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Getting to Know You
Welcome to Terrance McKnight's blog, where you will get to know Terrance and he'll get to know you.
Since this is my first week on the air, I'll share some things about myself so you can get to know me, but I'm equally interested in hearing about you. I hope you're listening to the show and I definitely appreciate you being here online. Let's talk.
About me: I'm a right brained guy who looks for the good in life and in people. While I respect and honor tradition, I really enjoy learning and experiencing the "new" new. I believe that a healthy mix of music is good for the mind — the soul and body will follow.
Last week on John Schaefer's show Soundcheck, I gave a short autobiography in musical terms, decade by decade. You can listen to the segment here:
From Mahalia Jackson to Osvaldo Golijov, I traced the story of my life through the music that helped shaped me. This week, my first week on the job, I'll be exploring the power of music to move us. Now, as we get to know each other, here's my question to you:What music moves you, or defines an important part of your life, or brings back strong memories for you?
Answer by clicking on the "comment" link below. I look forward to hearing from you!
— Terrance
Did you catch Terrance's first night on the air? If not, you can listen on demand to an extended excerpt below:
Comments
Welcome to New York, Brother!
Dear Mr. McKnight: Best wishes to you. I did not hear you on Soundcheck - so for the most part, this message is coming 'blind'. I am a classical music person - it informs my life everyday. ONe of the great disappointments of my life was that WNYC decided that this kind of music is evidently anathema to young, modern people. So I hope that, although I may find your stated purpose - to see the interconnections between different kinds of music - of great interest, I hope that it will not become a potpourri - a little of this, a little of that. Sometimes what one needs and wants to hear is the complete Schubert Quartet. Thanks.
Warm welcome from a cyber space listener.
My early musical memories are of laying in bed with the light out, turning my AM radio dial with infinite slowness, patience and delicacy in search of musical adventure. Riding a wave of Miles Davis, broadcast from out over Salt Lake City .. and a moment later catching Sonny Boy Williamson's harmonica sailing towards me from Chicago.
I lived in the barbarian wilds of North Idaho but hungered to know what was happening at the edge of the world, so at 13 I subscribed to The Village Voice.
Sixty five years later ... I still live near my old home , where cold , grey rivers flow from off the west side of the Canadian Rockies ... yet now days .. I read The Voice on line .. and listen to the murmurer of the WNYC stream.
Mr. McKnight:
Welcome. I look forward to your show.
Music, although not my professional pursuit, has always been in my life. Background, foreground and in between, it has informed the "times" of my life. Our taste may change or grow as we age but I don't believe we have to leave the past behind as we move forward. As the mother of a teenager - he sounds a lot like you in your youth - whose love of music is very important in his life, I have been propelled into rediscovering a lot of the music I had left behind (Led, Clash and the like)as well as new (Wooten, RHCP). And in turn sharing with my son the music that moves me, including classical, has been a bridge for us during these typically difficult teenage years.
From what I have sampled of your selections it sounds like inclusion of past, present and future genres. I am looking forward to hearing more.
Good Luck! Or is it suppose to be break a leg!
Best, Laura Nudi
Hey Terrance-
Just me again.
It is possible that in my first post to you I used language which could be considered offensive, and I certainly meant no offense. I hope that you will forgive any impertinence that you might have sensed on my part.
My only interest is in seeing WNYC become and remain the very best possible choice of music listeners, on FM, HD, and the internet. We have come so far with George and Brad an everyone else involved. It has been a total revolution which to me is greatness.
I quit memberships in three other PubRadio stations to divert all of my paltry member dollars to WNYC. This was a result of the work that was done to get us where we are.
Please know that I am on your side.
The internet allows us to reach for a global market for not just listeners, but members and their dollars. That is what I hope can happen.
There are so many boring music services just repeating each what is done by the others.
WNYC has been very bold and I only hope that this can continue and be successful.
Best,
RSM
It was the early eighties and I was listening to The Cure, This Heat, PIL and the like after growing up on classic rock. One day I was painting my parents house and I heard a Thelonious Monk birthday broadcast on WKCR. By the time I finished the house I was changed. Then Coltraine hit me and I was on my way. . .
Now it's Beethoven to Bessie Smith and back every day.
Welcome to one of my favorite radio shows. I'll turn you up if you TURN ME ON!
Hi Terrence.
Best of luck. My first introduction to the power of music was through the 1960's Chopin recordings of Artur Rubenstein, and still a higher peak of interpretation has not been reached. Soon thereafter I learned of the nocturne recordings on Ivan Moravec. I am now very much into the music from my part of the world like Marcel Khalife.
I look forward to listening to you.
Bon Chance!
I never listen to Evening Music, but I was so impressed listening to you today I decided to keep the radio on. I hope you can broaden the concept of classical to include our classical tradition in this country. I grew up singing spiritual and dancing reels as part of our public school education into the early history of our country. I miss learning more about what happened here. Welcome.
Greetings Terrance et al,
Like yourself, spirituals first moved me. The 'high mountain wail' of my mother's Appalachian's roots.
Getting involved in college radio brought me the late moderns like Divosak, an on to Cage and Glass.
Pleased I'll be spending my evening studying with you.
Glen
Welcome, Terrance! Great questions to begin with...
My earliest music memories are of early grade school trips to see Tchaikovsky's Peter and the Wolf, closing my eyes and experiencing musical storytelling. Those same years we would beg our music teacher to play Moonlight Sonata and Pachabel's canon almost daily.
In recent years, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Fox Trot defines the months post 9/11 for me, and perhaps much of my age group in NYC. It was spare, seeking, haunting, and ultimately hopeful -- and every track felt composed from elements of our lives right then. I think Jeff Tweedy continues to stay that immediate with his songwriting. Uncanny.
WELCOME, GOOD LUCK, I LIKE YOUR AGENDA, ESPECIALLY PLAYING SOME MILES DAVIS AND OTHER JAZZ ARTISTS. I' LL BE LISTENING
Welcome!
I studied classical piano beginning at age 5, but it wasn't until I heard and studied the Beethoven sonatas and Chopin nocturnes that I really began to love classical music.
As an adult, my tastes veer toward much more modern classical music. But composers who inspire me now are never or very seldom heard and are too rarely performed. I'm excited for a change on this program. Introduce us to new works and modern composers, and I think the classical music listening community will be reinvigorated and we'll see younger fans filling our performance halls.
Terrance, welcome to WNYC and NYC! Thank you for a wonderful sampling this evening of the magical array of music out there in the world.
I was lucky to have music as a thread throughout my childhood, and majored in music in college. The chance to exercise both sides of my brain, to sing amazing music from Beethoven to Britten to Bernstein and Boulez, and to collaborate with creative, interesting people has been the best part of my involvement with music. While I'm not doing music regularly any longer, sit me down in most any concert hall or jazz club or music venue and I can be moved to quiet tears by the beauty, focus and sound of music done well, from the heart.
Enjoy the adventure that is ahead of you...
Cheers!
Nancy C
I was kind of embarrassed for Leonard and his almost racist line of questioning of you today and for that I am truly sorry.
It seems you have a wonderful ear and through knowledge of music and already enjoy the comments and music you have played. Welcome to New York!
Dear Terrance,
Fantastic way to start your first Evening Music. Bravo.
What moves me: too much to list here by living and recently dead composers; but I will mention--just about anything by James MacMillan; into Peteris Vasks' choral music right now; Guy Klucevsek; Steve Reich, especially Tehillim; John Adams...I could go on....
What brings back strong memories: my mother was a pianist, and I wouldn't go to bed sometimes until she played certain pieces for me. One that I frequently requested was Handel's Harmonious Blacksmith; she also played Chopin, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, and others, and some nights she would go through a lot of repertoire before convincing me to go to bed.
Thanks for asking.
Welcome, Terence! I listen to WNYC every night while I paint, so I welcome you into my studio.
I like a mixture of classical music, leaning toward contemporary artists. Also love any sacred music, old & new. Looking forward to hearing your selections.
Welcome! I heard an interview with you today. I too love the diversity of music, and am looking forward to sharing your journeys.
My dad played David Oistrach's recording of Beethoven's violin concerto every Sunday for months when I was in elementary school. I ate up Beethoven after that. I grew up on opera, and learned to love jazz and contemporary music in college. The music I love most is the piece I am playing at the time.
I love comparison recordings. Just last night I listened to two amazing recordings of Der Erlkonig by Schubert:
1. Jessye Norman
2. Marian Anderson
Your program is sounding great already. All the best!
Cecilia
Welcome, Terrance. The way you opened tonight with the Mississippi a capella singer...fading into late a Beethoven piano sonata...has got to be the most beautiful opening to a radio music show I've ever heard. I just know I'm going to love your program.
Both of the pieces of music you played share one thing in common. They both have "duende." Duende is a Spanish word that literally means spirit or hobgoblin. But duende is also a word used in the world of flamenco to evoke the inspired soul that flames up sometimes in a performer.
"All that has black sounds has duende," said the poet Federico Garcia Lorca. He argued that Bach could have duende just as flamenco could.
Speaking of flamenco singing, he continued, "The duende is not in the throat, the duende climbs up inside you, from the souls of your feet...it is the mysterious power which everyone senses and no philosopher can explain."
I do hope you will be playing some flamenco on your program. I'm thinking especially of the great, classic Gypsy singers who came of age in a time when people learned to sing from their mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts and cousins--not from CD players. Check out the album "Cante Flamenco" by the singer, Chocolate (Ocora). And check out the Mario Bois flamenco series of great singers from "Le Chante du Monde," for starters.
I think these flamenco singers will perfectly fit in with the philosophy of your music show.
- Mona
Welcome to WNYC! and thank you for the Art Tatum early on!
I like an eclectic mix of music. I remember the first time I really "heard" the emotion Brahms can pack into his composition when I was listened to his second piano concerto!
I also like the sound of Anonymous Four and viola. Can you possibly play some of Kim Kaskashian's new album with selections from Falla's Siete Canciones Populares?
nice segway at the beginning......you seem to have an interesting mix on your show. i'll enjoy listening to you, i think. welcome to the area.
Welcome, we ( my wife & 10y/o daughter) enjoyed the the first selections while having dinner and unwinding. Really pleased to have you on board. Look forward a long relationship in the evening...............
Excellent start to what seems like it is going to be a marvelous show. One request: if you plan to embrace a kind of tasteful eclectic aesthetic, you gotta post a playlist somewhere - already I'm trying to find that David Lang track and having trouble!
Best of Luck!
Welcome.
I love your style - mixing a short story with the pieces you are about to play. It puts everything in context - the hostry background, the composer and the music. It provides a flavor of history to the raw music listener like myself, and helps a great deal in understanding the music. And I like the pieces you choose to play.
lots of luck.
Holly
Hi, Uncle t. its Me Ezra your favorite nephew.I love your music!!!!!!!!!! hope, to talk to you soon, bye.
GOOD LUCK 2 u
listening to machito ,tito puente, cal tjader were a big part of my childhood. Teenager years were HENDRIX,SANTANA,MOODY BLUES ,but as i llistened to santanas'WELCOME that led me to COLTRANE, MONK ,MILES et al. I promote the music every chance I get
ALWAYS LISTENING Dan
Welcome to the city that supposedly never sleeps! So far, you've been an enjoyable host. On your first day, you're already sounding like a veteran. I usually look for variety on the radio, so I'm hoping I've tuned in to the right temple.
Music that moves me: Zbigniew Preisner, Bach, Alfred Schnittke, Debussy, Charles Mingus, Chopin, Fiona Apple, Al Green, Pink Floyd, John Zorn...the sound of an orchestra, solo piano, free-wheeling jazz, chamber and sacred music, soundscapes, slide guitar....it's all aural medicine for my soul.
Welcome!
Great show - Evening music has been really great since Limor arrived - and you seem to be a great addition to the roster.
Conratualtions on a great start And thanks for giving local composers a plug!
Dear Terrance,
The W. Marsalis piece is monumental trivia. Not saying that it shouldn't be on wnyc but, please, someone else's show at some other time. It will drive me straight into the arms of wrti in Philly. In general I would avoid the pop and the lite. The John Adams now playing is ok.
Sincerely,
Lowell
A warmest of welcomes to you--I have been very much looking forward to your guidance and direction for Evening Music.
Music is the essence of life--atleast, in my view. Your question about what moves the listener reminded me of a moment when I first heard Henryk Górecki's Symphony #3 on New Year's Day in 1992--in L.A.--on KCRW
Transporting, it stopped time, yet once completed, made me feel I had lived a lifetime.
Again, welcome--
Hi,Uncle T. it is me Ezra your fav. nephew. one day could you make a shoutout to me and play my Mom and I like some....(soulful jazz). talk to you later,bye EZRA M.
Terrance
good luck with the new show. I'm only a recent convert to 'Evening Music' (new commute route), but think it's the best music show on radio, so I hope you don't change the mix too much.
The Brahms Alto Rhapsody from today's show is one of my favorites. There's a similar mood in the prisoner release scene from Beethoven's Fidelio.
Good luck
Glyn
sounds great terrance,
sounds like home.
This is the second time I am posting this inoffensive comment as the first time it was not posted. To see censorship already is a shame.
I was kind of embarrassed for Leonard and his almost racist line of questioning of you today and for that I am truly sorry. It seems you have a wonderful ear and through knowledge of music and already enjoy the comments and music you have played. Welcome to New York!
Hello Terrance,
Your musical juxtapositions are so interesting and pleasurable. As with other elements of WNYC, it is like nothing else on radio or any other medium. Thanks. I wish you a warm welcome to WNYC and the metropolitan area.
I will be listening and commenting further.
Maggie Feczko
Bravo on your new program! I am listening from the snowy wilds of Maine thru the internet and am enjoying your show very much. I like the mix, from Prokofiev to Art Tatum, and Ellinton to Adams.
I grew up on rock 'n roll, but have unexpectedly developed a love for Bach. His music connects to jazz (another more recent passion) in so many ways that I hope you may choose to explore.
Best of luck!
You asked what works caused us to fall in love with music. For me, it was Bach's E major violin concerto when I was 14. It takes me right back to my turbulent, excruciatingly intense adolescence (50 yrs ago). If you can keep up the level of the brilliant music you have picked for your debut evening in NY, you will have a great following here. Thank you for introducing me to great music I haven't heard before. (It doesn't happen often enough.) You have chosen terrific stuff. Is there anything better than the Ops. 109 - 111?
Welcome to NYC.
Welcome Terrance!
Thanks for bringing your studied and teaching experience to Evening Music. This broadcast is the bedrock of my painting time each day, and the wonderful range of expressions in your beginning show is lushious. I hear your alert ear and your large heart already. I'm especially keen for the 20th / 21st century classical material and highly imaginative interpretation in the performances of everything else. I loved hearing (earlier in the day) how you felt when young about the power of improvisation. I'm still feeling that edge with you. You belong here, for sure. Ciao! T
What a moving and stimulating debut - thank you! May I ditto BobbyD's request for a playlist? I can hardly contain my excitement for the rest of this show and all those upcoming. Thank you for coming to NYC and for putting together this stellar show. We are all enlightened for your contribution.
Justin
I'm in central Connecticut. Sadly, I can't get the WNYC signal, as I would love to hear what you're doing without being tethered to the internet. Any chance you could syndicate the show & get WNPR (the Hartford station) to pick it up? You may use me, a longtime member and supporter of NPR, for a reference. Of course, that and $2.79 will get you a small mochalattafrataliachino.
Memories: My parents had a couple albums in rotation back in the late '50's / early '60's that I think has been labeled "Tiki Bar" music.. infectious stuff. Also, Gordon Jenkins and the soundtrack to "Manhattan Towers" was played so often, I can sing every tune from memory. You might explore this long-forgotton masterwork that was strangely influential and popular in the postwar period. Also, I never understood Mitch Miller. Can you explain? It was their stuff, and it influenced me to rebel in every possible way.. yet I still have Gordon Jenkins in my head.
Anyway, Best of luck!
Mark
Hey Terrance-
Earliest influences/ Classical. My dad built up a very nice collection of standard repertoire from Beethoven on up through maybe Sibelius.
[Now, I have my own collection, much of his re-constituted on CD. I did it in a short time.I did not realize what i had done until it was about finished. (But I move on up throught Copland, Bernstein, Adams, Glass, Reich, Taverner).Then, I went and visited the house in which I grew up just to see that music room. The owner was quite cordial.]
Next, in the 60's, Sid Mark and Joel Dorn on WHAT, a 24 hour Jazz station in Philadelpha. Miles, Nancy Wilson, Low Rawles, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck,you know. I have always needed some source.
Then, The Man: John Schaefer. New Sounds eleven hours a week. Reich, Glass, both Adams, Terry Riley, Bang on a Can, Part, Gorecki.
Today, Marvin Rosen at WPRB, and Philip Blackburn at Innova (American Composers Forum).
And now, maybe Terrance MnKnight.
Giuseppe di Stefano has died. Obit on the Guardian website posted recently.
A memorial?
How about a piece from one of the partnerships with Callas
Un Ballo perhaps
Greetings to you
Well, so far you are a welcome breath of fresh air. Highlights this evening have been watching my daughter dance in the kitchen to Dvorak, and the interpretation of Pachelbel's canon.
I am young, 36, for a "classical" music audience, and happy to have a mix: journeying musically from one place to the next. I want to hear new music too, but I'll change the station if the dissonance of "challenging" modern composition starts making me see spots.
I want to be moved, intrigued, and find beauty on the radio. Welcome to NY.
Your program this evening has been great, and I'm looking forward to more. I hope you will give good representation to chamber music -- in the broadest sense, music performed by one or a few -- in whatever century it was written. So much incredibly beautiful music has been written for small groups -- some of my favorite composers are Gesualdo, Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Schoenberg, Bartok, Shostakovich, Eliot Carter. I especially like string quartets and piano sonatas, but there are many other wonderful works.
Welcome Terrance! Thoroughly enjoying your premiere show! Thank you for such a delightful selection and I look forward to many more evenings with Evening Music like this one.
Hey,
Love the show - the music sounds fresh and new. I heard you last week talking about Andre Watts and I was so psyched. In 1985 I was in a school in Italy and he visited our little music class and played for us. It was the beginning of my interest in this fabulous, take you away from life music.
Our family moved the NYC area a year ago (We're originally from the South Side of Chicago) and since then my 10-year-old son has been listening to Evening Music.(Trust me I was not this type of kid) He's even more excited by it now that he knows you're new to town too. We're rooting for you and your first night was a great hit for my boys - 6-8 and 10. They all loved the first hour's music. These guys also love Kanye West and Green Day so high fives to you!
Welcome!
Stop with the drumming!
A warm welcome to you Terrance,
Jazz. Bless you. You join a world-class crew in the WNYC music department, which I treasure and listen to almost exclusively for their knowledge, taste and insight of the ancient to the avant-garde. With just one glaring gap, it has seemed to me: America’s great music born of our African and European roots. Beethoven & Tchaikovsky, yes! David Lang & John Adams, absolutely by all means! And now, damn, there’s Art and Duke!
When I was young I heard the Chorus of Priestesses from Mussorgsky’s Salammbo and still find it to be some of the most achingly sublime music I’ve ever heard.
Now you just put on Arvo Part’s Fratres. I’m on board!
all the best to you
Chinese water torture
Dear Terrance McKnight,
Welcome to New York and to WNYC. I hope you will like it here.
I learned about Morehouse College only a few years ago. The local art museum where I work had a wonderful exhibion of "Artists From Historically Black Colleges". Some, in fact most of the art was extraordinary. Since you graduated from that school and taught there, it gives me somewhat of a "link" to who you are. It must be a fine institution.
I enjoyed hearing you on the Lopate Show and ESPECIALLY tonight. The LAGQ made the Pachobel Canon really listenable (word?) to me for the first time...ever. I also loved the John Adams piece.
I have always enjoyed David Garland. He has an extraordinary "radio voice" and has always has had an interesting program. I hope you will invite him back to read from "Edgar Allen Poe" on Halloween! Best wishes for much success.
Hey T,
i listen to hours and hours of music in my art studio out in red hook,..a lot of radio, i am psyched to hear you,..... right now into Prokofiev, heard johnny gandelsman and francesco schlime perform a piece by him at barge music..i cant remember at the moment what it was, any way it torched my mind. Lit it up.... and yes, look forward to hearing your inspired world... i am usually psyched when new sounds comes on... i can tell.. you travel through there too... this is first time i have participated in something like this.. no apology for my informality
most, Andrew
Dear Mr. McKnight;
Welcome to WNYC. You have a fascinating perspective on music and I look forward to being entertained AND challenged by you.
I think that you will find us WNYC listeners a lively bunch; sometimes too opinionated, often argumentative, but rarely boring. We are also curious, adventurous, and passionate. Somehow, I think that you will greatly enjoy this gig!
Recently, I discovered Lou Harrison’s Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with Javanese Gamelan; I commend it to you. There is a wondrous interplay between the Western (perhaps I should say European) harmonics and this form of South Asian music. The sonorities weave in and out of each other and produce a joyous new world.
Best wishes,
Tony
You go, bro! What a debut - from variations on The Entertainer to the Brahms-Schumann story and then Brahms music to the drums that just blew me away - I'm so glad I can hear! Usually evening music is background music - I've lots to do after work. Lately I've throught about switching to another station - something about the selections was jarring me, causing physical discomfort - but the problem was that I don't know where any other stations are. Then I heard you - I won't touch that dial!
And I never write to the media - magazines, newspapers, TV, radio - I just vote by tuning it out or turning it off - they'll never miss me since they didn't know I was there. But you got my attention - thanks for informing and moving me. I'll keep listening if you keep playing
Hi Terrance,
I tuned in just before the interpretation of Scott Joplin, which caught my ear, and I've really enjoyed everything so far, especially the Brahms, Adams, Part, and Reich.
In the past, I've been most moved by the Romantics -- my favorite record as a teenager was William Kapell's recording of Chopin's Piano Sonata no. 2. But I'd actually like to hear less of that kind of music and more contemporary classical, jazz, and other genres. I'm young (25) and have a lot to learn about music outside of or on the margins of the classical canon.
I turn on the radio to hear something new -- if I wanted to listen to something I already knew, I'd put on a record.
Welcome, and thanks!
Welcome Terrance!
I'm a music lover through and through. I play the clarinet, teach middle school band, and listen to lots of different stuff. I also love NY and the radio, and I'm SO glad you're on the air. You're a refreshing voice and I hope every evening of music is as innovative and creative as this. Thanks so much for tuning into the younger demographic and what we like to hear.
Welcome again!
Eileen
#31 just wanted you to know that your comment about Leonard's "racist line" is posted TWICE. So much for "censorship".
Terrence.
Loved your musical choices. Congratulations and welcome to New York City. I look forward to hearing more of your terrific musical selections.
Jimmy
Dear Terrance McKnight,
The Reich was somewhat like multiple mantras -- beautiful -- and meditative! Thank you for the selection from Miles'/Gil Evans' Sketches of Spain.
I've enjoyed listening this evening!
Welcome to New York! Although I live in Rochester, NY (6 hours North), I tune into WNYC as much as possible. The quality of the programming is simply outstanding. Mr. Lopate is my favorite! So far this evening, I have enjoyed your show, 'Evening Music' and plan on making it part of my weekly routine. Please note that, but for the fact that I had not came across an article in the New York Times about your new career with WNYC, I would not have known about this particular program and your new home. Needless to say, I'm very impressed and look forward to your insight and musical wisdom. Congratulations and best of luck!
Hi Terrance,
Welcome to New York. I wish you a smooth transition into the Evening Music slot. I've really enjoyed this evening's program so far. The opening mix, the Reich, Miles, Arvo Part, all terrific. My experience with Evening Music in the past is that it can be - on occasion - somewhat disjointed, full of interesting music that often doesn't mesh well or create a sense of the musical continuum that I think you're looking for. To my mind, WNYC's undisputed master of context, continuity and compelling compositions is David Garland, whether on Spinning On Air (one of the finest music programs I've ever heard) or on the weekend Evening Music. As such, I would encourage friendly competition between the two of you to see who can provide more "hmmm...wow" moments. I look forward to the battle.
Good luck!
Christophe
Brooklyn
I don't usually listen to WNYC after 7pm. Today, I did. And I'm so glad. I LOVED what I heard. It's flowed and felt new and exciting.
Welcome. You are an excellent addition to our city!
Great first night! I really enjoyed your mix of music, the Philip Glass piece, "Persephone" and rendition of "The Entertainer" especially. Welcome!
hi Terrence,
I was looking forward to hearing your show, I knew it would be good after hearing your intro during the week prior to your first night. I have been a fan of New Sounds for twenty years. I was a professional dancer and worked with a variety and wide range of musicians and artists. I too have eclectic taste in music. I grew up in Detroit in the 60's and went to a performing arts high school near MoTown. I also was a ballet dancer by training and loved classical music. I lived in Europe as a teen and Colorado( I love bluegrass and old time music) as well as Kenya, where I studied music and built an Oud.
Enough about me, your selection was great! You are a welcome addition to WNYC.
Thank you
Mary Ann Willoughby
Ace, right to the voice off. Bravo! Good blog-points too by the whole enso. So, here:
McKnight's Pavane
That door of daring... leads uncomfortably
out from the silken cavern.
We are more than crickets for enjoyment.
It has no saying. ...oh, and
no need of any languor
The query, yes, echos
before the keener vigor's focus,
and ---dizzy--- intimate lifts our certainties away.
We are more than food for the moon.
Fearless yet never without the full fear....
Relentless, even where there's no reliable ground...
And that's the point-turn, uji, wily, the only home.
TACJ Grace Spire Carillon, Manhattan
Hi Terrance Welcome to the Apple. Literally, as that's what we call our monster city and as I'm listening on my Imac. Anyway, your approach to music programming is well placed and needed in this era of the Ipod shuffle. I think that there are a lot of us out here who will
enjoy leaping genres with you on the good old radio. There is such a world of wonderful music available to us and I've always found that the appreciation of one kind inevitably leads to the appreciation of another. Its all about opening one's ears to the similarities and learning to love the differences. I'm with you. Mash it up and smile! I have appreciated WNYC's recent opening up to contemporary music and your show sounds to be an interesting extension. My first vinyl by the way was Sam & Dave's greatest hits that I bought with money from my paper route way back when.
Welcome, Terrance!
I enjoyed your show tonight. Except...so disappointed that you cut the Steve Reich short. Were people complaining? I felt totally gypped!
Terrance-
Several very important recent influences for me come from the internet.
I am probably going to need to do this in more than one post because of the 1500 word limit.
The American Mavericks series from Minnesota Public Radio is still a treasure trove of material. There are over 75 interviews which one can listen to or record with .mp3 recording software. I got them all and put them on my .mp3 player for listening when I walk. So, now I know about Harry Partch, Conlon Nancarrow, George Antheil, Glen Branca, just everyone.
Innova has made it possible to buy Partch in .mp3 at Amazon!! Ain't that just the cat's pajamas???
I got all of Kyle Gann's essays for the series and all of the text intervews and made them into a book which I keep with me for doctors' offices and airline lounges. Now I listen to Kyle's "Post-Classical" stream on Live365.
I also listen at Live365 to Counterstream from the American Music Center and three of Innova's streams on Live365.
At Innova, Philip has also produced two series of downloadable podcasts, "Measure for Measure" and "Alive and Composing". There are over seventy interviews of people currently working in the field of music.These interviews are just fantastic.
The MTT files from the San Fransisco Symphony are another treasure. Just listen to MTT about him and aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. Or his hour with James Brown!!
That's it for now, let us hear from you.
Welcome aboard. Listened to your entire program on Monday evening. Loved Steve Reich's
1936 composition, Drummings (?). Love to hear more minimalist music, including Philip Glass.
Loads of luck on your new assignment.
I loved your promo today, and that's the reason I'm listening right now! Finally music criticism has made sense to me: both Gustav Mahler (I forget which work) and Miles Davis create the same mood! More, more. Teach us more. Thanks.
My mother was a nyc school principal. On winter weekends, while we did housecleaning,mom would play Prokofiev's narrated version of Peter and the Wolf.She wanted us to learn the sounds of the various instruments. I was very frightened by-but old enough to be fascinated by the ability of the muisicians to make sounds that could evoke my emotions. Mom was first generation American, her parents immigrated from Haiti after WWI. Dad was the son of Jamaicans who came around 1912 and met in NYC. My parents were raised in Harlem during the Depression. Their's was considered a "mixed" marriage, as was their taste in music. Mom would play recordings of her native Haitian music, which was very instrumental-lots of brassy horns and mournful guitars perfect for dancing,she would translate the lyrics for us while teaching us to follow the rythmns. My parents would have these fantastic parties,in our suburban home-we would sit atop the stairs peering down at the blue smoked living room filled with dancers swaying suggestively to Haitian compas mambo or having deep conversations in the wee mornings listening to Sam Cook,Sarah Vaughn, John Coltrane and Billie Eckstine. Ma loved Billie Holiday and had all of her music on those heavy scratchy sounding records. She played lots of Billie's music. I remember her playing over and over Holiday's "Southern Trees Bear Strange Fruits" and she explained to us what it meant. The sound pictures could be political too, and this she also taught us.
The music you played last night was beautiful. I especially liked David Lang's piece (hope I have the right name) in the sense that it was a piece of music that was thought provoking and allowed me to make my own montage of images and memories as I listened. Mostly I find that music without words best shapes this experience for me. I happen to be a fan of classical music and a favorite piece of mine is a piano piece by Chopin whose name I always forget! But-if you've seen the movie Sneakers with Robert Redford, you've heard this song when Mary McDonnel's character is teaching a child piano. It's a complex song, very fast and at times, the piano sounds more like other instruments, such as a violin, than it does a piano. I've heard other piano pieces like this-where the piano transforms into a trilling bird or an orchestral stringed instrument and they sometimes have an otherworldly feel to them (provided that they aren't Flight of the Bumblebee-ish!) than places me in another time or place.
Thank you for playing music that moves you. Your show was wonderful last night.
When you merged Mahailia Jackson into the Beethoven piano sonata my ancient heart cracked open as a seed in Spring and the tears flowed.
Stay with your intuition .. be playful, poetic ... let us journey together for years and years and years.
Will you have a playlist posted so we can find the works you air?
Hey Terrance!
Nice job last night. I missed part of the show, and I found the playlist here: http://www.wnyc.org/music/playlists/2008/03/03
Looking forward to tonight's show.
Thanks for all the music,
C
Hey Terrance-
If I run over the word limit I will split this up.
The music I heard last night was really terrific. I did not get to hear the whole show, but what I heard was stuff I have never heard before, the Beethoven, the Prokofiev. They are not what I normally choose myself, well, maybe the Prokofiev "Romeo & Juliet"
You played a very nice David Lang piece. He is I believe part of Bang on a Can. I know the station has another Bang on a Can piece, Decasia, by Michael Gordon. I would love to hear that repeated.
More than just the music, you had what I call "Presence". You were "in the room" with me. I think that is very important. That's how Jim Jacobs sounds, and George, when he pulls an air shift, and one of the temps, Marsha Young also.
I am disappointed that so many of the comments are local. I read down through the whole list, maybe I read too fast.
continuation
Radio for me has always been the Great Teacher of music. I do not play any instruments myself. I used to joke that my instrument was a Fisher 500C vacuum tube receiver.
I buy I lot of music. I believe in supporting living composers. I hope that others are buying music and supporting living players and orchestras, but for me it is composers.
My current paradigm is to listen to WNYC, or WPRB, or a stream at Live365. If I want what I hear, I jump over to Amazon and buy the mp3 album. I think that WNYC's Evening Music and WNYC2 feed right into that paradigm. That is how I happened to buy Decasia.
And, so far, Terrance, this 'blog"is all us. I, for one, would like to hear from you.
BTW, my email address is quite available to you any time you want it. You can tell me you agree or disagree wirth what I write, You can tell me to go away, whatever.
>>RSM
Hi Terrence,
Such a breath of fresh air last night to hear your program! very glad you're aboard and taking us to some different sonic places. While I could have done without the Reich, I was delighted to hear some vintage jazz, along with the LAGQ (Loose Canon - what a hoot!). How about an Abdullah Ibrahim retrospective?
Personal favorites include Manuel Barrueco; Linda Thompson; Miranda Cuckson; Emmylou Harris; any good ensemble, solo performer or choral music (I sing with Cantigas Women's choir). It's exciting to have real surprises to look forward to each evening - thank you!
Terrance,
Let me first say your WNYC debut was wonderful. I dig the back story as well. As an artist myself, I can't help but be enamored and intrigued by the different forms and styles of music. Whether Beethoven or Basia, Ray Charles or Radiohead, music is a timeless expression of culture, life and art. I look forward to hearing more exposure of diverse musical genres. Stevie Wonder put it best saying, "Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand."
Here are a few of my favorites. Perhaps they'll make it on the show someday: Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", J.S. Bach "Organ Fugue in G minor", Dave Brubeck Quartet "Blue Rondo a la Turk", Henry Mancini's "Dreamsville", Quincy Jones' Donny Hathaway's "I Love the Lord He Heard My Cry" (not a classical piece, but the arrangement is amazing).
Look forward to more.
-JO
I love what I've heard so far. Such interesting music. And by playing "Django," you earned a place in my heart forever.
Welcome to WNYC! Really enjoying your broad-minded approach, and looking forward to hearing more of your show as time goes by. My strongest musical memory: hearing the Moonlight Sonata for the first time when I was about eleven. It made me cry.
Welcome!
I'm going to go a bit off topic for a moent, just to address your debut, forgive me....
We typically listen to WNYC in our kitchen as we prepare dinner, taking in all the news from All Things Considered. The radio stays on as we eat in the next room, and continues on as we all drift to different parts of our apartment (me, my husband, our two young daughters and two cats). We leave the radio to play on in the kitchen for a while. We have a comforting friend when we return for snacks or drinks throughout the evening.
I've often found myself snapping off "Evening Music" lately, as it veers off into something I just cannot tolerate. I'm young and fairly open minded, music wise, but too often the discordant sounds from the radio have made me just fli pthe switch in dismay.
Until last night, your debut.
I returned to the kitchen for a glass of wine around 9pm and was just entrhalled by whatever was on the air at the time. I'm afraid I can't name it or describe it (something Latin, perhaps?) but it was JUST RIGHT, both for my mood and for the time of day and I stood in the kitchen for a few mintues.
I didn't snap off the radio, I just soaked it up and smiled.
Thank you, Terrance.
Welcome to NYC.
I loved that first Mongolian piece. I usually turn off evening music, but your combinations are keeping me listening.
Thank you.
Looking forward to more.
Marcel Khaliffe (pronouned Kha lee feh) is a Lebanese composer and singer. Trained in the classical Arab music tradition as well as the European one, his music is elegant and poetic.
I hope you will indeed play his music on the show-
I'm enjoying the music and just wanted to encourage you to play more from different traditions around the world. How about some Afro-Cuban drumming, like Mongo Santamaria? How about some Latin American music from the Nueva Cancion movement? -- The voice of Victor Jara, who was from Chile. And flamenco.
The important thing is to be true to the soul, the duende of music. A little bit of the Philip Glass and Steve Reich stuff goes a long way. And I bet most people would agree that John Cage will not be necessary. We need more lyricism in this world, don't you think?
Welcome. Great stuff so far - Prokofiev, Bartok & Tatum and it's only night 2. Best of luck to you, but I'm afraid you're going to need it. For some inexplicable reason NYC is a bad town for good music on the radio, and it has been for a long-long time. Even, maybe especially, WNYC has been to my way of thinking all but unlistenable since they got rid of Steve Post & Sarah Fishko. They seem to play what passes for music for its hipness value rather than because anyone actually wants to hear it. A couple of weeks ago someone in your slot played just the first movement of the Op 131 quartet! Really, I swear it happened! Both inexplicable and unforgivable.
I let my subscription lapse, but I'll renew it - gladly if you make a go of it. Forgive my skepticism, but watch your back. I don't know what kind of deal you cut, but if I were you I'd think long & hard before signing a long term lease on your digs.
Imaginative interpretation... not enabling the boundaries, but opening the boundaries with the sugar and the crowbar... some wicked acid now and then. Some that's telluric, some celestial, some for the hips, and some for the zafu.
Lyric is good,[ref comment #84 Mona :)] ..oh that a human vocalized on the line of the cello. Mmmm hmm. and when time's open for John Cage "prepared" AWAY FROM standard, we will feel sharply alive to John's famous comment "Get out of whatever cage you're in." (from Indeterminacy).
Keep including; maybe don't stop including. Gorecki.. ah. Ligeti.. ah yes! Taverner too. Throw nothing away. The edge is what's alive. Bring on the boundary-shifters, the bluegrass breakdowners, the sufis, the wine-raked rends! Oud, kalimba, intemperate gamelions. Tan Dun's marginally tuned stones. Spectrum is for wide. And Caribe-fusion lifting the evil so it cures all blight. Wide is really an unthinkably big thing. And then the ear is new.
And what can arrive when the ear is new?
Y'all know this already, right? It's a revolutionary project. Ciao, T
Welcome! Your choices are refreshing & your voice is soothing. I was introduced to music in elementary school, where I sang Christmas carols over my grandfather's objections. Simultaneously, I learned Hebrew liturgical melodies and Yiddish lullabies. And my mother listened to her favorite baritones on Sunday radio programs while I played dominoes with my brothers. My first huge Wow came when I heard Beethoven's Fifth Symphony at age 15 on WQXR. I was hooked, and 60 years later, I'm still hooked on classics of all eras and cultures. One tiny correction, if you please. Ligeti is Hungarian, so his name is pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable. Forgive this old English prof for the fussiness (a word containing a Hungarian pun), but I can feel that you're dedicated to clarity and accuracy. I look forward to spending many evenings with you.
Tom (86) has it pretty right.
The motto recently has been "500 years of non-generic classical music". I don't want to say anything negative about any other writers on this "blog", so, I will say who I like to hear, in no particular order.
These are the people on whom I have spent money: Glass, Reich, Gorecki, Arvo Part, Sir John Tavener, Olivier Messiaen, John Adams, John Luther Adams, Keith Jarrett, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Modern Jazz Quartet, Ramsey Lewis,Bill Evans, Atlantic 1380 (figure it out), Pat Metheny, Paul Winter, Mark O'Connor, Gurdjieff/deHartman (the Cecil Lytle 6 CD set), Terry Riley, Carl Orff, David Darling, Brian Eno, Greg Brown, Lisa Gerrard, Eleni Karaiendru,Peter Micahel Hamel,Edgar Meyer, Bela Fleck, T-Dream, Jean Michelle Jarre, Alan Hohvaness, Schoenberg, Cannonball Adderley, David Diamond, Daniel Lanois,David Del Tredici, Edgar Varese, George Antheil, Conlon Nancarrow, Harry Partch ( O.K., some of them are dead), Gregorio Allegri, Hans Otte, Herbie Hancock, Ingram Marshall, James Newton Howard, Joe Zawinul,John Coltrane, John Zorn, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Michael Gordon, Paul Winter,Robert Moran, Stan Getz, T-Monk, Traffic, Weather Report.
Everybody I learned,I got from radio.
To me, that is the mission of Music Radio.
Let the music breath. It's alive. When it ends, count to three (at least) before you say anything. Relax, you're doing great.
From your first 2 shows, I like your music sensibility & what you seem to be trying to do. Keep crossing boundaries! But you committed a NO-NO tonight, that was a big turn off, at least for me & my wife: You broke up the wonderful Bartok Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta to talk about its use in movies. Interesting, but better to have said it before or after the whole piece. Not a reason to break it up. Very jarring when the last movement didn't follow on the previous. I hope you mostly play complete pieces, though you may sometimes have reasons not to. But WHEN you do, PLEASE do NOT break them up. Let them play thru as intended. But otherwise, KEEP CROSSING BOUNDARIES! Good luck!
Dear Terrance,
Welcome to NYC.
Very impresive opening for your first show.
Great to be able to enjoy listening to Evening Music again
Reggie
I am so happy that you have come to Evening Music. After a day of working in the city, I have to have music that feeds my soul and instead, the music that used to play would often give me PAIN. So much atonal music, back to back! Now with your rich palette of beautiful and juxtaposed music, not only can I keep the radio on past 7 but even my 16 year old daughter likes your music! Plus, your voice is great - you sound like you're just next door. Keep up the great work!!
I loved the Mahalia Jackson a cappella pice you opened with. What is the name of it? thanks
Very disheartened that only three responses are from out of the area. Two from one person in Canada, one from Maine.
When I heard infomercials before your show started I wondered—Is he gonna be good? Now I just heard some Kathleen Battle and some guitar and other stuff and I got some goose bumps. Either you have good ears or we have similar ears…whatever it is, thanks and keep it up.
To help correct the situation noted by Richard Mitnick (Very disheartened that only three responses are from out of the area. Two from one person in Canada, one from Maine), I sent the following note to my global list:
Okay – I’m a fan. For those looking for terrific radio, he rules! Recently hired by WNYC from Atlanta, he will be exploring the New York Music scene
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/eveningmusic/episodes/2008/03/05
Tell your friends!
I just got in the car around 7:30pm today (3/5) and heard a violin piece that very much reminded me of my dad who died ten years ago next month. The piece and composer escape me and there was no announcement at the end. Could you tell me title and who composed it? It reminds me so much of my father and I would like to play it for my children who never got to meet him.
Hey Avery-
You are the Man!! This is what we need. And, you and me in an interchange!!
I have been living on this list the last few days. It has been mostly very nice people saying very nice things to Terrance, no one responding to anyone else.
If you, or anyone else sees something to which he or she can respond, then let's get it on. Let's have some fun.
If you like John Cage, tell me, why on earth you like him. I recorded all of 24:33. I kept the archival stuff, John's interviews. etc, but none of the rest.
Tell Terrance what you like, what you don't like. I listed all of the living composers on whom I have spent money. Find it, look at it, tell me why I am nuts on one or another guy.
Who heard the MTT series? What did you think of the hour with James Brown?
How about the American Mavericks series? Who heard it? Who read any of Kyle Gann's essays? They are still there. You can even grab off some of the music, the Antheil, the Varese, a bit of Partch.
Let's have some fun.
>>RSM
Welcome to the wnyc community and I am loving your take on things already. Evening Music is a part of my household, a beloved part, and I have a little story to tell. Ten years ago, when I was first married, my husband and I often got into tangles after dinner and the evening music often set the scene of our arguments-we'd get to a tense place and the music seemed to mimic us! We dubbed it the "screech hour", more to describe ourselves than the music, but... Well now Evening Music is our evening soundtrack and you've added beautifully to the range of our musical evening. I'm a huge Segovia fan so I hope you'll go down that road. I think it is great that you are out and about in NYC checking out the live music here-exquisite, right? Get to Zankel-great stuff there. Joe's Pub too. You are in such good company. Have fun.
Heimovitz as Hendricks. Sharp thought.. The treasury is evidently open for the taking.
Over and over that kindly humor can't be denied. Nowhere for a rogue or demon to hide. :)) Gut Danke. Ciao. T
Welcome!
This show has a great history and after 3 nights I can tell that wnyc found a jem in you.
I have been hit with a bought of the flu for 2 of your 1st 3 days so I've been captive and happy to have been so. On Monday I thought you were blowing the top off and testing our staying power with the John Adams works. I was expecting Barber's Adagio for strings, which I love but it's a bit much after all that excitement, so I was happy for the restraint after all.
I hope that you get a chance to delve into all NYC has to offer a southern gent. I highly recommend NYCBallet they are the best!
God speed and Welcome.
pk
Hello again,
I just tuned into your show again tonight, Wed March 5th. and again I am loving your mix. I also heard your clip(interview with Leonard). I love John Adams, love what you pointed out also. I was at an artist retreat in northern California when he was there writing a piece which he called "Light" When I heard it for the first time after leaving that retreat, I could smell the redwood forest and see the fog rolling in and that light that shone over this land. This place is called the Djarassi Foundation and it is in the hills just above Santa Cruz. The music completely captured the essence of that place and time. I will never forget it.
Thank you for your work and inspiration
Mary Ann Willoughby
This thread is closed.
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