Relevant Tones

Marc Mellits is a composer who creates short visceral works often comprised of contrasting sections. He is influenced by minimalist and rock music and often composes for amplified instruments. Mellits also directs and plays keyboards in his own ensemble, the Mellits Consort.

Since its founding in Milwaukee in 1982, the mission of Present Music has been to commission and perform new concert music with programming that introduces innovative concert formats, embraces a broad diversity of repertoire, and makes the music of our time accessible to audiences with deep expression and serious fun.

Host Austin Williams talks with co-Artistic Director David Bloom about their upcoming 41st season.

The featured music includes works by Ryan Carter, Jonah Elrod, Michael Torke and Kamran Ince.

Access Contemporary Music's latest album features music commissioned as part of their innovative project Composer Alive.  Each piece was composed in short installments and rehearsed and recorded in real time as they were received.  Host Seth Boustead features a sample of this fascinating music.

Sunshowers by Jane O'Leary (mvmts 1 and 2)

De Ánimos y Quebrantos by Gabriela Ortiz

Toy by Alexandre Lunsqui

Dance With My Breath by Agnieszka Stulginska (mvmt 1)

Commercial Etudes by Will Rowe (mvmts 1 and 2)

Micro Moments IX: Hommage a Avicenna by Arshia Samsaminia

Qubit presents an audio(guide) companion to the 2022 Whitney Biennial, "Quiet as It's Kept." Curated by Alec Hall, Loud as It Plays is a listening landscape of contemporary American music arranged around the themes and forces shaping our world over the past two years: breath, time, hope, test, and war.

For a biennial survey of American art should also include a survey of its current sounds. Host Austin Williams brings you a sample of this timely playlist.

Featuring music by:

Deidre Huckabay

Shawn E. Okpebholo is a critically-acclaimed and award-winning composer whose music has been described as “devastatingly beautiful” and “fresh and new and fearless” (The Washington Post), “affecting” (The New York Times), “searing” (The Chicago Tribune), “staggering” (The New Yorker), “lyrical, complex, singular” (The Guardian), and “powerful” (BBC Music Magazine).

Host Stephen Rawson talks with him and features a wide range of his music.

Join Host Austin Williams as he interviews world-class composer Michael Oliva about his upcoming project for various interments playing with Tampura and fixed media.

Michael has been creating various collaborations with a variety of instruments for this project to create a diverse sound world for listeners to experience.

In the interview you will hear about Michael’s use of the Tanpura and how he manipulates and adjusts it to make it truly unique for this project.

Michael will have the chance to premier these works in an installation type event at ColorScape festival. More details and times in this link  https://michaeloliva.net/index.php/colourscape/

The remarkable Da Capo Chamber Ensemble has been going strong for 50 years and they're celebrating this milestone with a series of concerts called Bridges.

Host Austin Williams talks with flutist Patricia Spencer and composer Bruce Adolphe about their incredible run and the featured music in their 50th season.

Castor and Patience is a new opera by composer Gregory Spears and libretto by former poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith. 

The opera takes on the pervasive barriers to land ownership for Black Americans by telling the story of two cousins' struggles to own and keep property long held by their family.

Stephen Rawson attended the premiere and talked with Spears and Smith about the opera. 

Join us as we celebrate and honor the centennial of Charles Mingus! This episode will take a deep dive into his album Mingus Plays the Piano. Charles Mingus was a pioneer of the modern jazz movement and this album speaks to that.

Amongst his vast discography, this album takes a slight departure from his typical music styles. The listener will hear various influences of early 20th c. composers along with Mingus’ own amount of spice.

In the episode we will feature the album along with excerpts from the biography Beneath the Underdog: His World as Composed by Charles Mingus.

Host Austin Williams explores the cross roads of experimental music and Jazz. Many artists featured on today’s show come from the Twin Cities area which has a large free and experimental jazz scene.

Much like one might see in an improvising chamber group or players working from a graphic score, the music you hear is incredibly collaborative and raw in nature. Some groups will directly reference new classical music while others will show it through their practice and aesthetic