Kaija Saariaho: Ears Open
Kaija Saariaho's music evokes all sorts of natural sounds, the kinds of complex, white noise-y sounds that we often tune out. She's able to take the instruments of the orchestra and pull out of them...
View ArticleKaija Saariaho: I. Finding Her Music
Kaija wasn’t born into a musical family, in fact, her parents never made it to a single concert of hers. She was always pulled by composition, and spent hours in her room with a guitar trying to “find...
View ArticleKaija Saariaho: II. Never a Machine-Freak
Kaija and her colleagues knew that to find their compositional voices, they would need to look outside of Finland. Kaija moved to Germany and eventually to Paris, where she spent hours toiling over...
View ArticleKaija Saariaho: III. Love from Afar
To date, Kaija has written four operas, each with a strong, female protagonist. She has a clear voice for feminism and femininity, and her work doesn’t pull punches. In a recent speech at McGill...
View ArticleIngram Marshall: A Connecticut Hippie In California
Ingram Marshall is often called a California Minimalist, a title which, while not exactly geographically accurate, allies him with a loose cadre of artists writing ambient, visceral scores. It’s a...
View ArticleIngram Marshall: III. Finding a Path, Finding Morels
Nowadays, Ingram is a teacher, among other things, and is the type of pedagogue that inspires almost spiritual reverence from his students. His lessons often stretch beyond the typical hour to include...
View ArticleIngram Marshall: II. Gamelan, Sacred Harp and Other Lovely Things
After grad school and a few years of nomadic existence, Ingram found a new tribe in the students of the newly-formed California Institute of the Arts, a sort of hippie creative haven where students...
View ArticleIngram Marshall: I. Sine Waves and Tape Loops
Ingram found composition late, only beginning to write in grad school, and almost immediately found electronic music. The genre was in its infancy and Ingram and his fellow students, along with their...
View ArticleNico Muhly: Community Theater
First, a disclaimer. I wanna make something clear right off the bat here: I'm completely in the tank for Nico Muhly. We went to college together and he has been one of my best friends and most frequent...
View ArticleNico Muhly: I. Trial By Fire
Nico grew up in Providence, but spent odd corridors of his youth abroad, acquiring languages quickly and setting the tone for his current, punishing travel schedule. He was a child chorister who became...
View ArticleNico Muhly: III. "u"
Nico's community is a massive factor in his life. He is very much "in touch," sending emails from the profane to the profound to literally hundreds of people a day. Nico values his friends dearly. Nico...
View ArticleNico Muhly: II. Working Together
Nico has worked with film directors, librettists, clarinet players and choreographers, and has written arrangements for an impressive roster of bands and songwriters. His love of communication in all...
View ArticleRetrospective: The Light and Dark Side of John Williams' 'Star Wars' Score
Editor's Note: If you have not seen any film in the "Star Wars" franchise, there are spoilers ahead.There's no question that the most highly anticipated (and merchandised) film of 2015 will ultimately...
View ArticleSneak Peek
Q2 Music is thrilled to offer an advance listen to Helga, a new podcast that features conversations with diverse, uncompromising and socially conscious artists across the creative and performing arts...
View ArticlePeter Sellars
From the home of the Peabody Award-winning Meet the Composer, Q2 Music is proud today to launch the first season of a 10-part podcast, Helga. Hosted by internationally acclaimed singer Helga Davis,...
View ArticleShara Nova
After moving to Detroit from New York and separating from her husband, My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden decided to change her last name to Nova. The frontwoman for the indie-rock band, singer and...
View ArticleHenry Threadgill
Henry Threadgill wants to know how to build the house. Whether it's Moby Dick or jazz composition, the 72-year-old jazz composer and multi-instrumentalist has spent his life figuring out what goes into...
View ArticleJennifer Koh
Violin soloist Jennifer Koh has never cancelled a gig. Even when she had pneumonia, bronchitis and strep throat... at the same time. That drive comes through in the intensity of her live performances...
View ArticleSolange
Solange is determined to express herself fully and with integrity. The musician, singer and songwriter has been writing music since she was in the fourth grade. In this episode of Helga, Solange and...
View ArticleAlan Gilbert
Alan Gilbert believes that conducting an orchestra is a process of “letting go together.” When the energy between a conductor and an orchestra is right, he says, it’s almost impossible to tell who’s...
View ArticleAlejandro Hernandez-Valdez
For conductor Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez, an attentive and hungry audience is one of the essential parts of creating a transcendent musical experience. That’s why he scatters his Musica Viva choir at...
View ArticleJulia Bullock
When soprano Julia Bullock took the stage recently to sing the legacy and history of Josephine Baker, the groundbreaking African-American singer and performer who fought in the civil rights movement,...
View ArticleSarah Jones
Playwright and stage actress Sarah Jones dexterously hops from one character to the next. In her one-woman shows, she seamlessly slips into characters of different class, race and gender backgrounds....
View ArticleHilton Als
Hilton Als is an intellectual omnivore who roots his art and criticism in reality and a search for the truth. A writer, New Yorker theater critic, curator, photographer, director and professor, Als’s...
View ArticleEpisode 11 - The Performer: Part 1
We're kicking off Season Three of Meet the Composer with a look beyond the composer to the performer, that unusual intermediary between the artist and the audience. How do performers from different...
View ArticleEpisode 13 - Splitting Adams: John Adams' Chamber Symphonies
What happens when the composer shows up to the first rehearsal of his brand-new piece? Would a living Beethoven sue for intellectual property? Are you the hit, or are you in the hole? For this episode,...
View ArticleEpisode 15 - New Music Fight Club
It was composer pitted against composer: uptown vs. downtown, tonal vs. atonal, left brain vs right brain, and these musicians were NOT pulling any punches. Composers were antagonizing each other,...
View ArticleEpisode 16 - The Producer
What happens when a composer writes music without pen and paper, using machines? How does that change the creative process? How does it morph the art itself? Today on Meet the Composer, our producer...
View ArticleEpisode 17 - Paul Simon's Curious Mind
Paul Simon has always been attracted to new kinds of sounds. From his early band Simon & Garfunkel in the 1960s through solo albums like Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints in the '80s and '90s, up...
View ArticleMy Body as Me: Kamala Sankaram Shows Us How to Keep the Look Loose
The Brooklyn Youth Chorus' Silent Voices project – which premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music this past May – was one of the most socially aware artistic events in New York this year. The project...
View ArticleHolding Gentrification: Toshi Reagon on What it Means to Build and Unbuild...
Brooklyn Bound, written for the Brooklyn Youth Chorus’ Silent Voices project, evokes the full continuum of composer and singer-sonwriter Toshi Reagon's sound world: irresistible grooves, poignant blues...
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