wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

On Demand

Program Schedule

Topics

New Sounds Archive

  • 1998
  • Jan
  • Feb
  • Mar
  • Apr
  • May
  • Jun
  • Jul
  • Aug
  • Sep
  • Oct
  • Nov
  • Dec
  • 1997
  • Jan
  • Feb
  • Mar
  • Apr
  • May
  • Jun
  • Jul
  • Aug
  • Sep
  • Oct
  • Nov
  • Dec
  • 1996
  • Jan
  • Feb
  • Mar
  • Apr
  • May
  • Jun
  • Jul
  • Aug
  • Sep
  • Oct
  • Nov
  • Dec
  • 1995
  • Jan
  • Feb
  • Mar
  • Apr
  • May
  • Jun
  • Jul
  • Aug
  • Sep
  • Oct
  • Nov
  • Dec
  • 1994
  • Jan
  • Feb
  • Mar
  • Apr
  • May
  • Jun
  • Jul
  • Aug
  • Sep
  • Oct
  • Nov
  • Dec
  • 1993
  • Jan
  • Feb
  • Mar
  • Apr
  • May
  • Jun
  • Jul
  • Aug
  • Sep
  • Oct
  • Nov
  • Dec
  • 1992
  • Jan
  • Feb
  • Mar
  • Apr
  • May
  • Jun
  • Jul
  • Aug
  • Sep
  • Oct
  • Nov
  • Dec
  • 1969
  • Jan
  • Feb
  • Mar
  • Apr
  • May
  • Jun
  • Jul
  • Aug
  • Sep
  • Oct
  • Nov
  • Dec

December 2007

Pre-empted

Monday, December 31, 2007

Pre-empted by the Garrison Keillor Holiday Special.


December 2007 New Releases

Sunday, December 30, 2007

John Schaefer picks through the bucketloads of CDs that have flooded his office to find a sampling of new releases worthy of showcasing in tonight's New Sounds program. Listen for some ambient chamber music from Mico Nonet and music from the late Hans Otte. Plus, something from a new Fripp & Eno collection and a new track by Christopher Willits and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Maybe all of these, and definitely much more.


New Celtic Music

Saturday, December 29, 2007

For this New Sounds program, there’s a helping of Celtic music from the non-compromising traditional band Altan, named after the deep and mysterious lake behind Errigal Mountain in Donegal. The group was born of a combination of old Donegal fiddle music and unusual Northern flute tunes and later added a bouzouki-player a guitarist, a second fiddler and an accordion player. Their sound benefits from a deep knowledge and love of other music, as well as Irish, ranging through rock, blues, jazz and country to classical. Also on the show is the most recent record by Canadian singer Mary Jane Lamond – “Storas” (treasures.) Lamond elegantly delivers Scottish Gaelic ballads using modern instruments and progressive arrangements driven by the desire to let the songs breathe. Plus, music from the huge and expressive voice of singer/songwriter Susan McKeown, not just a Celtic singer, but an interpreter who can easily bridge into folk, rock, pop and blues. All that and a whole lot more.

» Vote in this year's New Sounds Listener Poll!


BOAC Marathon 2006 Highlights, Part 3

Friday, December 28, 2007

Listen to highlights from the 2006 Bang on a Can Marathon, recorded live at the World Financial Center. Hear music by David Lang performed by cellist Maya Beiser and the percussive delights of Gamelan Galak Tika. Also, music from the piano-insider Michael Harrison, and the violin-manipulator Todd Reynolds. This is part three of a three-night series.

» Vote in this year's New Sounds Listener Poll!


BOAC Marathon 2006 Highlights, Part 2

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Listen to highlights from the 2006 Bang on a Can Marathon, recorded live at the World Financial Center. With Alarm Will Sound, performing its acoustic arrangements of electronic music by Aphex Twin and John Adams. There’s also music from the electronic duo Matmos (whose aluminum rap sheet includes organized sound sources from crayfish swimming, human skulls, cards shuffling, and liposuction), joined by hardware-store lurking instrument-builders So Percussion. Plus music by the Icelandic string quartet Amiina making stunning music with water-glasses, table bells and musical saws. This is part two of a three-night series.

» Vote in this year's New Sounds Listener Poll!


BOAC Marathon 2006 Highlights, Part 1

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Listen to highlights from the 2006 Bang on a Can Marathon, recorded live at the World Financial Center. Hear the one-of-a-kind 10-string guitar madness by Dominic Frasca, along with the heavy punk-folk of the Tuvan throat-singing band Yat-Kha. Plus, there’s the Italian chamber-music group Sentieri Selvaggi, and Michael Gordon’s Weather Ensemble. This is part one of a three-part series over the next few nights.

» Vote in this year's New Sounds Listener Poll!


Christmas with John Fahey

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

For this New Sounds, listen to Christmas music from the late guitarist John Fahey. An iconic figure on the American guitar scene, Fahey’s albums included several collections of alleged and recognized Christmas music. We’ll hear selections, plus a live performance from the New Sounds archives.


A World Music Christmas

Monday, December 24, 2007

Hear traditional and contemporary holiday songs from the Arab Christian, Irish folk, and Medieval European traditions. Look for a very familiar tune about a guy in a red suit coming to town, as delivered by the Bahamian guitarist Joseph Spence, and perhaps a dark lullaby about berries and breadcrumbs for supper from the Swedish group Triakel. Plus, Orthodox carols of the Nativity Feast from Estonia, Russia and the Ukraine, and perhaps a sampling of Christopher Rouse's Karolju, inspired by both traditional carols and Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana." And much more.


New Music from Spain

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Mainly new music from Spain fills this New Sounds program. Listen to the flamenco blend of the unconventional cross-pollinators, Son de la Frontera. Their pounding flamenco footsteps over thundering guitars toes the line of Spanish-based traditions, and mixes in beats and melodies from Cuba, Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela. Also, there’s electroacoustic music from self-confessed musical alchemists Radio Tarifa. This trio draws from a wide variety of folkloric traditions: Castillian, Andalusian, Japanese, with diversions to Renaissance music just to keep you guessing. Plus, the “terrifyingly good technique” of Juan Martin (according to the Spanish paper El Mundo) as showcased in some medieval-inspired flamenco. And much more.


Winter Songs

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Almost no one’s favorite season, and yet it has inspired lots of evocative new music, including works by Aulis Sallinen, Wendy Carlos, Glen Moore, Edgar Meyer, and Dino Saluzzi. New Sounds goes deep freeze for this hour with music by David Byrne, the Modern Mandolin Quartet with Edgar Meyer, and perhaps Ralph Towner as well.

»Vote in this year's New Sounds Listener Poll!


"Path of Miracles" Live

Friday, December 21, 2007

From the New Sounds Live concerts at the World Financial Center, hear the US premiere of Joby Talbot's extraordinary choral piece, "The Path of Miracles," for chorus, viola and bells. Judith Clurman conducts the Talbot Project from this performance, recorded in November of 2007.

»Vote in this year's New Sounds Listener Poll!


Covering the World

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Listen to the bossa nova bounce of Nouvelle Vague’s latest collection of 80’s and post-punk music all-done up on this edition of New Sounds. Perhaps you’ll recognize their versions of songs by Blondie, Echo & the Bunnymen and the Buzzcocks. Then Tuvan singer, electric guitarist and experimentalist Albert Kuvezin and his punk band Yat-Kha re-interpret tunes by Joy Division and Iron Butterfly, among others. Plus, The Yoshida Brothers, a shamisen duo, perform an arrangement of Brian Eno’s “By This River.” And we sample some acoustic renditions of David Bowie in Portuguese by Brazilian pop heavyweight Seu Jorge.

»Vote in this year's New Sounds Listener Poll!


New Music from Japan

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

This New Sounds offers a sampling of new music from Japan, with music for the koto (Japanese zither), biwa, Shomyo choir, and more. The young koto and shamisen virtuoso Yoko Reikano Kimura, plays Katsutoshi Nagasawa’s piece, The Pleiades. Also, there’s new music by Ushio Torikai, a large work called Sonbou no toki, for Buddhist Shomyo choir, and features a poem intoned over the chanting monks. Plus, hear solo koto music by Chieko Mori written in a new scale based on gagaku, ancient music of the Japanese imperial court.

»Vote in this year's New Sounds Listener Poll!


New Americans: Central Europe

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Listen to works by vocal gymnast Theo Bleckmann and composer Michael Hoenig (both are American-based musicians originally from Germany). Also, German chanteuse, actress, painter, and as of late, radio host Ute Lemper — along with something from guitarist vocalist, composer and orchestrator Leni Stern.


Eye of the Frog

Monday, December 17, 2007

Take an orchestra, add Hawaiian guitar, electric piano, Tang dynasty poetry, and a liberal helping of virtuosity on the bass clarinet, and you’ll have “Frog’s Eye,” the latest release from clarinetist/composer Evan Ziporyn. Ziporyn is a co-founder and member of the Bang On A Can All-Stars and the Artistic Director and founder the American gamelan called Gamelan Galak Tika (resulting in some 25 years of experience with Balinese gamelan.) On the eve of a Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall concert of his “attempt at ancestor worship,” a musical homage to forbears Stravinsky and Woody Herman in a work called “Big Grenadilla,” he joins host John Schaefer to present selections from his first CD of orchestral works.


Cross-Cultural Sampler

Sunday, December 16, 2007

New Sounds offers some cross-cultural music spanning the traditions of several different continents on this program. There’s delicate Arabic-Andalusian folk rock by Algerian singer/songwriter Souad Massi, with some flamenco underpinnings. Also, listen to danceable Persian-inflected worldtronica from Niyaz - a trio of vocalist Azam Ali, instrumentalist Loga Ramin Torkian and producer/mixer Carmen Rizzo. Stay put, (if you can) for the Romanian gypsy horn madness of Fanfare Ciocarlia, 12 musicians (horns, trumpets, clarinets and timpani) who are masters of intricate rhythms and dizzying speeds. Plus, sample from Congotronics, Vol. 2, where more heavily-distorted electrified thumb pianos, more DIY amplification are joined by an array of buzzing drums, swirling guitars and hypnotic balafons. It’s the most recent collection of traditional trance music to come from Kinshasa.


Mostly Acoustic Indie Chamber

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Can you imagine a show where you hear violas, french horn, trumpet, bassoon, stand-up bass, organ, guitars, drums, xylophone, steelpan, accordion and typewriter all together in the same hour-long program? Well, just give a listen to the adventurous music of several hard-to-describe jazz/classical/experimental/post-rock ensembles on this New Sounds show. First off, we’ll peek at the most recent Clogs record, Lantern, an intimate song-based affair. Also, there’s music by the Bell Orchestre. (For those keeping score, it could be worth noting that Clogs includes guitarist Bryce Dessner and violist Padma Newsome from The National, and Bell Orchestre features The Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry and Sarah Neufeld.) Plus, listen to lyrical jazz-ish folk chamber music by Gato Libre, with an unusual combination of trumpet and accordion anchored by guitar and bass. There’s also music by the Australian combo Coolangubra (it’s Aboriginal for skull of kangaroo), slow-core electric guitar dreamy rockers Slow Six, and more.


New Music for the Concert Hall

Friday, December 14, 2007

The Warp Record label’s glitch-tronica and the avant brow-furrowing sounds of contemporary musical heavyweights lock horns in a symphonic smack-down for this New Sounds. From a recent two-disc compilation of concert recordings by the London Sinfonietta - Warp Works & Twentieth Century Masters - we’ll hear arrangements of electronic music by Aphex Twin, paired with prepared piano music by John Cage. Now, the London Sinfonietta is not the first group to take on arrangements of music by Aphex Twin (Richard D. James.) This so-called Intelligent Dance Music has also been tackled recently by the new music band Alarm Will Sound, who eagerly exploited this intersection of classical and electronic music on “Acoustica.” Although the London Sinfonietta’s sound is a bit more stripped down, it is still just as engaging and subversive. Plus, music by John Adams and Steven Mackey.


New Sounds Live with So Percussion

Thursday, December 13, 2007

From the New Sounds Live concert series at the World Financial Center. So Percussion plays the US premiere of "Fratres" by Arvo Pärt in a new percussion arrangement, and the New York premiere of a 10-part cantata for percussion by Paul Lansky.


Arid Africa

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Music inspired by the arid regions of northwest Africa is the focus of this New Sounds program. We'll hear desert blues from Tinariwen's latest effort Aman Iman. Plus, there's music from Randy Weston & Master Gnawa Musicians, Justin Adams, Susan McKeown, and more.


American Primitive

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

“American Primitive,” the guitar-style associated with the late John Fahey, blends folk, blues, classical and Eastern music. We’ll hear a few examples on this New Sounds from Fahey’s Takoma label-mates, with new reissues from Robbie Basho and Harry Taussig, and music by guitarist and storyteller Leo Kottke as well. Also, we’ll tap into a new generation of pickers, like Shawn David McMillen, Jack Rose, and Kaki King, among others.


25th Anniversaries for Two

Monday, December 10, 2007

Vocalist/composer David Hykes joins New Sounds to mark the 25th anniversary of his landmark recording with the Harmonic Choir, "Hearing Solar Winds." Hykes has mastered overtone singing known as Harmonic Chant, the skill developed by Tibetan monks and Mongolian nomads that allows them to sing low and high notes simultaneously. The one-time New York-based ensemble, the Harmonic Choir, now resides in France, and by February of 2008, there will be a new US-based Harmonic Presence Foundation home base in Sag Harbor, New York.


The Indonesian Reach

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Hear some traditional and pop music from Indonesia, and the music it’s inspired on this New Sounds program. Dip into music by the Canadian-based contemporary gamelan group the Evergreen Club, along with some rare cuts by E. Koestyara and Group Gapura. Plus, listen to the singer Idjah Hadidjah, as accompanied by hand drums, gongs, and mallet instruments, from a Nonesuch Explorer CD. There’s also music that makes liberal use of gamelan orchestra by Lou Harrison, Evan Ziporyn, Patrick Grant, and more.


New York Guitar Festival Sampler

Saturday, December 08, 2007

On this edition of New Sounds, listen to highlights from the biannual New York Guitar Festival Marathon, including performances from Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz (on electric and lap steel guitar, respectively) and Brazilian music from the Assad Brothers. Plus, listen to music from flamenco player Dennis Koster, guitar designer and new music arranger Dominic Frasca, pawnshop-style guitarist Ed Gerhard, and more.


Just Intonation

Friday, December 07, 2007

Guitarist John Schneider and percussionist TJ Troy perform live works that draw on Asian and Near Eastern music, and on alternate forms of tuning. Schneider (also a Los Angeles radio personality) uses a guitar that features a tuneable fretboard for various types of Just Intonation. Incidentally, Lou Harrison (1917-2003) wrote his last guitar piece for a National Steel guitar, custom fretted in Just Intonation. For this New Sounds, we'll hear Schneider and Troy perform some music by Lou Harrison, and more.


New Americans: Latin America

Thursday, December 06, 2007

We focus on works from Latin America, including music by Argentinian-born Osvaldo Golijov. Also, music from Brazil by pianist/composer Marcelo Zarvos and guitarist/composer Sergio Assad, along with something from composer and Teaching Artist for the Third Street Music School Settlement Raimundo Penaforte.


The End of Cinematics

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Mikel Rouse, the composer of interdisciplinary multimedia works like “Failing Kansas” and “Dennis Cleveland” presents his most ambitious work to date, “The End of Cinematics.” The work reflects on the way corporate entertainment has transformed the art of cinema, and combines live performance with original music and video/film. Also, Rouse presents some of his latest works, like “International Cloud Atlas,” music he wrote for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, along with the brand new, “Love at Twenty,” and more.


European Keyboard-based Music

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Listen to some recent releases of keyboard-based ensemble pieces with electronics on this New Sounds. We'll hear from England's Max Richter, Belgium's Eric Mertens, Italy's Ludovico Einaudi, and more.


Twittering Machines

Monday, December 03, 2007

On this edition of New Sounds, experience music driven by a relentless pulse. There's music by the "superminimalist" and "machinist" Lithuanian composer Rytis Mazulis. His work, "Twittering Machines" is computer-controlled mechanical piano organized into dense layers whose insistent rhythmic patterns gradually shift over time. Then, listen to "AC/DC," from a brand-new CD by the Italian new music group Sentieri Selvaggi. Plus, hear a work by electronic music innovator Morton Subotnick for chamber orchestra and computer based on a surrealistic novel by Max Ernst - "The Key to Songs."


New English Pastoral

Sunday, December 02, 2007

There’s music in the English “pastoral” tradition on this edition of New Sounds. Some 30 years ago or so, after the success of “Tubular Bells,” the newly-financially liberated composer Mike Oldfield retreated into the English countryside to make more music. We’ll hear a work infused with serenity, Mike Oldfield’s second masterpiece “Hergest Ridge.” We also sample "15 Wild Decembers" by Geoff Smith, a compilation of songs using texts by 19th-century poets (including Shelley, Emily Brontë, and Keats), all of whose lives were cut tragically short either by illness or suicide. Plus, Michael Nyman’s music from the Peter Greenaway film, "Drowning by Numbers" rounds out the show.


Meredith Monk Live II

Saturday, December 01, 2007

From the New Sounds Live concert series at the World Financial Center, hear the second half of a two-part tribute to vocalist/composer Meredith Monk, concluding her 40th anniversary season. Listen to “one of America’s Coolest Composers” along with her vocal ensemble as they perform excerpts from Book of Days, Atlas, Volcano Songs, and others. Hear a world premiere of an arrangement of “Lonely Spirit” for clarinets, along with other instrumental works. Plus, listen to Ms. Monk performing her classic “Gotham Lullaby” at the piano.