We’re traveling to Knoxville, Tennessee for the Big Ears Festival!  Regarded as one of the  most unique, boundary-defying and eagerly  anticipated cultural  gatherings in the world – “a music festival with a  rare vision” (The New  York Times) Big Ears Festival returns in 2018  with perhaps its most  multi-faceted and diverse line up to date.

Spanning four days –  Thursday, March 22 – Sunday, March 25 – the  festival will feature over  100 performances, including Bang on a Can,  Brooklyn Rider, and  International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), in  venues throughout downtown  Knoxville, Tennessee.

Hosted by Seth Boustead

In the Light of Air by Anna Thorvaldsdóttir

Griff by Béla Fleck

Cheating, Lying, Stealing by David Lang

Flowers for Prashant by Tyshawn Sorey

Relevant Tones is proud to partner with  The Look + Listen Festival,  an annual event dedicated to presenting  contemporary music in  contemporary art galleries like Pratt Manhattan Gallery, Brooklyn’s BRIC  House and The Studio Museum in Harlem.

The festival seeks to expand and engage audiences of 20th and 21st  music by  providing a unique opportunity to simultaneously experience  new music  and contemporary visual art.

Hosted by Seth Boustead

Spero Lucem by Nina Young

Springs by Paul Lansky

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space by Žibuoklė Martinaitytė

Tuning Meditation by Pauline Oliveros

Deep Thought Music by Craig Harris

Great music is a game of expertise,  luck, and chance. Seth deals out  a playlist of great music including David Maslanka and discusses why  it’s a winner in this year’s Dealer’s  Choice.

Hosted by Seth Boustead

A Child’s Garden of Dreams by David Maslanka

Shadow Light by Elena Ruehr

The Glass Bead Game;  Mvmt III. The Glass Bead Game (Fantasia)

The Shaman by Vincent Ho

Elastic Band; Mvmt II. Pure Happenchance by Joel Philip Freidman

Mexican composer Javier Alvarez uses his  travels to create eclectic  electroacoustic works using influences from  Mexico to Cuba, the  Caribbean to Korea.

Composer John Adams said the  music of Alvarez “reveals influences of  popular cultures that go beyond  the borders of our own time and  place.”

Hosted by Seth Boustead

Jardines con Palmera

OffrandeI. Mains aux oiseauxIV.

Geometría Foliada

The  ever-busy New York-based chamber orchestra The Knights has  worked with  some of the top composers and musicians in the world  including Osvaldo  Golijov on a stunning new release of his large scale  symphonic work, Azul.

The piece draws on several world music traditions as do the other   pieces on the album. We talked to founding violinist and composer Colin   Jacobsen about music, world travel and more.

Hosted by Seth Boustead

Ascending Bird by Siamak Aghaei & Colin Jacobsen

Azul: I. Paz Sulfúrica, II. Silencio by Osvaldo Golijov

Azul: III. Transit, IV. Yrushalem by Osvaldo Golijov

JUNO-nominated composer Nicole Lizée  creates new music from an  eclectic mix of influences including the  earliest MTV videos,  turntablism, rave culture, Hitchcock, Kubrick,  1960s psychedelia and  1960s modernism.

She is fascinated by the glitches  made by outmoded and well-worn  technology and captures these glitches,  notates them and integrates  them into live performance.

Nicole’s  compositions range from works for orchestra and solo  turntablist,  featuring DJ techniques fully notated and integrated into a  concert  music setting, to other unorthodox instrument combinations  that include  the Atari 2600 video game console, omnichords, and  stylophones just to  name a few.

Hosted by Seth Boustead

Bookburners

Death to Kosmische*

White Label Experiment              

Hitchcock Études

We  invite some of our favorite musical friends to bring a new  recording  into the studio for listening, lively discussion and the joy  of new  discoveries. Seth sits down with violinist Doyle Armbrust and  composers Kyong Mee Choi, Nomi Epstein, and Jeff Kowalkowski.

Hosted by Seth Boustead

In the Light of Air: I. Luminance, by Anna Thorvaldsdottir

In the Arms of Peril, by Scott A. Wyatt

Brocade, by Linda Catlin Smith

Nonet (1969), by Herbert Brün

Since his early teens, Thomas Adès has  been a commanding figure in  the world of classical music as a triple  threat pianist, conductor and  composer.

Seth talks with him about his career including his work at, among  others, the Los Angeles  Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, London Symphony  Orchestra, Royal  Concertgebouw, Melbourne and Sydney Symphonies, BBC  Symphony, and City  of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

Hosted by Seth Boustead

Chamber Symphony

Living Toys

Violin Concerto: Concentric Paths

Asyla

Tevot

Founding cellist of Eighth Blackbird,  Nick Photinos, joins us in  WFMT’s Levin Studio in Chicago to play  pieces from his first solo  album.

Nick worked with an exciting array of  diverse composers on the album  including David T. Little, Angélica  Négrón, Florent Ghys, Andrew  Norman and Bryce Dessner.

Hosted by Seth Boustead

Lewisburg, by Bryce Dessner

Sit and Dance, by Molly Joyce

and the sky was still there, by David T. Little

Panorama, by Angélica Negrón

Petits Artéfacts, by Florent Ghys

The International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) holds  arguably the world’s most important contemporary music festival in a  different city each year.  Much like the Olympics, cities bid to be the  host and this year it’s in Vancouver.

In this second program of two, we hear from Canadian composer,  Jennifer Butler, Lituanian composer,  Sabina Ulubeanu, young American  composer, Robert J Coe, and more, all performed by Vancouver’s best  musicians.

Hosted by Seth Boustead

Klee Wyck Woman, by Jennifer Butler

Tonight My Shadow Sinks Into the Wall, by Vytautas Germanavicius

Vox Terminus, by Frederik Gran

Gestalt X, by Frederick Neyrinck

Freycinet, by Robert J Coe

Cadenza lirica, by Sabina Ulubeanu