New Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel Connery

Episode 4 of Reverberations explores the question: “Can music go out of style?” Composer Juri Seo’s Obsolete Music album suggests that music is ageless. Obsolete Music is Seo’s collaboration with the flexible ensemble Latitude 49. Each track on the record pays homage to a form or style from the past (e.g. “Fugue” or “Ostinato”) in order to reimagine it. Seo’s own decision to become a musician is rooted in an important encounter wit...

This episode of Reverberations is a conversation with composer and trombonist Alex Paxton about his album called Delicious. Host Majel Connery and Paxton discuss his early adulthood as a children’s music educator and how that experience still frames his compositional approach. They delve into the complexity of Paxton’s scores, his concept of melody, and his teenage fantasy of speaking exclusively in trombone. Says Paxton, with char...

In this episode of Reverberations, host Majel Connery talks to David Longstreth about his album, Song of the Earth, an orchestral song cycle featuring Longstreth and his band The Dirty Projectors along with a host of other collaborators, including the commissioning ensemble, s t a r g a z e. Beginning with the album’s titular inspiration, Mahler’s Song of the Earth, Connery and Longstreth discuss the surprising proximity of Mahler ...

The opening episode of Reverberations Season 2 is a conversation with Owls, a pioneering string group that flips the traditional string quartet model to produce an ensemble with 1 violin, 1 viola and 2 cellos.  All four members of the group are represented on the call: violinist Alexi Kenney, violist Ayane Kozasa, and cellists Gabriel Cabezas and Paul Wiancko. In the episode, we explore the implications of this “inverted string qua...

In this episode of Reverberations, host Majel Connery talks to pianist Adam Tendler about his upcoming album, Inheritances. This commissioning project became a live show and, ultimately, an album containing compositional pieces by Laurie Anderson, Missy Mazzoli, Devonté Hynes, and many more artists. Connery and Tendler talk about fragments on Inheritances that involve Adam’s speaking and singing voice. They also discuss Adam’s view...

On this episode of Reverberations, host Majel Connery and Peni Candra Rini discuss her double album, 'Wulansih' and 'Wani.' Candra Rini, who is from Indonesia, talks about her stylistic flexibility, vocal abilities, and the diverse regional influences in her music. She also addresses the recurring theme of climate change in her work and her ambition to become one of the few prominent female composers from her co...

This episode of Reverberations features a t l a s, by Belgian-born Charlotte Jacobs. For Jacobs, music is a map and a personal mythology. a t l a s is not just the figure that holds up the world in Classical myths, but  a creative urge to world-building present in all of us. Jacobs and host Majel Connery talk about processing anxiety through music, the use of ultra minimal reverb in making electronic landscapes, and Jacobs’ love of...

In this episode of Reverberations, we feature Ellen Reid’s "Big Majestic," which originated from Reid’s "Soundwalk," a multi-year sound installation that has traveled to city parks around the world. The album version of "Big Majestic" has been reimagined to provide a different sonic experience. Host Majel Connery and Reid discuss the genesis of the project, its evolution over time, Reid’s approach to c...

This episode of Reverberations centers on the Los Angeles-based chamber orchestra Wild Up, and their album Julius Eastman Vol. 4: The Holy Presence. The Holy Presence is the fourth in an ongoing series of releases by Wild Up celebrating the work of composer Julius Eastman, who died in 1990. Host Majel Connery speaks to Christopher Rountree, founder, conductor and creative director of Wild Up, and two of the soloists who helped shap...