Stay ConnectedA podcast about the most fascinating time in classical music history: right now.
Relevant Tones features interviews with and music by some of the most creative figures in contemporary classical music, themed shows exploring new trends in classical music and frequent live streamed shows featuring conversations and music performances.
Hosted and produced by Seth Boustead, Austin Williams, Stephen Anthony Rawson and Matt Dotson.
Copyright: © Seth Boustead
The opening night of the Relevant Tones Tenth Anniversary Festival featured an exciting multi-media concert of music inspired by Rube Goldberg machines.
We were joined by Rube’s granddaughter Jennifer George who is also the director of the Rube Goldberg Institute, and an all-star roster of musicians for an unforgettable evening.
Indian-American composer Reena Esmail works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music, and brings communities together through the creation of equitable musical spaces.
Annie Gosfield, whom the BBC called "A one woman Hadron collider" lives in New York City and works on the boundaries between notated and improvised music, electronic and acoustic sounds, refined timbres and noise.
Her music is often inspired by the inherent beauty of found sounds, such as machines, destroyed pianos, warped 78 rpm records and jammed radio signals.
Stephen Rawson talks with her about her life in music and features excerpts of several key works including her opera War of the Worlds.
(photo by Paula Court)
In 1949 a 23-year old composer named Daphne Oram wrote a pioneering new work for two orchestras, live electronics and turntables that was subsequently lost for decades.
Only vague references survived until composer and archivist James Bulley rediscovered the complete score in 2015. He enlisted composer and turntable artist Shiva Feshareki to help him realize the electronics using the technology that would have been available to Oram.
In 2018 the work was finally premiered at the BBC Proms. It was the first work of its kind and it is a masterpiece.
ACM's Thirsty Ears Festival is Chicago's only classical music street festival combining stellar performances with great craft beer from Empirical Brewing.
We did an intimate live broadcast the night before from the ACM School of Music featuring performances by Michael Hall, the Wurtz-Berger Duo and the Quijote Duo.
Composer inti figgis-vizueta writes "magically real musics through the lens of personal identities, braiding a childhood of overlapping immigrant communities and Black-founded Freedom schools—in Chocolate City (DC)—with direct Andean & Irish heritage and a deep connection to the land."
Stephen Rawson talks with them about music, poetry, magical realism and more.
We feature three works that recast age-old myths from a woman's perspective. Milica Paranosic's Penelope and the Geese reimagines the Odyssey from Penelope's point of view. We talk with her about the opera and feature three key scenes.
And Marisa Michelson's Naama's Ark tells the flood myth from the perspective of Noah's wife and Salvatore Sciarrino's La Nuova Euridice lets Orpheus' famous bride tells her own story.
Photo by charis isis
A palimpsest is a manuscript whose original text has been scraped or washed away and overwritten with a new one, often many times over. The original text is still present but visible only in fragments.
This concept has inspired composers to overlay music in similar ways to fascinating effect. We feature a small sample of musical palimpsests. Music by Kevin Ernste, George Benjamin, Paul Novak and Gabriel Kahane.
Texu Kim writes music that's fun, often humorous yet sophisticated, detailed and connected to his South Korean heritage in fascinating ways.
He's also the only composer we know to offer "major-league cuteness” (Broadway World) while also demonstrating “surprising scope.” (San Diego Story)
Access Contemporary Music's Sonic Walkabout is a fun way to explore a neighborhood and see and hear it as never before.
ACM commissioned composers to write music inspired by historic and cultural sites in Chicago's Wicker Park and Lakeview neighborhoods and combined their musical creations with narrative storytelling. Music by Amy Wurtz, Amos Gillespie, Seth Boustead, Kyle Gregory Price, Trevor Patricia Watkin and Jonathan Hannau.
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