What’s so essential about Martin Bresnick? Well, for starters he’s impacted a few decades worth of composition students at Yale. If you subscribe to the old adage that those who can’t do teach, let The …

Terry Plumeri, bass; David Goldblatt, piano; Joe LaBarbera, drums
Terry Plumeri’s take on “Beautiful Love” gives off the impression that the bassist is squinting at a masterpiece and seeing an entirely new work of art. This …

Amid the Noise is a moody, ethereal, bliss out sort of disc—qualities that are something of a surprise coming, as they are, from a percussion ensemble. But on this outing, So Percussion is playing with …

Nashville, Tennessee, seems to be an unusual place to be if you’re a composer of electronic music, and Stan Link’s electronic music is in fact very unusual for the genre. Like his mentor Paul Lansky, …

Philip Glass, organs; Dickie Landry, saxophones; Joan La Barbara and Gene Rickard, voice
In case you’ve forgotten, Philip Glass changed our lives. Remind yourself by listening to Analog, a collection of early recordings featuring the composer …

London Sinfonietta conducted by Oliver Knussen
Characteristically controversial, Charles Wuorinen once said that the two greatest American composers were Schoenberg and Stravinsky. And indeed, both European icons were in fact naturalized U.S. citizens at the time …

“Katya Kabanova, why did you marry him?/You knew his mother was a bitch.” Those ears looking for a taste of was sort of opera Rufus Wainwright might deliver the Met will find a sample on …

Wesleyan University Orchestra, Singers, Concert Choir, Gamelan, South Indian Trio, West African Drumming Ensemble, and Big Band conducted by Henry Brant, Neely Bruce, and Richard Winslow
Ever imagine what it would sound like if all of …

Ah the sweet sound of trombone—no really, trombone. Every now and again we need reminded that the trombone can be sultry, even beautiful: they‚re not just the jackhammers that Berlioz and Mahler used to built …

When you talk about women composers of the first half of the 20th century, people like to talk about Ruth Crawford Seeger. She was the first woman to win a Guggenheim Fellowship, and maybe it …