#3579: Abandoned Cities

On this New Sounds program, listen to a series of works about abandoned cities and towns. Sample works for prepared piano and electronics from German pianist and composer Hauschka (Volker Bertelmann)’s latest release, “Abandoned City,” inspired by different ghost towns throughout the world.  Then there’s music from Scotland’s Alasdair Roberts & Robin Robertson, from their excellent and stirring “Hirta Songs.” Listen to a work for piano by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies written in protest of the proposed uranium mine at Stromness, in Orkney, Scotland, along with another Hauschka work by the same name, but about a different locale - the whaling station on the South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic, “Stromness.”

Plus, hear Iranian kamancheh player and composer Kayhan Kalhor together with the string quartet Brooklyn Rider in Kalhor’s deep invitation to reflect, “Silent City," a largely improvised memorial to the city of Halabja, a Kurdish community destroyed in 1988 by the Saddam Hussein regime's chemical weapons.

PROGRAM #3579 Abandoned Cities (First aired on 3/19/2014)