Classical Gas

Stephen Hough is a concert pianist, a published author and an accomplished composer.   His work for piano and string quartet, Les Noces Rouge will have its first West Coast performance at the Music@Menlo festival in California in July 2026. 

Hough spoke with Classical Gas podcast host Gail Wein about the music and its inspiration – the book My Antonia by one of his favorite authors, Willa Cather. Hough said tha...

Augusta Read Thomas is the composer-mentor for the DeGaetano Composition Institute, an ambitious program for emerging composers founded by the Orchestra of St Luke’s. She talks with Gail Wein about this unique institute, what it takes to mentor younger composers, and how she helps them tap into their imaginations.

The first time she picked up a baton, about five years ago, the bassoonist Rebekah Heller had a revelatory moment. She was working with the New World Symphony as a coach, and decided that one of the selections required a conductor. “It's like it woke something up in me. I was so present. I was so connected, and it made me realize that the work of a conductor is kind of the work I had been doing all along in my career, wh...

Sarah Fritz is a musicologist who has been obsessed for the better part of the last decade with the life, music and place in history of the composer and pianist Clara Schumann. Her biography, “Madame Composer: The virtuosic genius of Clara Schumann”, will be out in October 2026 on Pegasus Books.

“Clara Schumann (nee Wieck) was a prodigy on an epic scale. She was internationally famous by the time she was 18 years ...

The composer Joan Tower has won many awards, including the prestigious and lucrative Grawemeyer award in 1990. But for her, the biggest honor came when the Library of Congress announced that they would hold her manuscripts, papers and photos in their archives, in a collection called “The Joan Tower Papers.” She said that was the biggest award she ever got, because it means that her music will have an institutional home,...

Flutist Claire Chase embarked on a herculean project a few years ago – to expand the repertoire for flute by commissioning nearly 100 new works over 24 years. She calls the project Density 2036. It's inspired by a four-minute piece for solo flute by Edgar Varese, Density 21.5, that has fascinated Chase since childhood.

For the project, Chase is determined to create an entirely new program for flute each year, ending in 2036,...

Colin Jacobson is a violinist, composer and co-founder of the Knights Chamber Orchestra and the string quartet Brooklyn Rider. I spoke with Colin earlier this year about Brooklyn Rider’s new concert program, Citizenship Notes, which commemorates the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence; and about the group's 20th anniversary.

Brooklyn Rider premieres the Citizenship Notes program at Tippet ...

Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate talks about his unofficial role as an unofficial ambassador Indian country to the fine arts world, a new work recorded by the Dover Quartet and encouraging the next generation, including his young son, to be involved in music.

I first heard Tate’s music in 2005, when I wrote about the National Symphony’s premiere of his work “Iholba” for The Washington Post.

Th...