting onto the scene with large-scale orchestral works like "Harmonium," John Adams experimented with minimalism on a smaller (yet no less intricate) scale. We hear an example with one of his early piano works, "China Gates."
China Gates
In the late 70s, Adams was trying to develop a style outside of the powerful influences of John Cage and Arnold Schoenberg (as far as Adams was concerned, they had similar approaches: "making compositional decisions by consulting the 'I Ching' did not seem all that far removed from making them by consulting a tone row.") Two of his piano works written at the time, "Phrygian Gates" and "China Gates," employ a repeated cellular structure (think minimalism), but are extremely complex underneath their seeming simplicity — using a modal tonality that takes its structural inspiration from (believe it or not) Johann Sebastian Bach.
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Festivals and Specials
Listen on demand to our online archive of music festivals and specials, where you'll find a treasure-trove of stimulating conversations, opinions, reflections, and of course, great music!
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Ear to Ear
Ear to Ear takes innovative musicians off the New York stages and into the studio for relaxed, insightful conversation, as they share their personal recordings with host David Garland.
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The Mostly Mozart Festival on WNYC
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This year's annual Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center is rife with sounds stretching the spectrum of Requiems, Metamorphoses, and Passions — including the American premiere of composer-in-residence Kaija Saariaho's tale of the sufferings of French mystic Simone Weil, who died of starvation in protest to the Nazi occupation of Paris in 1943.
Deerhoof/Metropolis Ensemble Live Webcast
Evening Music
WNYC and NPR Music team up to bring you this live webcast from the Prospect Park Bandshell, which pairs indie rock sensation Deerhoof with the progressive Metropolis Ensemble. Presented by Celebrate Brooklyn! and Wordless Music, and hosted by David Garland, the program features an ambitious re-imagining of Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, The Rite: Remixed.
Related Links:
Video: Deerhoof fans perform leaked track for WNYC
View photos from the concert
Deerhoof on Spinning on Air (March 18, 2007)
NPR Music
Metropolis Ensemble
Deerhoof
Celebrate Brooklyn!
Wordless Music
Listen on Demand to more Wordless Music Concerts
Wordless Music
Concerts on Demand
WNYC presents web-exclusive concerts from the Wordless Music Series, hosted by Radio Lab's Jad Abumrad. Devoted to the desegregation of musical boundaries, Wordless Music pairs rock and electronic musicians with more traditional chamber and new music performers, to create an entirely new concert experience.
2008 American Music Festival
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Hosts Terrance McKnight and David Garland curate the 68th annual American Music Festival, featuring "America's Classical Music." Guests include LD Brown a.k.a. Grey Reverend; acclaimed jazz pianist Jason Moran; composer and musicologist Gunther Schuller; culture critic John Rockwell; new music guru John Zorn, and Pulitzer prize-winning composer William Bolcom.
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