#3678: New Music for 2015

For this last show of the year, sample some of the forthcoming new music releases due out in 2015. There’s music for “watching glaciers collapse” by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith written on a Buchla Music Easel synthesizer, originally composed as a new soundtrack to old silent films. Smith cites her inspiration as coming from Euclidean geometry, mbira music, and early electronic music pioneers like Suzanne Ciani, Laurie Spiegel, and Terry Riley.

Then, hear music by saxman Rudresh Mahanthappa, and a David Bowie tune from vocalist Donna Lewis featuring the Bad Plus, from her album of cover songs due out in March of 2015. Sample a reworking using West African instruments of the now 50-year old “In C” by Terry Riley, featuring both top musicians from Mali and Damon Albarn (Gorillaz, Blur), Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and Brian Eno. Listen to clarinetist/composer Ben Goldberg’s forthcoming “Orphic Machine,” song-cycle based on poems about creative inspiration by Allen Grossman, and includes Carla Kihlstedt as vocalist. Also, hear a song from composer/vocalist Corey Dargel, who writes art-songs as pop songs; here glitchy pulses underscore acoustic guitar, from his upcoming, “OK, It’s Not OK,” and more.

PROGRAM #3678 Looking Ahead to 2015 (First aired on 12/31/2014)