Meet the Composer with Nadia Sirota - Season 1

Series produced by WQXR

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From New York Public Radio’s Q2 Music, Meet the Composer is a Peabody-Award winning five-part radio series that takes listeners into the minds and creative processes of the composers making some of the most engaging, innovative, and beautiful music today. Featuring host Nadia Sirota with composers John Luther Adams (2014 Pulitzer Prize in Music), Caroline Shaw (2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music), Donnacha Dennehy, Marcos Balter, and Andrew Norman.

Radiolab host Jad Abumrad calls the show "compelling and beautifully produced. One of the best things I've heard in a long time."

At the convergence of interview, music, and sound design, Meet the Composer aims to show the listener who the composer is as a person, as a thinker, and as an artist. The listener, in turn, gets way more context for new work than is provided by your average program note, CD liner or digital booklet, and hopefully an engaging entry point into the world of New Music.

The show is hosted by the critically-acclaimed violist and Q2 Music contributor Nadia Sirota, who knows these music makers intimately and has performed their work extensively. Hailed by The New York Times as “a bold new-music interpreter” and Pitchfork as "a one-woman contemporary-classical commissioning machine," Sirota serves as both a bridge between artist and audience and as an advocate for the lively personalities within the new music scene.
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Radiolab host Jad Abumrad calls the show "compelling and beautifully produced. One of the best things I've heard in a long time." At the convergence of interview, music, and sound design, Meet the Composer aims to show the listener who the composer is as a person, as a thinker, and as an artist. The listener, in turn, gets way more context for new work than is provided by your average program note, CD liner or digital booklet, and hopefully an engaging entry point into the world of New Music. The show is hosted by the critically-acclaimed violist and Q2 Music contributor Nadia Sirota, who knows these music makers intimately and has performed their work extensively. Hailed by The New York Times as “a bold new-music interpreter” and Pitchfork as "a one-woman contemporary-classical... Show full description


10 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
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Building on a long-standing collaborative relationship, Marcos Balter wrote "Intercepting a Shivery Light" for the Anubis Quartet, a saxophone ense...

  • Added: Jun 06, 2016
  • Length: 17:37
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In 2012, the Grammy award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus commissioned the future Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw to write a new work f...

  • Added: Jun 06, 2016
  • Length: 13:49
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In 1844, Asenath Nicholson, a school teacher, reformer and proprietor of an all-vegetarian boarding house in New York City, traveled to Ireland to ...

  • Added: Jun 06, 2016
  • Length: 14:54
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In 2007, composer and newly minted Rome Prize recipient Andrew Norman found himself among 15 artists and 15 scholars heading to the Eternal City fo...

  • Added: Jun 06, 2016
  • Length: 13:14
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Gordon Wright, the Alaskan composer, conductor, professor, and environmentalist, was John Luther Adams's best friend. When he died suddenly in 200...

  • Added: Jun 06, 2016
  • Length: 24:07
Caption: John Luther Adams, Credit: Evan Hurd / Cantaloupe Music
John Luther Adams made all of the wrong career decisions. He got kicked out of multiple high schools, went to the "wrong" college, never finished h...

Bought by WGTE Public Media


  • Added: Dec 02, 2014
  • Length: 57:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Andrew Norman, Credit: Opera Philadelphia
Andrew Norman was a well-feted kid composer, a precocious pre-adolescent who wrote works with grand, filmic gestures for his middle school orchestr...

Bought by WGTE Public Media, KPCC, and KING FM


  • Added: Dec 02, 2014
  • Length: 56:59
  • Purchases: 3
Caption: Donnacha Dennehy, Credit: Sophie Dennehy
Donnacha Dennehy is an Irish composer who thought he was going to study with spectral icon Gérard Grisey in Paris. When he showed up, however, it w...

Bought by WGTE Public Media and KING FM


  • Added: Dec 02, 2014
  • Length: 56:59
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Caroline Shaw, Credit: Piotr Redlinski
Caroline Shaw began her love affair with music at the age of two, when her mom started teaching her violin. Throughout her childhood, Caroline had ...

Bought by WGTE Public Media and KING FM


  • Added: Dec 02, 2014
  • Length: 56:59
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Marcos Balter, Credit: Kat Keers
For Marcos Balter, stellar composition requires the dedicated, daily practice of an athlete. He doesn't think it possible to unearth and hone brill...

Bought by WGTE Public Media and KING FM


  • Added: Dec 02, 2014
  • Length: 56:59
  • Purchases: 2