ZÖJ, the collaboration between Gelareh Pour and Brian O'Dwyer perform the opening track from their new album, May The Devil’s Ear Be Deaf, live in the music show studios. The album was recorded at an artists retreat in Banff, Canada, and features music “built on fragility and on the fear of its own erasure." They also talk about performing a live score to a remarkable 1925 silent film, Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life.

The Three Seas have been coming together and then flying apart again for years, and they're back together for a live session in the Music Show studio. With band members living in both Australia and West Bengal, the music is an amalgam of Himalayan folk, Baul spiritual music, rock, dub, and jazz. Their latest album is called Antahkarana and it was recorded in Peter Gabriel's Real World studio, a high-tech idyll in the south west of England.

And we remember two giants of the classical world, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, who has died at the age of 81, and Ruth Slenczynska, who has died at the age of 102. 

Tilson Thomas was known for his advocacy of modern American repertoire, and his life-long embrace of Mahler's titanic symphonies. In an archive interview, he tells Andy how he thinks about classical music as a whole, and Mahler in particular. 

We'll hear more from Andy's long conversation with Ruth Slenczynska, a child-prodigy concert pianist who learned with Rachmaninov and duetted with President Truman, next time on The Music Show. 

The Three Seas are currently on tour, dates available here

ZÖJ are performing Grass at The Capitol Theatre on May 1

Music heard in this program:

Title: Chromatic Fantasia & Fugue in D minor, BWV903 Artist: Ruth Slenczynska Composer: J. S. BachAlbum: Ruth Slenczynska - Complete American Decca RecordingsLabel: Decca

Title: Symphony No. 4; iii. Fugue (Andante moderato) Artist: San Francisco Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Michael Tilson ThomasComposer: Charles IvesAlbum: Ives - Symphony Nos. 3 & 4, Selected American HymnsLabel: SFS Media

Title: Symphony No. 1 in D major, 'Titan'; iv. Stürmisch bewegtArtist: San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson ThomasComposer: Gustav MahlerAlbum: Mahler - Symphony No. 1Label: SFS Media

Title: TermitesArtist: ZÖJComposer: Gelareh Pour & Brian O'DwyerAlbum: May The Devil’s Ear Be DeafLabel: Bleeemo Music

Title: Real WorldArtist: The Three SeasComposer: The Three SeasAlbum: AntaḥkaraṇaLabel: Earshift Music

Title: RongmoholeArtist: The Three SeasComposer: The Three SeasAlbum: AntaḥkaraṇaLabel: Earshift Music

The Music Show is made on Gadigal, Gundungurra, and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country Country

Technical production by Antonia Gauci, AJ Bradford, and Tim Jenkins