Composer, singer, and pianist Reuben Butchart brings his song cycle "Nameless and Awake" to the WNYC Studio. Setting poems by John William Carroll, Butchart's music combines a soulful contemporary singing style with intricate, detailed arrangements. David Garland talks with Butchart about the songs and how the music came together at Robert Wilson's Watermill Center.

British songwriter Laura Marling sings insightful new songs about "the push and pull nature of the human psyche," as she describes it in the interview that accompanies this in-studio session. Laura returns for her fourth visit to Spinning On Air to perform songs from her fourth album Once I Was An Eagle (Ribbon Music), and to talk about the album's themes and narratives with host David Garland.

There was a particular renaissance back in the 1950s and '60s, bringing together poetry and jazz. Some of those vintage experiments surely laid the groundwork for the poetry slams and rap of today. David Garland presents some classic poetry and jazz recordings, including the voices of Jack Kerouac and Langston Hughes, along with music by Charles Mingus, Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, Allyn Ferguson, and others.

Yoko Ono and her son Sean Lennon join David Garland to present and talk about Yoko Ono's music. Yoko and Sean tell many interesting stories, speak intimately about the music, and reminisce about the events that inspired the compositions. Plus, see photos here. This show first aired May 13, 2012.

Proportion is a key aspect to any work of art. An artist has to choose elements, tools, language, or components carefully--and some artists get lost in those details--but proportion addresses how those elements relate and balance. David Garland presents two new musical projects that display particular interest in the pleasures of playing with proportion: the albums "The Weighing of the Heart" by Colleen, and "The Adorables" by Zeena Parkins, Shayna Dunkelman, and Preshish Moments.

Guitarist/composer Don Bikoff's album "Celestial Explosion" was released in 1968. The album featured acoustic guitar gently altered with studio effects, and an Eastern-influenced take on the bluesy finger-picking of Mississippi John Hurt and American Primitivism of John Fahey. Bikoff has continued to play and compose, and to accumulate experience with a sense of adventure and joy. He joins David Garland in the WNYC Studio to reminisce, laugh, and play us some guitar.

Back in 1996 David Garland welcomed John Simon to the WNYC Studio to perform and to talk about Simon's music and career. Here are highlights from that session, featuring John Simon's solo renditions of several of his songs, music from some of the albums he produced for Leonard Cohen, Simon & Garfunkel, and The Band, and more.

Piano music can have a very personal touch. The piano allows a composer or performer to all alone manifest a full vision of what their music can be. David Garland presents another hour of lyrical, soulful, playful piano music, featuring recordings by Chilly Gonzales, Duke Ellington, and others.

Iva Bittová is a storyteller who rarely uses actual language to convey the emotions of her stories. Singing wordlessly, or using an implied language of her own, she creates intimate, engrossing narratives. David Garland welcomes Iva Bittová to the WNYC Studio to perform and talk about her music. She sings and plays violin simultaneously, sings some songs for voice alone, and with kalimba, drawing chiefly from material on her new ECM album, "Iva Bittová." Plus she tells of living in rural upstate New York, and being a film star in the Czech Republic.

Music with rhythmic and melodic power; music for bursting forth after a long, snowy winter. David Garland presents music from warm places like Brazil, New Orleans, India, and...Brooklyn; music vibrating with a pulse that comes from Africa.