Musical Poetry

The pressure to achieve perfection can be overwhelming. So, what would it be like to embrace vulnerability and imperfection? For composer Derrick Skye, it's a profound release from fear and anxiety. In today’s episode, we’ll hear a quartet inspired by the idea of imperfection: Deliverance by Derrick Skye.

Composer Jennifer Higdon wrote 'blue cathedral' in 2000. It was inspired by an imaginary vision of a glass cathedral in the sky. We'll take you to the Grand Teton Music Festival for a musical journey to Higdon’s ‘blue cathedral’ on today's show.

In the early to mid-20th century, six million African Americans migrated from the rural South to Northern cities in search of opportunities. Isabel Wilkerson documented these journeys in her book, The Warmth of Other Suns. Inspired by this history, composer Carlos Simon created a piece that reflects the struggle for rest and the search for a home. Join us today to hear the Ivalas Quartet perform Warmth from Other Suns live at the Skaneateles Festival in New York.

Move over, Romeo and Juliet. Make way for Radúz and Mahulena. The Slovakian tale also features romance amid intense family rivalries, but in a welcome twist of fate, these legendary lovers end up together and alive when the curtain falls. Today, we'll take you to a concert in Prague to hear Josef Suk’s music for a fairy tale with a happy ending: Pohádka (Fairy Tale).

In 2009, composer Valerie Coleman drew on her Southern roots to write a piece that evokes a lively family gathering. Characterized by energy and charm, the work captures the warmth and hospitality of the South. Join us today to hear Imani Winds perform Coleman’s Red Clay and Mississippi Delta live at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 2025, an unforgettable double-billed concert at Spivey Hall in Morrow, Georgia, brought the Isidore Quartet and the Miro Quartet together. On today’s show, we’ll hear the two acclaimed ensembles join forces for the ultimate classical jam session: Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet for Strings.

After their newborn son survived a difficult liver transplant, composer Kevin Lau wrote his String Quartet No. 7, Surfacing. The music captures the intensity of emerging from a crisis into open space. Today, we'll hear the Poiesis Quartet perform the piece live at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in Katonah, New York.

Critics called one of Igor Stravinsky's concertos "unfinished" because the composer omitted the strings entirely, but the omission was deliberate. Stravinsky famously argued that "strings and piano, a sound scraped and a sound struck, do not sound well together; piano and winds, sounds struck and blown... do." On today’s show, we'll hear Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments, featuring pianist Kirill Gerstein and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by David Robertson.

In 1937, African-American composer William Grant Still wrote Dismal Swamp, inspired by a poem by his wife and frequent collaborator, Verna Arvey. The music paints a portrait of enslaved people navigating a swamp’s darkness—only to discover that the harrowing journey is a path to liberation and a new life. In today’s episode, pianist Leah Claiborne joins conductor Kenneth Woods and the Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra for a concert performance of William Grant Still’s Dismal Swamp.

When Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate first heard the 1994 album Mahk Jchi by the Native women’s trio Ulali, he felt he was witnessing a revolution in Native music. Decades later, Tate has transformed one of his favorite tracks from that album—Pura Fé’s "Rattle Songs"—into a work for string quartet. On today's show, the Dover Quartet performs Tate's arrangement of Pura Fé's 'Rattle Song' at a recent concert in Baltimore.