New Sounds of Old Americana

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Listen to old Americana recordings woven into tapestries of new music on this edition of New Sounds. There’s music by Moby, David Byrne and Brian Eno, and a brand new arrival of music by Chris Becker. Becker’s latest, "Saints & Devils," is a ten-part suite -inspired by rural blues, gospel and Cajun music- which uses samples from the Alan Lomax recordings, live instruments and processing to create a unique texture of sound sculpture and words. We’ll listen to parts of Becker’s suite along with A. Leroy’s work "Handa Wanda" for three saxophones, whose interlocking rhythms suggest New Orleans Mardi Gras drumming. And, of course, much more.

November 2008 New Releases

Friday, November 28, 2008

It's that time of the month again for the new releases show on New Sounds. John Schaefer carefully sorts through the stacks, bins, and boatloads of new CDs which have come across his desk over the past month to present some of the finest new releases. Expect some gamelan music, perhaps a bit of berimbau blues, maybe some new music from Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson, hopefully Kurdish and Iranian songs, and more.

PROGRAM # 2873, new releases, November 2008 (First aired on Fri, 11/28/08)

New Sounds of Americana

Thursday, November 27, 2008

It's a liberal dose of Americana for this New Sounds program. Listen to music from "Gloryland," the second foray into folk music and spirituals for the early music a cappella group Anonymous 4. Also, there's music from the Turtle Island String Quartet and tunes from TISQ fiddler Darol Anger and the Republic of Strings as well. Plus, we'll hear from William Duckworth, the Wayfaring Strangers, the soundtrack to “Oh Brother Where Art Thou?” and more.

Volans: a Committed Modernist

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Kevin Volans studied with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel in Cologne and later became Stockhausen’s teaching assistant. While in Cologne, he and his colleagues explored the idea of cross-fertilizing different musical traditions (i.e. African and European), to arrive at a new musical perception - a bit like "introducing an African computer virus into the heart of Western contemporary music." He concentrated on the interlocking techniques, shifting downbeats, the energy and the joy in traditional African music, while he eschewed bringing "exotic instruments" into Western music. Sticking to homemade harpsichords, along with the whooping, nasal sound of the viola da gamba, he experimented with new techniques and new aesthetics. Jump up to the 21st Century, where the South African-born, Irish-based composer Volans considers himself "a committed modernist," and on this New Sounds, we'll hear some of his recently recorded works.

Eccentric Cover Songs

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

For this edition of New Sounds, we'll listen to saxophonist Tim Ries's Rolling Stones Project II, a global-centric arrangements of Stones' tunes. (Ries has been part of the Rolling Stones touring horn section since 1999.) We'll hear Jack DeJohnette's drums and Bill Frisell's twangy guitar lines on "You Can't Always Get What You Want" as well as the North African, blues-Berber beat on "Hey Negrita," with the Tuareg band Tidwat. Plus, there's also music from Johnny Cash Remixed, with the co-mingling of country music and hip-hop. That record's executive producer is Snoop Dogg. Not to be outdone, listen for Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra doing Beatles and a jazz trio arrangement by Julia Hülsmann of Seal's "Kiss From a Rose." And much more.

Revelation: Music Meet Math

Monday, November 24, 2008

Guest Michael Harrison presents "Revelation," a major work for piano in the alternate tuning system known as "just intonation." Today, rather than referring to a specific historical tuning, "just intonation" represents an almost infinite variety of tunings which are based upon the principles of whole number ratios. (Like how an octave is a 2:1 ratio, where the higher note vibrates twice as fast as the lower note.) When certain complex ratios are used in "just intonation" -like the 64:63 ratio that Harrison has used in "Revelation" - the music shimmers with exotic resonance, or depending on your viewpoint, phase-shifts, beats, and bends unsettling tones between the notes of the scale that our Western ears might not be used to. On this new recording of "Revelation," Harrison uses his "harmonic piano," where it is possible to play 24 notes per octave. Just listen to the results on this New Sounds.

Tin Hat, the Quintet

Sunday, November 23, 2008

On this New Sounds, we dip into Tin Hat's “The Sad Machinery of Spring." The Tin Hat Trio has contracted (founding member Rob Burger left in 2004) and expanded again (its new members are Ben Goldberg, Zeena Parkins, and Ara Anderson) to become Tin Hat, a quintet that lives somewhere between composition and improvisation with one foot in jazz, and another in classical. Their latest record is inspired by the work of Bruno Schulz, a Polish-Jewish novelist and graphic artist whose life was cut tragically short in 1942. Also on the show, hear works by cellist/composer Erik Friedlander, from his record, “Prowl” - an adventure into the territory between improvised and classical music. Plus, small ensemble music by the Ben Goldberg Quintet, Carter Burwell, and more.

Keyboard Music

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Listen to an hour of keyboard music for this New Sounds Program. There are liberal helpings of the new 3 CD set by Marco Benevento, an accordion and piano tune from Guy Klucevsek & Alan Bern, tango music, and more. Plus, hear music by Seth Kaufman and Michael Nyman.

Brazil : a Classical Approach

Friday, November 21, 2008

Listen to the sounds of Brazil as refracted through a classical lens on this New Sounds program. There's music from the LA Guitar Quartet, who, on their latest release, have arranged tunes by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Hermeto Pascoal, Baden Powell, and others. Plus, there’s music from the Assad Brothers, along with the Choro Ensemble. Music by Philip Glass rounds out the show.

PROGRAM #2715, Brazil: Classical crossover (First aired on Wed. 9-19-07)

The New Lieder

Thursday, November 20, 2008

For this New Sounds, we'll sample the extended tradition of the classical art song into the world of contemporary music and listen to a whole slew of new songs for the 21st century. We'll hear from Emily Wells, Christine Fellows, and some new takes on songs by Charles Ives. Plus, music from Rachel Unthank/Robert Wyatt, the Cesarians, Jeffrey Kahane, and more.

Music for Solo Piano

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

"Solo" can mean several things, including playing inside on the piano strings, preparing the instrument, and even just playing on the keys. We’ll hear all of the above, in music by Jon Balke, John Cage, Stephen Scott, Hauschka, and Hans Otte.

Big Works, Big Ideas

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Relatively small excerpts from relatively large-scale works fill this New Sounds program. We'll hear from David Borden's 12 part musical cycle, nearly 3 hours long - "The Continuing Story of Counterpoint." Dubbed the "Goldberg Variations" of minimalism, Borden mixes strict counterpoint with dense textures and high energy electronics. Also, we'll listen to a portion of Michael Gordon's 52 minute monster, "Trance," whose layers of short riffs and noisy phrases start to feel like a dangerous multi-car pileup on the freeway. Plus, listen to some of the ginormous 4 hour work by Philip Glass, his "Music in Twelve Parts," from a new live recording by the composer himself and the Philip Glass Ensemble to celebrate his 70th Birthday year.

New Music from Estonia

Monday, November 17, 2008

A small Baltic country with a big impact on the world of new music, Estonia has become a hot spot for choral music especially. We'll hear works by Arvo Pärt, Veljo Tormis, Toivo Tulev, Erkki-Sven TTüür, and more. Estonian composer Arvo Pärt has immersed himself in the tradition of religious music of the Russian Orthodox Church, and for this New Sounds, we’ll hear some of his Stabat Mater. After Arvo Part, Veljo Tormis is probably Estonia's most important living composer. He writes a lot of pieces based on traditional Estonian folklore, integrating this rich cultural inheritance by combining original choral passages and with ancient folk tunes. Listen for something from Tormis, along with a work from Erkki-Sven Tüür. Tüür describes his compositional process as being open to both minimalism and more dissonant modernist techniques, while playing with relational amounts of emotional and intellectual energy. Plus, we’ll hear mesmerizingly atmospheric work from Toivo Tulev, another composer who works with a liturgically based, “holy minimalist” approach, and more.

Contemporary Traditional Music

Sunday, November 16, 2008

We hear from a recent recording by Yo Yo Ma & the Silk Road Ensemble, "New Impossibilities," which interprets tradition-based and/or newly composed works inspired by the historic splendors of the Silk Road. Also, new music ghazals from the Indian-born Canadian Kiran Ahluwalia, who now lives in New York City.

yes is a pleasant country

Saturday, November 15, 2008

For this New Sounds program, listen to several different new music settings of poems by E.E. Cummings. Hear some from the collection of settings to soundscapes by Evan Sornstein, called Curium. It’s a suite of twenty-two Cummings poems, read by twenty-two different people evenly spaced around the world from Taipei to Glasgow, Sardinia to California. Speaking of Calfornia, we'll hear music from Cali-based Daniel Lentz - a work called The Crack in the Bell, based on a Cummings poem, which uses tape delay and repeated notes to create bent and curved textures of tones. Listen to a new music setting or two by wunderkind composer Eric Whitacre, whose close attention to E.E. Cummings’ poetry brings out the emotion underlying every word. Plus, music by Susanne Abbeuhl and Joan Baez, among others.

John the Revelator, Live

Friday, November 14, 2008

From the New Sounds Live concerts at the World Financial Center, listen to the world premiere of “John the Revelator,” a mass for the 21st century by Phil Kline, and featuring the early music vocal group Lionheart and the electric string quartet Ethel. The work was commissioned by WNYC and recorded in the WFC’s Winter Garden, the space for which it was written.
Texts of the Mass

PROGRAM # 2613, John the Revelator (First aired on 12/5/06)

Nearly Sacred Choral Music

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Musica Sacra, the renowned New York-based chorus, performs music by Meredith Monk and the abbess Hildegard von Bingen. Also, listen to excerpts from Morton Feldman's masterwork "Rothko Chapel," and "Atmospheres" by Gyorgy Ligeti. Feldman’s powerfully communicative work, “Rothko Chapel,” is a tribute for his friend, the American abstract expressionist painter, Mark Rothko (1903 -1970), and suggests a divine music, appropriate to the sombre spirituality of Rothko’s chapel. Ligeti’s "Atmospheres" for orchestra, with its tangled webs of dense texture and very slow changes, is a radical exploration of negation, and sometimes is called “stasis music.”

Cross-Cultural Music

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Recent recordings of cross-cultural music, including the Bombay Dub Orchestra, Natacha Atlas, Sussan Deyhim, Issa Bagayogo, and more. Listen to selections from "3 Cities," the latest from the Bombay Dub Orchestra, along with something by Issa Bagayogo, from his "Mali Koura" release, which draws from the dance clubs of Bamako and London. Also, hear from Natacha Atlas, and her CD "Ana Hina," acoustic versions of songs originally performed by Arabic singers Fairuz and Abdel Halim Hafez, along with some settings of poetry by poem Frida Kahlo and the traditional Scottish folk song, "Black is the Colour." Plus, music from Sussan Deyhim's "Soliloquy," for a Shirin Neshat video installation.

The 23 Constellations of Joan Miro

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

From the New Sounds Live Concert Series, recorded in October at the World Financial Center's Winter Garden, hear the American premiere of Bobby Previte's set of musical miniatures - "The 23 Constellations of Joan Miro." It's an ambitious and colorful work by the composer/drummer Previte, where painting, poetry and music all come together, bringing to life a series of small canvases that Joan Miro painted during World War II. Listen to Joan Miro's texts, read by actor David Patrick Kelly, and Bobby Previte's musical responses the paintings.

Hybrid Ensembles

Monday, November 10, 2008

For this New Sounds, sample some works by a few hybrid ensembles, including music from the Durham, NC based composers' collective Pulsoptional. We'll hear from one of their members, Marc Ferris, and his gradual deconstruction of a piece, "I Heart Rosa Luxembourg." We'll also hear from the proudly freeform ensemble Town & Country, veterans of the Chicago avant-garde community, who stretch single tones out past the breaking point, allowing time to highlight the peaks and contours in the sound. We'll round out the show with a bit of a work by the Threnody Ensemble, who are at their core, a diverse unit consisting of guitarists and a cellist. Listen to their work "Timbre Hollow," sounding somewhat Indonesian at times, with a bit of droning in combination with more typical chamber instruments.

A World in New York

Sunday, November 09, 2008

From the New Sounds Live concert series, three great women’s voices in World Music – all based in New York. Listen to performances by Yungchen Lhamo (Tibet, via Queens), Susan McKeown (Ireland, via Manhattan), and Angelique Kidjo (Benin, via Brooklyn), recorded live at the World Financial Center's Winter Garden in the fall of 2006.

The Orchestra Rocks

Saturday, November 08, 2008

Listen to Joby Talbot’s remarkable orchestrations of songs by The White Stripes - "Aluminium" - on this edition of New Sounds. Talbot, who was part of the cult British band The Divine Comedy, has collaborated with Ute Lemper, and has written some killin’ scores for films, in addition to re-imagining Jack White’s blues-based tunes. There’s also music by Jaz Coleman, who founded the legendary post-punk experimental group, Killing Joke. We’ll hear Coleman's violin concerto based on songs by The Doors. The work was written for Nigel Kennedy, and commemorates those who fell in the Vietnam War. Also, hear Philip Glass’s “Low Symphony,” based on music by David Bowie and Brian Eno. Plus orchestral music by rockers Jon Lord, and David Byrne and more.

Terry Riley's Autodreamographical Tales

Friday, November 07, 2008

Terry Riley, founder of minimalism, creator of the landmark work "In C," and student of classical Indian vocal master Pandit Pran Nath, joins us for this New Sounds to present new work he's done with the Bang on a Can All-Stars. We'll hear selections from Riley's "Music from Autodreamographical Tales," where he was asked to write down his dreams and set them to music. Listen to vivid dreams about zucchini, hazy long bus rides, saints making appearances over Italian lakes ("The Miracle"), and songs about cannabis - featuring Indian raga-inflected vocalizing. Plus, there'll be sampling from other new recordings from Terry Riley, and more.

PROGRAM #2865, with Terry Riley (First aired on Fri., 11/07/08)

Extending the Folksong

Thursday, November 06, 2008

For this New Sounds, we'll test the limits of the folksong tradition. There's the bucolic songwriting and references to Satan on a folktronic "Fair Doreen" from Tunng, harp-based epics about astronomy from Joanna Newsom, along with bard-like settings of poetry by Robin Williamson. Also, hear from Linda Thompson's astounding British-folk-stretching latest effort, "Versatile Heart," which features collaborations with her son Teddy, chamber strings, and the disembodying vocals of Antony (Antony and the Johnsons.) And, as always, much more.

Unusual Small Ensembles

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

For this New Sounds, listen to a whole treasure trove of unusual instrument combinations in smallish configurations. We’ll hear from the Senegalese singer/kora player Ablaye Cissoko and German-born trumpeter Volker Goetze, who have just collaborated on an exotic and mysterious effort, “Sira,” (translates as Mermaid.) On it, they demonstrate Cissoko’s immersion in jazz, and Goetze's fascination with African music sometimes in dancey, plucked melodies and soft plaintive horn tranquility. Also, we’ll sample music written for dance and theatre by multi-instrumentalists Carla Kihlstedt, Matthias Bossi and bass guitarist Dan Rathbun. It’s a wide-reaching and intense blend of marching percussion, suspense-filled drones; other times with skeletal piano, strings and trumpet; and on another with zither, charango, toy guitar, musical sax, bass harmonica, glass and water. Not to be outdone, there’s also music from cellist Erik Friedlander, in a jazz trio setting. Once again, as with “Block Ice and Propane,” Friendlander offers folky melodies played like a guitar, with a fierce rhythm section of bassist Trevor Dunn and drummer Mike Sarin. Plus, instrumental jazz-rock-experimental music from Charlie Hunter-annointed vibraphone player Tim Collins, and a live performance by flute player Robert Dick.

Pre-empted - but Special Podcast Available

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

WNYC's Election coverage continues throughout the night. However, New Sounds has made a special podcast available!

Not Dead Yet

Monday, November 03, 2008

Hear world music vocals in ancient (and in some cases dead) languages featured in songs that blur the distinction between past and future. Listen for high-tech sounds married to ancient texts, like the Epiphany Project. There's also Sufi-influenced Arabic folk music from Dozan, a choir founded by Jordanian vocalist Shireen Abu-Kader and the Dozan wa Awtar Establishment. Plus, music from émigré Persian group Niyaz, Australian band Dead Can Dance, and more.

Barely Baroque

Sunday, November 02, 2008

For this New Sounds, hear new arrangements of 17th and 18th century music, including J.S. Bach by the Jacques Loussier Trio, and art songs by The Dowland Project. Also, the new music quartet Clogs mess with baroque minimalism in music by Johann Hieronymus Kapsburger and Ralph Towner flirts with baroque rhythms on his 12-string. And, as always, much more.

Harmonic Presence

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Vocalist, composer, and overtone-singing pioneer David Hykes joins us on this New Sounds to preview new works for harmonic singing. Hykes has a long immersion in Eastern and Western sacred music, cosmology, and yogas of sound. He was the first westerner to connect deeply with the "throat-singing" traditions of Mongolia, Tuva and Tibet, and employ overtones which govern all spatial and mathematical relationships. And as always, much more.