Folk meets minimalism via the medium of the fiddle for this New Sounds. Listen to music from Estonian singer/violinist Maarja Nuut whose music resides in a place where minimalism and experimental music meet the village. Nuut’s latest record, “Soolo” combines traditional dance tunes, songs, and stories with live electronics, and uses tape loops with repetition and variation to find the common ground where the 21st century collapses seamlessly into the 19th century, and a new kind of “folk” music is born. 

See Maarja Nuut, on Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2015, 7PM at Elebash Hall (The Graduate Center/CUNY 365 Fifth Ave. (at 34th St.): ticket link & info. 

There’s also folk-flavored music for a trio of violas from Garth Knox, (who made his name as the violist in the Arditti String Quartet.) The étude, “Up, down, sideways, round” which he believes to be the first four-dimensional bow piece in the world, was meant to teach contemporary bowing techniques.

Hear music from Czech violinist and singer Iva Bittová, who mixes traditional music with vocal assaults which range from crooning to grunting. On her tune, “Stop Searching,” Bittova throws in a little bol singing, the rapid, tongue-twisting Indian chant, plus a little overdubbing, a music box in the background, a little pizzicato, and some of her experimental/free-range cartoon-character sounds.  Plus, listen to music for one violin and tape loops in the late American violinist and composer Michael Galasso’s “Scenes.”

PROGRAM #3779 Folk Meets Minimalism (First Aired 09-28-2015);