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 with Bach and species counterpoint at the age of 11. The episode begins with Seo explaining this epiphany: “My mind and body came together through a fugue.” Support the show

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 characteristic zest for colliding opposites: “my music is influenced by biting into a strawberry, but also by brushing your teeth every day for thirty years, playing a spontaneous game with a child when you're really engaged but also maybe playing with a child doing a repetitive game for four hours.”Support the show

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 and the Beach Boys; the courage to write a triad; Longstreth's affinity for echo chambers; and what it means to try to write music about the environment. Of the album's penultimate song he says: “[Given] the legitimate despair that...the record conjures, to summon the opposite, to summon hope, didn't feel easy. It did feel insane. It's an insane way to end the record.”Support the show

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 quartet” in terms of musical dynamics, and how Owls co-creates the repertoire it plays. We also touch on Owls' childhood love of hockets, pitch matching, and their debut album, Rare Birds. Says Kenney: “We love trying to be each other's sounds.”Support the show

For the lastepisode of the first season of Reverberations, host Majel Connery talks to William Brittelle, one of New Amsterdam Records' co-founders and co-artistic directors, about his album Alive in the Electric Snow Dream, which was released earlier this year and developed in collaboration with Metropolis Ensemble during the COVID-19 pandemic. Support the show

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 views on the relationship between music, grief, public healing, and queerness in music.Support the show

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 country.Support the show

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 spoken word.Support the show

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 creating music that interacts with the environment, and the key collaborators involved. This album is a joint release by New Amsterdam and Eclipse Projects.Support the Show.

In this episode of Reverberations, host Majel Connery speaks with Darian Donovan Thomas about the double album "A Room with Many Doors." Discussing the second album (but first release) titled "Night," they talk about brutal honesty, mapping emotional journeys onto music, "safe spaces" in music, and the craft of artist prompts.Support the Show.

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 shape the volume: bass-baritone Davóne Tines and cellist Seth Parker Woods. Their conversation ranges from the inspiration behind this multi-volume project to an exploration of what the “Holy Presence” entailed for Eastman, and what it should mean for us.

This episode of Reverberations features Mazz Swift's new album, The 10000 Things: PRAISE SONGS for the iRiligious. Mazz and host Majel Connery discuss a series of dualities: spirituality for the irreligious; connection and disconnection with the past; and training and un-training virtuosity. Throughout, Mazz wrestles with Western Classical perspectives and how one can "give up the world."

This episode of Reverberations features Alex Sopp's new album, The Hem and the Haw. Alex and host Majel Connery talk about penny whistle freak-outs and landscape painting; Alex's emergence as a singer and what she calls “the paralysis of potential;” and duality as an organizing force.

In this episode Claire Dickson and host Majel Connery chat about Dickson's album, The Beholder, with forays into “princess music” (a.k.a. “pop” influences), demo love, broken madrigals, and the love triangle between performance, improvisation, and composition.