Meet composer and conductor Bill Ryan and Billband for this New Sounds program.  Ryan is the director of the Grand Valley State University (GVSU) new music group, and the mastermind behind 2007’s “story of the year in new music circles” where his all-student, all-volunteer band recorded Steve Reich’s 1976 masterwork, “Music for 18 Musicians,” to choruses of critical praise.  Bill Ryan and the ensemble went on to record Terry Riley’s “In C.”  Ryan is also a composer, and has recently released a record of his own compositions, “Towards Daybreak.”  Members of Billband - violinist/composer Todd Reynolds, and Bang on a Can All-Stars pianist Vicky Chow and cellist Ashley Bathgate- perform Ryan’s works live in the studio.  

Billband performs at Le Poisson Rouge this Sunday night, Feb. 10, 2013.  More information: "Towards Daybreak" record release show.

For this New Sounds, listen to music by Russian violist/composer Ljova (real name Lev Zhurbin) performed by the string quartet Brooklyn Rider.  Then there's music by young composer and drummer David T Little, and music by the extremely versatile violinist/composer Todd Reynolds.  Plus, hear something from the Turtle Island Quartet and composer/mayor Phillip K Bimstein as well.

For this New Sounds, composer and founder of the new music group Newspeak, David T. Little, joins John Schaefer to present selections from his hour-long multimedia one-man opera, “Soldier Songs.” The work is in three acts, which explore the perceptions of war throughout the character’s life; Youth – where war is a game, Warrior - where war is reality, and Elder - which is more of a philosophical approach to war.  Games are at the heart of the work, as evidenced by the accompanying visuals - realistic-looking video game imagery by an animator. 

On this New Sounds, hear live performances by Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble, along with the Todd Reynolds Quartet from the record release party for Monk’s ECM release, “Songs of Ascension,” recorded in May of 2011 in the Jerome L. Greene Space.

For this New Sounds, we'll hear new releases from the New York-based collective NOW Ensemble and the sax foursome, the PRISM Quartet.  Three of NOW's founding members are composers, including Judd Greenstein, who also heads up the record label, New Amsterdam.  Greenstein's music blends a bit of jazz, the fun syncopations of hip-hop, and nifty interlocking groovy riffs of minimalism, and can just as easily be heard in a club as it could be in a concert hall.  He's also one of the so-called "indie classical" composers, those from a younger generation who have absorbed minimalism, but incorporate electronics, electric guitar, and all sorts of non-traditionally symphonic instruments into their music.  From NOW Ensemble's latest, "Awake," we'll hear "Change."

For this New Sounds, we’ll hear from both Meredith Monk and David Hykes, two pioneers in what is now called “extended vocal technique.”  Composer, vocalist, choreographer, and innovator Meredith Monk has lately been expanding into the worlds of orchestra and string quartet.  And on her release, "Songs of Ascension" she achieves a new balance with her pairing of voice and instruments together with a combination of East and West in the shruti box (a drone instrument from India) together with string quartet.

There’s plenty of music built around cello(s) and violin(s) on this New Sounds program.  We’ll start with a polyrhythmic work from Clogs, a quartet containing guitarist/composer Bryce Dessner and composer/arranger/string performer Padme Newsome.  Then, listen to music by Bryce Dessner for the American cellist Zach Miskin. Based in Paris, Miskin intends to “push the limits of the cello.”  He wants “to take the instrument out of its classical ‘box’ and travel with it through beautifully crafted loops and overdubs, solo passages in songs and in samples, while of course exploring the exotic territory of improvisation.”  We’ll hear more of his musical deviations in another work by Nick Zammuto (the Books.)

Philip Glass’s piano works have had a longstanding and widespread influence – on the so-called Post-minimalist composers, but also on musicians working in the electronic dance world.  One of them is Francesco Tristano, who brings electronica’s repeating motifs back to the piano in his solo piece “The Melody.”  We’ll hear that, as well as several of William Duckworth’s “Time Curve Preludes,” often considered the first major Post-minimalist work, and a work from the late Canadian composer Ann Southam directly inspired by Glass’s piano works.

For this New Sounds, we’ll hear music that incorporates looping and delay devices, first by digging into Todd Reynolds’ new double-CD, “Outerborough.”  Reynolds plays a work by Phil Kline, “A Needle Pulling Fred,” and a piece by David T. Little that samples a woman’s voice talking about being in the military and the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.  Then listen to something new from the one-woman band, guitarist/looper/delay-artist Julia Crowe, from her latest, "Empire of Light."

For Mixtapes, we ask today's leading musicians, authors, filmmakers and artists to assemble an hour of new-music that they find particularly compelling. Today's mixtape comes courtesy of violinist and composer Todd Reynolds.

For this New Sounds, listen to the new recording, "September Canons" featuring violinist Todd Reynolds performing a piece written for him by American composer Ingram Marshall.  It’s a soaring, searing work for violin with electronic processing, and is a "lamentation on the events of September 11, 2001." 

Jason Treuting, the percussionist/composer -his mallets, sticks, and music - certainly get around.   Treuting has made music with and for So Percussion, the Swedish folk-instrument wielding QQQ, the electronica duo Matmos, the Zappa-jazzy band Kneebody, and the guitarist/composer Steve Mackey, to name a few.  On this New Sounds, listen to music featuring Jason Treuting as soloist, collaborator, and composer.  There’s also music from multi-instrumentalist/composer Nick Zammuto, co-founder of the sonically and visually innovative duo the Books.  

This New Sounds program gets all close and personal with the cold and the white, with the "Icy Sleeves of Green" by Todd Reynolds, and some songs from Kate Bush's most recent record, "50 Words for Snow."  We'll hear songs about melting snowflakes and icicles, soundscapes evoking the blindingly white and bleak, and other works to paint wintry portraits of powdery drifts or stark frozen mountains. 

For this New Sounds, listen to music by Russian violist/composer Ljova (real name Lev Zhurbin) performed by the string quartet Brooklyn Rider.  Then there's music by young composer and drummer David T Little, and music by the extremely versatile violinist/composer Todd Reynolds.  Plus, hear something from the Turtle Island Quartet and composer/mayor Phillip K Bimstein as well.

Cued Up dives head first into the fearless, mystical sound world of composer-vocalist Meredith Monk. Recorded live in The Greene Space, Monk and Vocal Ensemble and the Todd Reynolds Quartet perform her original pieces.

For this New Sounds, we’ll hear from both Meredith Monk and David Hykes, two pioneers in what is now called “extended vocal technique.”  Composer, vocalist, choreographer, and innovator Meredith Monk has lately been expanding into the worlds of orchestra and string quartet.  And on her brand-new release, "Songs of Ascension" she achieves a new balance with her pairing of voice and instruments together with a combination of East and West in the shruti box (a drone instrument from India) together with string quartet.