New Sounds will be pre-empted for continuing Special Coverage of the devastation caused by superstorm Sandy.

New Sounds will be pre-empted for continuing Special Coverage of Hurricane Sandy

New Sounds was pre-empted for Special Coverage of Hurricane Sandy

Composer/guitarist John Schneider brings his microtonal guitars into the studio, to play his “Tombeau for Lou Harrison,” on this New Sounds.  Also, there's music by Lou Harrison for just intonation guitar, inspired by the Baroque era.

Hear some Icelandic electronic chamber music with a delicate undercurrent of minimalism from the young Olafur Arnalds on this New Sounds.  The rest of this Northern edition of the show includes music from Norway and Sweden, and more from Iceland.

For this New Sounds, hear some electronic music  by two German composers, both dealing with Light.  Karlheinz Stockhausen's Licht (Light) is a cycle of 7 "operas" - one for each day of the week.  Freitag (Friday) begins with an hour long electronic prelude and concludes with an hour long electronic postlude.  We'll hear excerpts from both the Friday Greeting and the Friday Farewell. 

 

Savina Yannatou, Spaccanapoli, and Enzo Avitabile reinterpret regional folk songs for this New Sounds program.  Also, cellist Giovanni Sollima creates an Italian version of Minimalism.  Plus, Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble reinterpret a medieval Italian song as world music.  And more.

Sample music from many "indie classical" musicians and composers on this New Sounds, from people like Ted Hearne, Missy Mazzoli, and Christopher Cerrone, to name a few.  Listen to Cerrone's spacious piano work, "Hoyt-Schermerhorn," as performed by pianist/composer Timo Andres.  Then there's a piece from Andy Akiho, who has composed a number of works featuring steel drums.

Listen to compositions for electric violin on this New Sounds program.  We'll hear Nico Muhly's Seeing Is Believing, a concerto for electric violin, which features the Aurora Orchestra and Thomas Gould on electric six-string violin, Also, we'll hear music by John Adams from his work, "The Dharma At Big Sur" - "Sri Moonshine" for electric violin and orchestra. It's an homage to the beat poets and to minimalists, like Terry Riley, with its Eastern-tinged strings and shimmering suspended chords.  Plus, other works.

For this New Sounds show, listen to the Afrobeat party band Antibalas, formed in 1998 and modeled the outfit after the late great Fela Kuti's Africa 70 band.  The Brooklyn-based music collective just released a self-titled effort, the first in five years, featuring the track below, “Dirty Money,” on the heels of their run as house band for the Broadway musical, “Fela!”  

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling, from some pretty weird places.  Prepare to be overwhelmed with new music for for one – or more bagpipes on this New Sounds. Listen to strange and unusual mixtures of bagpipes with jew’s harp and balafon or with Brazilian carnival percussion on David Watson's release "Skirl."

For this New Sounds, we'll hear music from the unexpected and irresistible collaboration between Richmond, VA's Fight the Big Bull (9-piece avant jazz band), and San Francisco-based songwriter/ composer/musician (with a background in hymn singing) David Karsten Daniels, "I Mean to Live Here Still."

For this New Sounds, we’ll sample liberally from the latest recording from Moroccan-born singer Amina Alaoui, called “Arco Iris.”  It’s a pan-Mediterranean blend of flamenco music from Spain, fado music from Portugal, Arab-Andalusian music and Brazilian choro, linked by jazz and a night in Tunisia.

Hear fingerstyle guitar music with a wash of drones - "Psychedelic Appalachia"- from steel string shredder Daniel Bachman, whose latest effort is the full-length “Seven Pines.” His playing has evoked the names of both John Fahey and Robbie Basho, in both the technicality and the emotional depth.  However, it’s actually the late fingerstylist Jack Rose to whom he has been most often compared in that Bachman also relocated from Fredericksburg, VA to Philadelphia and the American Primitive guitar spirit runs strong in him.

Hear music made with tape loops, digital loops, and/or digital delay on this New Sounds show, with works from Ingram Marshall & Moby, along with a dreamy guitarscape from Evan Caminiti.  Caminiti, who is also one half of twang flecked drone duo Barn Owl, reins in the twang and ominously increases drone on his most recent effort, “Dreamless Sleep.” 

In the wake of the recent passing of Mike Waterson, we’ll explore a whole treasure trove of music by various generations of “folk revivalists” with bleak ballads, poetic lyrics and close harmonies, including some brushes with other “folk royalty.” Plus, we’ll sample from various folk traditions, new arrangements of well-known folk tunes, extensions of folk traditions, and more.

There’s a new collaborative album of music by Michael Harrison for cellist Maya Beiser, called “Time Loops,” and for this New Sounds, the innovative cellist joins us in the studio to present selections from the record.  “Michael’s music is perfect for our times,” states Maya Beiser. “It’s architectural and precise, yet exhilarating and beautiful. It draws on music from ancient Greece and the Renaissance, Indian ragas and minimalism.” That, and more.

From the New Sounds Live concerts at Merkin Hall, hear the second part of a program of new art songs, including works by Ed Pastorini and Gabriel Kahane , two gifted New York singer/pianists with an unusual approach to the song form.

Hear a baroque pop-leaning commissioned work, "The Other Side of Zero" by composer/songwriter Elizabeth Ziman, leader of the pop/rock trio Elizabeth and the Catapult on this New Sounds.

For this New Sounds program, listen to a suite of pieces by Caroline Shaw, a member of the vocal ensemble, Roomful of Teeth. All of the movements in her suite are named after baroque dance forms, how J.S. Bach and other baroque composers might have done.  Hear those forms echoed in the music of Paul Lansky, and Ralph Towner, along with lute player and composer Rolf Lislevand, and the late Englishman Jon Lord. And more.

"Post-classical Chamber Music" might be described as music that grows out of the “Classical” tradition but strips it down to the bare essentials. We’ll hear from the Belgium-based composer Sylvain Chauveau with music for piano and a couple of strings.  Also, listen to music from the Italian pianist/composer Ludovico Einaudi, along with something from the German composer Max Richter’s record “memoryhouse.”  Plus, new music from Christian Frederickson and the late Jason Noble (formerly of Rachel’s), for a live performance/video installation, called “The Painted Bird (Part II): Amidst.”

To mark what would have been John Cage’s 100^th birthday, New Sounds and Q2 Music have been presenting a 1994 series of rare in-studio recordings and interviews with the composer - "John Cage: City Circus," what we thought to be thirteen programs worth.  Except that when we went digging through the archives, we could only come up with twelve.  So here, after many years, and in this John Cage centennial year, is the missing 13^th installment - a new show to complete the series. 

We’ll hear the re-shaping and reworking of centuries-old music on this New Sounds.  From New York composer Charles Wuorinen, we’ll hear some of his very early works (from 1962) - pieces recomposed and reworked from a German cathedral Songbook – three of the six of his “Bearbeitungen uber das Glogauer Liederbuch.”

Influenced by Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett (without the moans), Portuguese jazz pianist and film score composer Bernardo Sassetti brings the surrealistic and ethereal to the trio setting.  We’ll hear from his latest release, “Motion” on this New Sounds – maybe an arrangement of Sparklehorse , or perhaps Federico Mompou.

For this New Sounds, hear some music by electric guitarists (and multi-instrumentalist MacArthur Genius John Zorn ) for other instruments…like saxophone quartet!  The Swiss sax ensemble ARTE Quartett plays music by John Zorn from their brilliant record, Different Worlds, which also includes music by Terry Riley, Lebanese composer Rabih Abou-Khalil, and arrangements of Swiss folk songs.

For this New Sounds, we’ll experience some sonic and at times, spiritual atmospheres, including ambient music, and other works that might invoke the “m” word – “minimalism.” From Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, we’ll hear some spiritually cast works, sometimes labeled (much to Pärt’s dislike of the term) “holy minimalism.” Listen to his atmospheric and soaring “Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, from a new recording by Canadian violinist Angèle Dubeau& the 12-woman (11 strings, 1 piano) ensemble La Pietà.

For this New Sounds, hear a work by Michael Harrison, called "Hijaz."  The composition features the Young People’s Chorus delivering vowels, South Indian rhythmic and tabla syllables, and a universal prayer as the text.  Together with new music heavyweight/adventure cellist Maya Beiser, the versatile composer/percussionist Payton MacDonald (Alarm Will Sound, Super Marimba), and the composer Michael Harrison on just-intonation piano, the new work is intended to invoke a sense of pilgrimage.

For this New Sounds, we'll dive into music from South America, with much of it from Brazil & Argentina.  We’ll hear some selections from the compilation from the Red Hot organization: “Red Hot and Rio,” Vol. 2,  including music from Caetano Veloso, remixed by Prefuse 73, David Byrne with Caetano, and Beirut performing a Caetano song, "o Leaozinho."

Drummer Dave King (he of the Bad Plus) is also a pianist, and he leads the Dave King Trucking Company, his "Americana project." It's rock-based jazz married to traditional American folk music, or at least classic Nashville sounds of the '60s and '70s.  We'll sample some of this record - "Good Old Light" on this New Sounds. 

Dustin O’Halloran is an American pianist/composer based in Berlin, whose approach to solo piano music is geared to avoid being lumped into either the buttoned-up classical tradition or the vapid noodlings of new age.  He has developed an introspective, cinematic, perhaps “post-classical”/”post-rock” sound, which feels atmospheric, emotive and melodically direct.

For this New Sounds, listen to Tristan Perich's 1-bit electronics together with Mariel Roberts' cello for a driving, hypnotic, and exhilarating work, “Formations.” Roberts, although still in her 20s, tests the limits of contemporary cello technique (cello as percussion instrument, working with looping) in the repertoire she chooses, from works by Kaija Saariaho to the works commissioned for her release, “Nonextraneous Sounds.”