Extra Eclectic

This week on Extra Eclectic, host Steve Seel celebrates the arrival of spring with two hours of modern works to help us celebrate the natural world that's waking up around us.

This week on Extra Eclectic, Steve Seel brings us two hours of music for starry night skies to complement the show's nighttime setting. Featured works include John Luther Adams' ‘Sky With Endless Stars,’ Tonu Korvits' ‘The Night Is Darkening,’ Urmas Sisask's ‘The Milky Way’ and Jane Antonia Cornish's Sky, as well as a performance by cellist Maya Beiser of her eerie arrangement of Ludwig van Beethoven's ‘Moonlight Sonata.’

Listen to this week’s episode of Extra Eclectic with host Steve Seel as he features composer Caroline Mallonee’s mysterious ‘Whistler Waves.’

This week on Extra Eclectic, host Steve Seel salutes composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who died last week at 71, with selections highlighting the breadth of his musical range.

Composer Scott Johnson a composer and guitarist died this past Friday at 70. In Johnson's honor, Extra Eclectic host Steve Seel features his poignant work ‘Soliloquy’ performed by the Kronos Quartet on this week's show. 

What kinds of different sounds can be coaxed from a piano? Extra Eclectic host Steve Seel answers this question in the first hour of the show with the help of some 20th and 21st century composers such as Stephen Scott and Sophia Subbayya Vastek. In the show's second hour, Steve unapologetically shares an hour of "lovely" modern classical music, from the likes of George Pelecis, Hugi Gudmundsson, and Reena Esmail.    

A new CD of the complete string quartets of Steve Reich inspires Extra Eclectic host Steve Seel to bring us a full hour of the great 20th-century minimalist composers. As part of the program, Seel shares clips from his interview with Steve Reich about the new recording. In the second hour, it's the opposite of minimalism, as we hear modern composers embracing romanticism.  

Composer Steve Reich's contributions to contemporary classical music are incalculable, yet he says he never would have written one of the core forms of classical music — a string quartet — if he hadn't been asked to by the esteemed Kronos Quartet. In the wake of a recent recording of Reich’s complete string quartets, Extra Eclectic host Steve Seel speaks with the composer about his unlikely history with the form and his unusual approach to it.

For centuries, classical music was an "old boys club." Fortunately, a lot has changed, and while there's still much work to be done, women have made great inroads into the world of composing. On this edition of Extra Eclectic, we cap off our celebration of International Women's Day with two hours of some of the bigger female names in modern classical music.

It's said that Franz Schubert suffered from a mood disorder called cyclothymia, causing rapid mood swings from one extreme to the other. Contemporary composer Anna Clyne says she wrote her work, ‘Night Ferry,’ with Schubert in mind. Listen to music by Clyne, Gabriela Ortiz, Avner Dorman, Timo Andres and more on this week’s episode of Extra Eclectic with host Steve Seel.