Relevant Tones

Composers Kelly Sheehan and Chi Wang are finding great creativity in everyday technological objects like Wii remotes.  Host Austin Williams gives us a glimpse into this fascinating musical world.

D-Composed is a Chicago-based chamber music experience that honors Black creativity and culture through the music of Black composers. Since 2017, they have created intimate, out-of-the-box experiences that celebrate a mix of genres and sounds of Black music throughout history.  

Seth Boustead talks with founder and Executive Director Kori Coleman and violist and Artistic Director Yelley Taylor.

New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow’s widely acclaimed memoir is the source for this extremely moving story of his traumatic youth in Louisiana. 

Composer Terence Blanchard, one of the most influential figures in American jazz, teamed up with librettist Kasi Lemmons, director of such remarkable films as Harriet and Eve’s Bayou to create an opera adaptation of this remarkable story.

The result is an an opera that is timely, moving and powerful, revealing the Black experience in this country as few other operas have done and it's currently at the Lyric Opera in Chicago. 

Stephen Rawson talks with Blanchard and features excerpts from the opera, courtesy of the Metropolitan Opera. 

Versatile saxophonist, composer and improviser Nick Zoulek specializes in an innovative technique that allows him to play multiple notes at the same time or use multiple techniques at the same time.

Fluent in a wide range of idioms, Zoulek creates highly charged, often beautifully kinetic music that hits hard.

Hosted by Austin Williams

Dal Niente's latest release on SIDEBAND RECORDS features works by three composers using elements of pop, musique concrète and film music transformed into a contemporary classical music idiom. 

Austin Williams talks with ensemble members Ben Melsky and Emma Hospelhorn about this remarkable recording.

She's the youngest person to win the Pulitzer Prize for music, she toured with Kanye, and the Met Museum's Limor Tomer called her the "future of music." Caroline Shaw is a wildly successful composer, performer and producer who has created an impressive body of distinctly eclectic work.  Matt Dosland talks with her about life, music, oranges and eggs. 

Sarah Cahill’s The Future is Female is a three volume series, which celebrates and highlights women composers from the 17th century to the present day. These recordings feature more than 70 compositions by women around the globe and includes many première recordings.

Austin Williams chats with Sarah ahead of the release of this extraordinary three-volume album on March 4th.

We celebrate Twosday (2/22/22) with antiphonal pieces selected by host Austin Williams.

In 2015 we corresponded with several composers from Ukraine, at that time openly at war, about the challenges they faced. With Ukraine in the news again and the future again uncertain, we feature another small sample of the incredibly vibrant music being created by Ukranian composers today.  Music by Valentin Silvestrov, Bohdana Frolyak, Ludmila Yurina and Virko Baley. 

Eschewing the collection of traditional titles that describe single elements of her body of work, The Honourable Elizabeth A. Baker refers to herself as a “New Renaissance Artist” that embraces a constant stream of change and rebirth in practice, which expands into a variety of media, chiefly an exploration of how sonic and spatial worlds can be manipulated to personify a variety of philosophies and principles both tangible as well as intangible.

Austin Williams talks to her about her latest album Remain Calm.