Photographer and patron Betty Freeman, who has been something of a Nadezhda von Meck to composers ranging from Harry Partch and John Cage to La Monte Young and Kaija Saariaho as well as numerous visual artists, talks about what music she funds and why.

Young musicians and listeners today are increasingly sophisticated and open-eared. They don’t care much about what music is called. They care about how it sounds.

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Alan HovhanessPhoto courtesy of C.F. Peters

Alan Hovhaness, a prolific composer who melded Western and Asian musical genres, died in Seattle on June 21, 2000. He was 89 and had suffered from a severe …

John ShiurbaPhoto courtesy John Shiurba

Ahh, the great divide, oh to be forever clumsily straddling the great divide. My music not only exists precisely on that divide, but seems to be more or less …

Erik HoverstenPhoto courtesy Erik Hoversten

Despite the “classical” training we may have, all of us in Threnody Ensemble spent our formative years playing in bands. The music we make now is inextricably linked to …

Neil Haverstick

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Diamanda GalasPhoto by Tom Pitts

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David Borden (right) with Keith Emerson (left)Photo by Vivian Lee

The classification of genres in the arts is, I suppose, necessary for both critics and historians. Mostly though, I find that marketing, the need …

Jason Gross and Steve SmithPhoto by Melissa Richard

Much as it might bewilder major record companies and fundamentalist critics, rock isn’t only background music for TV commercials and cherished momentos for teenybopper spend-a-thons. It’s …