Fridays at 10:00 pm
A weekly exploration of the most fascinating time in classical music history: right now.
With composers from nearly every country in the world creating music in diverse styles, there has simply never been a more exciting time for classical music. Relevant Tones creator and host Seth Boustead dives into this treasure trove of music accompanied by first-person interviews, in the field segments that take him to festivals and concert halls around the world, with stellar performances by talented ensembles and soloists.
Modern-Day Moonlighters
Philip Glass is arguably the most famous plumber, mover and cab driver ever to work in New York. While not every example is that extreme, there are quite a few composers with day jobs – multi-talented people, that advocate for their fellow composers, write, work in radio or have a Ph.D. in neuroscience.
Discovery Series
A process-based exploration into several pieces chosen from a pool of more than five hundred submissions, the Discovery Series is led by composer/pianist Jeremy Gill and features an inside peak into the inner workings of the compositional process, and the process of putting the piece together for the musicians tasked with bringing it to life.
Extra Tones: Vegetable Acoustics
Interviews with Barbara Kaiser of the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra and experimental filmmaker Calum Walter about the strange and wondrous sounds of everyday life.
Modern Piano Virtuoso Kathleen Supové
One of America’s most acclaimed and versatile contemporary music pianists, performance artist and keyboardist Kathleen Supové is known for breaking boundaries between audience and performer and for her multimedia performances as the “Exploding Piano”
Composer Spotlight: Zhou Long
One of the first composers to graduate from the Beijing Conservatory upon its reopening after the Cultural Revolution and the winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for his opera Madame White Snake, Zhou Long creates thoughtful, spiritually-infused music that has resonated with audiences across the globe.
Foster the Music: Ireland
The Contemporary Music Centre in Ireland is one of the world’s foremost models of government support for composers, with dozens of composers receiving financial support, commissions and travel grants. We plunge into the incredible wealth of music created by this program.
Eighty Trips Around the Sun
Seth speaks with Sarah Cahill about the new box set Eighty Trips Around the Sun, celebrating the music of Terry Riley.
LIVE: Late Night at National Sawdust
In this final live broadcast from Brooklyn’s hottest new music venue, National Sawdust, we’re featuring chamber and vocal music by the late, great Steven Stucky, a former composer in residence with the New York Philharmonic and modern compositional master.
Sonata Form Redux
Sonata form is one of the oldest composition structures in classical music but it’s being rediscovered, and in many cases re-purposed, by contemporary composers. What is the lasting appeal? We’ll play music by four composers looking to the past for formal inspiration.
In the Field: Palermo
We go In the Field to the rustic town of Palermo, Italy for the International Rostrum of Composers where we heard a stunning array of new music by three generations of creative artists from around the world.
Online exclusive: Look + Listen | The Studio Museum
Explore the Look + Listen Festival, an annual event dedicated to presenting contemporary music in contemporary art galleries.
Starting from Scratch
This week’s Relevant Tones focuses on composers who have tried to step outside the box, redefine their definitions of music, and start over without limitations. We’ll be examining the works of Alvin Lucier, Chris Preissing, James Tenney, Lou Harrison, and more.
Composer Cosmology
As astrophysicists like Neil deGrasse Tyson learn more about the cosmos and present their often strange and wondrous findings to the public, the creative mind can’t help but be captivated and inspired, and composers are certainly no exception. From super strings to quarks, multiple dimensions to M theory, we’ll play several imaginative works by composers captivated by our universe.
The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs
Composer Mason Bates brings Steve Jobs life story to the stage in Santa Fe Opera’s production of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs. The opera combines expressive electronics with electric guitar, Bates’ signature rich orchestration and sleek lighting design for a truly modern experience.
Composer Spotlight: Bernard Rands
Pulitzer Prize winning composer, Bernard Rands shares his thoughts on his catalogue of over a hundred published works and recordings with Seth. From his 1963 premiere at Darmstadt to 1986 Kennedy Center Friedheim Award winning orchestral suites Le Tambourin, to his 2011 Chicago Symphony Orchestra commission, Danza Petrificada and beyond.
Soundward: Time Travel
Over the years pop artists have been making the transition from guitar slaying Hair Rock to classical composers. Seth and Q2 Music’s Phil Kline feature musicians like Kip Winger, Billy Joel, Jonny Greenwood and Roger Waters. Why are they making the transition and does it work?
Composer Spotlight: Christopher Rouse
For many years the composer-in-residence with the NY Philharmonic, Christopher Rouse combines neoromanticism with hard driving, rock-inspired rhythms to create a fascinating musical style all his own.
Activist Music
We live in a charged political environment and though music is often seen as an escape, many composers have chosen to use their work to make a statement. From Ted Hearne’s piece The Source, based on the story of Chelsea Manning, the US Army Private who infamously leaked classified military documents to WikiLeaks in 2010 to David T. Little’s operas ...
Thirsty Ears LIVE Preview from the Levin
Relevant Tones’ is highlighting the performers and works featured in the second annual Thirsty Ears Festival: Chicago’s only classical music street festival! This LIVE broadcast is coming straight from WFMT’s Levin on Friday August 11th.
Going Solo
There is perhaps no more intimate connection in music than when a composer writes a solo piece specifically for a gifted performer, crafting the piece for the player’s specific strengths and musical tastes. We’ll talk with several performers about solos that have been written for them and feature performances of the pieces recorded live in our Levin studio.
