Meet the Composer is a Peabody Award-winning podcast that takes listeners into the minds of the composers making some of the most innovative and breathtakingly beautiful music today.
Paul Simon has always been attracted to new kinds of sounds. From his early band Simon & Garfunkel in the 1960s through solo albums like Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints in the '80s and '90s, up through his recent albums So Beautiful or So What and Stranger to Stranger, Simon has made music that does what the very best art can do: it resonates with our experience, re-frames it, and introduces new timbres and ideas.
Recently, Simon’s curious mind has brought him into the world of contemporary classical music, mining the microtonal sound world of Harry Partch for his last record, and, just last month, collaborating with 10 composers and the ensemble yMusic on a set at the Eaux Claires music festival. On this episode of Meet the Composer – the final of Season Three – we hear Simon's perspective on his career and his most recent projects, as well as exclusive audio from the festival collaboration itself.
Heard a piece of music on this episode that you loved? Find out what it was here:
0:18—Andrew Norman: Music in Circles | Listen
2:23—Paul Simon: Insomniac’s Lullaby | Listen
5:04—Simon & Garfunkel: Mrs. Robinson | Listen
6:09—The Penguins: Earth Angel | Listen
7:05—Tom & Jerry: Hey Schoolgirl | Listen
7:48—Simon & Garfunkel: Sound of Silence | Listen
8:13—Simon & Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water | Listen
8:48—Paul Simon: Still Crazy After All These Years | Listen
9:09—Paul Simon: Hearts and Bones | Listen
10:00—Boyoyo Boys: Son Op | Listen
10:41—Paul Simon: Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes | Listen
11:03—Paul Simon: Boy in the Bubble | Listen
11:30—Paul Simon: Homeless | Listen
11:58—Paul Simon: Graceland | Listen
12:53—Ladysmith Black Mambazo: The Alphabet | Watch
13:22—Paul Simon: Under African Skies | Listen
14:50—Paul Simon: Crazy Love, Vol. II | Listen
15:38—Eddie Palmieri: Ay Que Rico | Listen
15:53—Various Artists: Hausa Street Music | Listen
16:06—Various Artists: Oru Para Todos Los Santos | Listen
16:12—Various Artists: Songhay Gulu Drummers | Listen
16:24—Paul Simon: Further to Fly | Listen
17:08—Paul Simon: Obvious Child | Listen
18:58—Marcos Balter: Bladed Stance | Listen
20:56—Timo Andres: Safe Travels | Listen
23:40—Harry Partch: Cloud-Chamber Bowls | Listen
24:33—Harry Partch: The Bewitched, Scene One | Listen
25:14—Paul Simon: Insomniac’s Lullaby | Listen
26:27—Vincenzo Bellini: Casta Diva, from Norma | Listen
27:58—Sergei Prokofiev: Cello Sonata in C major, op. 119 | Listen
29:15—Paul Simon: Another Galaxy | Listen
31:44—Paul Simon: Kathy’s Song | Listen
32:14—Paul Simon: Train in the Distance | Listen
32:44—Paul Simon: Train in the Distance [acoustic demo] | Listen
35:08—Bob Dylan: The Ballad of a Thin Man | Listen
35:34—Gabriel Kahane: Veda (1 Pierce Dr.) | Listen
36:10—Paul Simon [arr. Gabriel Kahane]: Train in the Distance
37:32—Danny Brown: Ain’t It Funny | Listen
40:14—Paul Simon [arr. Robert Sirota]: America
42:32—Simon & Garfunkel: Sound of Silence | Listen
44:17—Simon & Garfunkel: America | Listen
46:15—Paul Simon [arr. Rob Moose]: Sound of Silence
We began last week’s episode digging into the music of one particular electronic musician - the synthesist, producer and composer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith.
Today we’re thrilled to bring you a song that you won’t hear on any of Kaitlyn’s albums. Clouds Forming Over Mount Baker was commissioned by the University of Pennsylvania’s Arthur Ross Gallery to accompany a landscape photograph by Eliot Porter.
It’s a fitting collaboration, as Kaitlyn grew up on Orcas Island, where Mt. Baker is a visible feature. Join us for this rich, synthesized soundscape, bringing sonic life to Porter’s beautiful photograph.
Clouds Forming over Mt. Baker (Eliot Porter)
What happens when a composer writes music without pen and paper, using machines? How does that change the creative process? How does it morph the art itself?
Today on Meet the Composer, our producer Alex Overington — usually behind the studio glass — takes us on a road trip to unravel the creative process of those composers who write without a score. We meet the synthesists, the samplers, the electronic musicians, and dive deep into the tools they’ve adopted to define their craft.
Join us as we uncover what it means to be a composer who sculpts directly with sound, through conversations with such artists as Matmos, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Tyondai Braxton, Laurie Anderson, Morton Subotnick and more.
Heard a piece of music you loved? Discover it here!
0:21—Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: Rare Things Grow | Listen
2:27—Terry Riley: A Rainbow in Curved Air | Listen
3:16—Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor | Listen
4:03—Gustave Mahler: Symphony No. 4, IV. Adagietto | Listen
4:33—Oneohtrix Point Never: Problem Areas | Listen
6:02—Matmos: Ultimate Care II | Listen
6:30—Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: First Flight | Listen
7:41—Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: Envelop | Listen
11:29—Matmos: Mister Mouth | Listen
12:59—Morton Subotnick: Silver Apples of the Moon | Listen
13:48—The Vogues: Five O'Clock World | Listen
14:42—Arthur Smith: Banjo Boogie | Listen
15:26—Morton Subotnick: Silver Apples of the Moon | Listen
15:51—Stephen Foster: Camptown Races | Watch
16:04—Johannes Pachabel: Canon in D | Listen
16:55—Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: Sundry | Listen
18:25—Morton Subotnick: Silver Apples of the Moon | Listen
20:28—Tyondai Braxton: Opening Bell | Listen
20:56—Tyondai Braxton: Gracka | Listen
22:43—Tyondai Braxton: Scout1 | Listen
24:39—Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: Wetlands | Listen
28:30—Pierre Schaeffer & Pierre Henry: Orphée 53 | Listen
29:25—Mistinguett: Mitsou | Listen
29:38—Pierre Schaeffer & Pierre Henry: Orphée 53 | Listen
29:57—The Sugarhill Gang: Apache [Jump On It] | Listen
30:20—Kanye West: A "Dope Ass Beat" | Watch
30:39—Matmos: Very Large Green Triangles | Listen
31:26—Matmos: Ur Tchan Tan Tse Qi | Listen
32:49—Jingle Cats: Jingle Bells | Listen
33:22—Matmos: California Rhinoplasty | Listen
34:28—Matmos: Lipostudio... And So On | Listen
34:37—Matmos: L.A.S.I.K. | Listen
35:20—Matmos: L.A.S.I.K. | Listen
37:27—Matmos: You | Listen
39:14—Matmos & So Percussion: Aluminum | Listen
40:50—Matmos: Ultimate Care II | Listen
47:46—Matmos: Ultimate Care II | Listen
49:14—Laurie Anderson: Another Day in America | Listen
53:04—Laurie Anderson: Sharkey's Day | Listen
53:59—Edward Grieg: Lyric Pieces for the Piano, op. 43, "Butterfly" | Listen
54:27—Laurie Anderson: My Right Eye | Listen
55:31—Laurie Anderson: Another Day in America | Listen
57:35—Laurie Anderson: The Lake [Instrumental] | Listen
For today’s Bonus Track, we’re thrilled to bring you the world-premiere recording of Bryce Dessner’s Wires, performed by Ensemble Intercontemporain!
Last week, we dug into a particularly contentious moment in classical music’s history. This week, however, we’re looking at where we are NOW, a place of, well… niceness.
“I think right now is a really good time to be a composer,” says composer John Adams. “And I tell young composers that. They don't believe me, but they don't know how difficult it was back when I was in my 20s and 30s.”
We'll hear how David Lang’s group Bang on a Can helped to shape a newfound culture of support and generosity, and how the next generation of composers - including Bryce Dessner - can find creative freedom in this new landscape. Finally, we hear from Bryce what it’s like to write for “the Rolls Royce … of New Music,” with his new piece, Wires, for Ensemble Intercontemporian, led by Matthias Pintscher.
Bryce Dessner's Wires is provided courtesy of Chester Music, part of the Music Sales Group, Ensemble Intercontemportain and SPEDIDAM (Société de Perception et de Répartition des Droits des Artistes-Interprètes.)
It was composer pitted against composer: uptown vs. downtown, tonal vs. atonal, left brain vs right brain, and these musicians were NOT pulling any punches. Composers were antagonizing each other, questioning each other's validity, and bad-mouthing one another; it was like the second half of the 20th century was when Western Music went through middle school, and it was brutal!
“If you weren't being a constructivist composer, if the music wasn't indeed about its own structure, and its own structure wasn't complicated, then you were a pariah, you were rejected. You didn’t get tenure. You didn’t get a job.” That’s Robert Sirota - Nadia’s Dad - one of many composers who came of age in the midst of this feud and struggled - for years - to find a voice.
On this episode of Meet the Composer, we unravel one of the most contentious periods in classical music’s history. How did this fight begin? How did it play out? Who were the contenders? We hear from composers on both sides of this battle, and discover how, on all ends of the aesthetic spectrum, we can find value in differences.
Heard a piece of music you loved? Discover it here!
0:00—The Yorks: Love Without Reason, written by Barry Flicker
2:14—Robert Sirota: Pange Lingua Sonata | Buy
3:30—Robert Sirota: Pange Lingua Sonata | Buy
5:23—Philip Glass: Music in Twelve Parts | Listen
6:31—Ruth Crawford Seeger: Study in Mixed Accents | Listen
7:08—David Lang: orpheus over and under | Listen
8:53—Richard Wagner: Overture from Tristan und Isolde | Listen
9:36—Julia Ward Howe: Battle Hymn of the Republic | Watch
11:27—Arnold Schoenberg: Klavierstüke, Op. 33 | Listen
12:04—Pierre Boulez: Piano Sonata No. 2 | Listen
13:05—Pierre Boulez: Sur Incises | Listen
13:47—Lewis Nielsen: Oerknal! "...the crisis of conscience..." | Listen
14:50—Charles Wuorinen: Two Part Symphony | Listen
15:57—David Lang: the so-called laws of nature: part III | Listen
17:59—Jr. Walker and the All-Stars: Shotgun | Listen
18:47—Bob Dylan: Maggie's Farm | Buy
19:09—Elliott Carter: String Quartet No. 2 | Listen
19:45—Steve Reich: Violin Phase | Listen
21:05—Elliott Carter: String Quartet No. 2 | Listen
21:16—Charles Wuorinen: Second Piano Quintet | Listen
22:10—John Adams: Phrygian Gates | Listen
23:31—John Adams: Death of Klinghoffer | Listen
24:08—David Lang: child, II. sweet air | Listen
25:21—David Lang: almost all the time | Listen
28:53—Brian Ferneyhough: La chute d'Icare | Listen
30:58—Brian Ferneyhough: no time (at all) | Listen
32:09—Brian Ferneyhough: Superscriptio | Listen
33:36—J.S. Bach: Invention No. 15 in B minor | Listen
34:26—J.S. Bach: Mass in B minor, "Crucifixus" | Listen
38:49—David Lang: breathless | Listen
Henry Threadgill’s music and community can’t be separated; there is no boundary: challenge and failure and growth in music are the same as challenge and failure and growth in life. This Meet the Composer bonus track shares an exclusive performance by Henry Threadgill's Zooid ensemble of I Never, recorded live by Q2 Music at the Village Vanguard on Oct. 2, 2016.
Throughout his career, Threadgill has led countless ensembles with diverse instrumentations and personalities. And in each of them, he finds a way to unearth a type of asymmetry – a blend of unease and transcendence that comes across in his remarkably structured compositions. He unites musicians in the same way as he composes: with affection for the mysterious, embrace of the unexpected, and spontaneity guided by a rigorous intellect. As Threadgill has said, “Improvisation is a way to live your life and solve problems.” Music is one outlet, one way to activate this philosophy, which is something we hear echoed often from his collaborators.
In this recording, we hear the 2016 Pulitzer Prize laureate leading his longest standing chamber ensemble, Zooid, in a live performance inside the legendary New York City underground jazz venue, the Village Vanguard.
Performers:
Henry Threadgill, alto sax
Liberty Ellman, tres
Christopher Hoffman, cello
José Davila, tuba
Elliot Humberto Kavee, drums, percussion
This live recording was produced by Curtis Macdonald and engineered by Edward Haber (technical director and remix), Irene Trudel, Duke Markos, Bill Moss and Curtis Macdonald.
1967, Fort Riley, Kansas. Henry Threadgill is 23 years old. Knowing he’s going to be drafted into the military, he joins the Army Concert Band, hoping to focus on his passion: writing music. As he surrounds himself with new ideas, he works his influences into the music that he's arranging. Then one day, the band plays one of his arrangements of a patriotic song for an inauguration of big-wigs, and from the calm of a quietly confused crowd comes a cry from a cardinal in attendance: “Blasphemy!”
One day later, he’s told to gather his things. Thirty days later, he’s on his way to Vietnam. Fifty years later, he wins the Pulitzer Prize for music composition.
This is only the beginning of the story of how the energy, hunger and curiosity of Henry Threadgill have influenced and changed the people around him. In spite of the failure and rejection he’s faced, Threadgill is perpetually driven toward new ideas, new challenges and new opportunities to pursue and grow stronger in his improvisational creative vision. His music is the product of the community he builds in the moment.
This is the story of Henry Threadgill, told by the people whose lives he has touched.
Heard a piece of music that you loved? Discover it here!
1:32—Samuel Ward: America the Beautiful | Listen
1:47—Cecil Taylor: Air Above Mountains | Listen
1:51—Igor Stravinsky: Rite of Spring | Listen
1:57—Thelonious Monk: Solo Monk | Listen
2:58—The Star-Spangled Banner, re-imagined by Meet the Composer
3:29—Henry Threadgill: Someplace | Buy
3:47—Henry Threadgill: Higher Places | Buy
5:24—Henry Threadgill: Little Pocket-Sized Demons | Buy
6:00—Nico Muhly: Mothertongue: I. Archive | Listen
6:20—Henry Threadgill: The Devil is on the Loose and Dancing with a Monkey | Listen
6:58—Henry Threadgill: Try Some Ammonia | Listen
9:00—Edward Ciuksza: Basia | Listen
9:07—Demiran Cerimovic: Laca's Proud Cocek | Listen
9:17—Sallie Martin Singers: Jesus | Listen
9:28—Howlin' Wolf: Back Door Man | Listen
10:20—Ernest Tubb & Red Foley: Hillbilly Fever | Listen
10:33—Dmitri Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major, op. 107 | Listen
10:39—Big Maybelle: Do Lord | Listen
10:52—Meade Lux Lewis: Honky Tonk Train Blues | Listen
12:17—Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life | Listen
13:11—Bishop Samuel Kelsey & Others: Tell Me How Long Has The Train Been Gone | Listen
14:19—Henry Threadgill: Where's Your Cup | Listen
16:10—Muhal Richard Abrams: Wise in Time | Listen
18:02—Muhal Richard Abrams: Marching With Honor | Listen
18:09—George Lewis: Voyager Duo 4 | Listen
18:16—Amina Claudine Myers: African Blues | Listen
18:24—Roscoe Mitchell: A Game of Catch | Listen
18:30—Wadada Leo Smith: Lake Michigan | Listen
18:31—Henry Threadgill: Old Locks & Irregular Verbs | Listen
28:03—Henry Threadgill: Old Locks & Irregular Verbs | Listen
29:15—Henry Threadgill: Subject to Change: This | Buy
34:08—Henry Threadgill: In for a Penny, Out for a Pound | Listen
37:27—Henry Threadgill: Old Locks & Irregular Verbs | Listen
Today's bonus track is an exclusive arrangement of a nutso, sci-fi-y electronic piece John Adams wrote in 1993. Originally part of a larger work, Hoodoo Zephyr, Coast was never intended to be performed live. However, the 20-person chamber ensemble Alarm Will Sound has often been tempted by electronic works. Violinist, composer, and Alarm Will Sound member Caleb Burhans, who cut his teeth arranging works by Aphex Twin for the group, adapted Adams' work. While Alarm Will Sound has performed this piece several times, we're proud to bring this you exclusive recording!
What happens when the composer shows up to the first rehearsal of his brand-new piece? Would a living Beethoven sue for intellectual property? Are you the hit, or are you in the hole? For this episode, we collaborated with the 20-member chamber ensemble Alarm Will Sound and its conductor Alan Pierson – with whom we're partnering on the upcoming podcast album Splitting Adams (out April 21 on Cantaloupe Music) – to take a close look at the music of John Adams, specifically his two insanely difficult chamber symphonies. This episode offers unprecedented access to not only to the creative process, but the weird, woolly procedure of putting these massive pieces together.
Heard a piece of music you loved? Discover it here!
1:48—John Adams: Chamber Symphony | Listen | Buy
2:12—Arnold Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire, Mondestrunken | Listen | Buy
2:29—Richard Strauss: Five Piano Pieces, op. 3: IV, allegro molto | Listen | Buy
3:08—Ray Noble: The Midnight, The Stars and You | Listen | Buy
3:13—Busby Berkeley: Hooray for Hollywood | Listen | Buy
3:55—Louis Armstrong: You're Lucky to Me | Listen | Buy
4:37—George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue | Listen | Buy
5:20—John Adams: Chamber Symphony | Listen | Buy
5:58—John Adams: The Death of Klinghoffer | Buy
7:30—Arnold Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony | Listen | Buy
8:53—John Adams: Chamber Symphony | Listen | Buy
19:10—John Adams: Son of Chamber Symphony | Listen | Buy
20:46—Danny Elfman: Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, The Breakfast Machine | Listen | Buy
21:10—John Adams: Son of Chamber Symphony | Listen | Buy
22:19—John Adams: Son of Chamber Symphony | Listen | Buy
24:25—Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 9, mvt. I | Listen | Buy
24:51—Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 9, mvt. II | Listen | Buy
25:00—John Adams: Son of Chamber Symphony | Listen | Buy
26:01—Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 9, mvt. II | Listen | Buy
26:28—John Adams: Son of Chamber Symphony | Listen | Buy
31:33—John Adams: Fellow Traveler | Listen | Buy
31:42—John Adams: Nixon in China | Listen | Buy
31:56—John Adams: Son of Chamber Symphony | Listen | Buy
32:24—John Adams: Fellow Traveler | Listen | Buy
32:33—John Adams: Son of Chamber Symphony | Listen | Buy
Today's Meet the Composer Bonus Track is an extended cut of Pauline Oliveros' Tuning Meditation, recorded live at the Fuentidueña Chapel at the Met Cloisters on Jan. 20, 2017. Recorded in 3D-sounding binaural audio, it's an immersive experience in which we would love you to think about participating while listening. For optimal audio quality, please listen with headphones!
