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ListN Up Playlist: Lia Kohl (June 4, 2026)

Lia Kohl is a composer and sound artist based in Chicago. Her wide-ranging practice includes composition and performance, installation, improvisation, and collaboration. Her work centers curiosity and patience, an exploration of the mundane and profound possibilities of sound. Hey, I’m Lia Kohl, I’m a composer and sound artist based in Chicago, but I’m currently in … Continued

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Reg Bloor Steps Up to the Podium for the NYC Return of Glenn Branca’s Symphony No. 13

When Glenn Branca’s Symphony No. 13 (“Hallucination City”) for 100 Guitars was first performed at the World Trade Center in June 2001, its soaring overtones flew through the doors and out to the city’s streets. For Reg Bloor, it was a dissonant ring that never ceased; it only grew past the limits of sonic resonance. … Continued

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Char Jeré and Guests Mold Time and Space in “Planet/Tear”

“A shifting environment of unstable systems … Signals emerge, overlap, and dissolve, forming a temporary network that resists fixed structure or control.” Planet/Tear: Early Warning Systems curated by Char Jeré more than kept this promise in its May 26 presentation at Roulette Intermedium. The fantastically-considered, stellar showcase of 15 multimedia artists was loosely grouped by … Continued

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Colgate Is Not Toothpaste: On Classical Music, Art Music, and the Theft of a Category

I grew up in Bogotá in the late ‘80s. Toothpaste was no longer called “toothpaste” — it was Colgate. Soda was Coca-Cola. Cereal was Cornflakes. Jeans were Levi’s. Leading brands had become so dominant that they essentially replaced the thing itself. And this is exactly what has happened with art music: Western classical music has … Continued

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5 Questions to TellTale Opera Theatre

In the landscape of modern opera performance, everyone seems to be fighting an uphill battle. Composers without generational wealth have few opportunities to see their music workshopped and performed. Singers seeking training and performance opportunities often rely on acceptance to Young Artist Programs, which can be both time intensive and prohibitively expensive. These costs come … Continued

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For Lazyhorse, Fragments of Ideas are Opportunities for Transformation

There’s often a moment in a group improvisation where musicians let go of trying to make sense of each other’s sound and begin to respond more fluidly. Lazyhorse, a new rotating collective ensemble, lives in that moment. For bassist and vocalist Mali Obomsawin, improvisation is valuable because it creates instability. “You learn to listen, embody … Continued

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ListN Up Playlist: Sanaya Ardeshir (May 21, 2026)

Sanaya Ardeshir (she/her) is an Indian producer and composer, with a parallel practice in electronic music under the moniker – Sandunes. Like her naturally occurring namesake, her world of sound is in constant evolution-ranging from experimental piano music, acoustic-electronic dance music, to experiments in pop, field recordings and synthesis. Her performances reveal an appetite for … Continued

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5 Question to Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir (composer)

The music of experimental composer Bergrún Snæbjörnsdóttir is surprisingly organic and elemental; equal parts methodical and curious, she constructs slowly evolving soundscapes from breath, metallic resonances, and reedy textures. Swelling long tones form undulating timbral conversations, sometimes at a whisper, and other times cacophonous. And if you’re lucky enough to hear her compositions performed live, … Continued

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The Substance of Silence on TAK Ensemble’s “Between the Air”

Though air hangs all around us, it’s usually imperceptible. But when it moves, we hear it. A gale rustles the leaves, yielding a bristling crunch; a gentle breeze swirls in the atmosphere, leaving a faint hum in its wake. Like the shifting winds, TAK Ensemble’s virtuosic performances are in a constant state of change. Over … Continued

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The Ecstatic Experience of Dig That Treasure! Festival 2026

I don’t think I have ever seen the audience at Cafe Oto so animated and so joyful as they were on the opening night of the 2026 Dig That Treasure! Festival. Canab Marwo, imperious in a long black-and-white polka dot dress and headscarf, ended every track of her infectious Somali pop music with a succession … Continued

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Malachi Brown and the Sounds of U.S.

For more than a century, the New York City neighborhood of Harlem has been a synchedoche for Black artistic innovation and transformation. From the 1920s to early 1930s, the Harlem Renaissance saw a blossoming of Black creativity in music, art, fiction, and poetry. Some of the significant work from this period includes Alain Locke’s “New Negro;” … Continued

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SydeBoob Duo’s “Au Naturel” is a Bold and Athletic Debut

As SydeBoob Duo, soprano Anna Elder and flutist Sarah Steranka perform bold and athletic repertoire with an inviting sense of familiarity that encourages deep listening. Their debut album Au Naturel (New Focus Recordings, 2026) showcases foundational works from their repertoire by Rebecca Saunders, Ramin Akhavijou, Anthony Braxton, Max Johnson, Eric Moe, and Beat Furrer. What … Continued

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ListN Up: Poiesis Quartet (May 7, 2026)

Lauded for their “palpable chemistry and remarkable warmth” (San Francisco Classical Voice), the Poiesis Quartet is the First Prize and Commission Prize winners of the 2025 Banff International String Quartet Competition. In 2023, they were named the Grand Prize and Lift Every Voice Prize winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, as well as … Continued

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Chance Meeting Leads to Fruitful Collaboration on Goal Weight’s “Keep Telling Yourself That”

What does it mean to bring a project to life with a collaborator you met by chance — say, at a celebrity yoga retreat during the pandemic? Keep Telling Yourself That, the debut album from Goal Weight, meditates on the spontaneous and serendipitous beginning of this creative relationship. Across eight collectively improvised songs, the experimental … Continued

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Music Flies Free in “Papillons” from Manchester Collective

The tagline for the Southbank Centre’s Multitudes festival is ‘a multi-arts festival powered by orchestral music.’ This must be interpreted in the context of contemporary debates about how to broaden the audience for classical music, an issue that resonates with the Manchester Collective. Their show ‘Papillons’ arrived in London on 30 April, at the end … Continued

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Kavyesh Kaviraj Wears His Influences on His Sleeve – And Reminds Us of Our Common Humanity

“One might describe [my style] as a patchwork: you can really find the seams when you’re browsing through the embroidery,” Kavyesh Kaviraj told me over Zoom. “It’s pretty similar to what I feel like as a human being; I wear all my influences on my sleeve, and I sort of move between them as I … Continued

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Disorienting Dread in the Works of Hannah Kendall

Hannah Kendall expresses her fascination with a multi-dimensional rainbow of timbre through her retelling of plantation history and her unearthing of the hope that both inexplicably and inevitably rose out of that horror. Simply put, Kendall’s music is a time machine. Performed on Miller Theatre’s last Composer Portrait of the 2025/2026 season by the International … Continued

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Transgression is Freedom in the Artistry of Dorian Wood

A self-described anti-disciplinary artist, Dorian Wood seeks to “infect” spaces and ideologies in order to challenge traditions and systems of marginalization. Her work is a creative expression of community, an extension of family, and an ongoing exploration of cultural heritage. But this concept of heritage doesn’t just echo from the past — it moves with … Continued

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5 Questions to Hamed Erfani (composer) and Yasaman Seif (cellist)

Hamed Erfani and Yasaman Seif are a formidable couple: as a composer and a cellist, respectively, they both blend Persian musical traditions with Western classical music. The couple recently settled in Oklahoma after emigrating from Iran, and Erfani currently serves as the composer-in-residence with the Oklahoma Chamber Symphony, where Seif performs as a cellist. Together, … Continued

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ListN Up Playlist: Andrea Curutchet-Stevenson (April 23, 2026)

Andrea Curutchet-Stevenson is a trans non-binary and second-generation New Yorker who releases and performs their music under the name ¡Cachabacha!. They take inspiration from Latin Jazz, R&B, and American folk styles, and set off-kilter melodies and jazz chords afloat over a mixture of South American rhythms in their exploration of identity, love, and heritage. Their debut … Continued

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5 Questions to Ryan Alexander (Founder, Project Poetic Justice)

With Project Poetic Justice, artist and activist Ryan Alexander combines his passion for social justice education and his training in composition to create a musical community inside the DC Jail. Over the course of ten weeks, incarcerated young adults are invited to write poetry, compose music, and showcase their work in two concerts: one held … Continued

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Rewire Festival Offers an International Space for Catharsis and Connection

The 2026 Rewire Festival opened not with a bang, but as a beautifully disjointed conversation. In the span of five minutes, I caught morsels of Dutch, Italian, English, French, and Arabic while sitting cross-legged on the floor of Amare — the largest cultural center in The Hague. Italian composer-performer Caterina Barbieri and ONCEIM took the … Continued

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5 Questions Mai Khôi (singer, composer, activist)

Few children dream of being a pop star and actually achieve that goal — but that is what happened for Mai Khôi. The singer-turned-activist studied music with her father, joined his wedding band at age 12, and went on to win the Vietnam Television Award for song and album of the year in 2010. The … Continued

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Maiani da Silva Renews Sonic Connections to Nature on “Brouhaha”

On Brouhaha: Shaped by Fire (Sono Luminus, 2026), violinist Maiani da Silva suggests that listeners might renew their connection to nature by attuning to different rhythms and cycles in music. The recording and performance project features six new works for solo violin, with each composer considering a unique idea about humanity’s place in the Earth’s … Continued

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