Composer Paul Dresher's music has been described as minimalist, post-minimalist and even pre-maximalist. He says for the most part his music is an eclectic mix of European traditions - and yeah, minimalism - as well as rock and world music, including Ghanaian, Hindustani, Javanese and Balinese.
In fact, Paul is so interested in getting certain kinds of music and their traditions just right that he's taken up the talking drums and sitar.
Paul is a delight and joined me today on-air to talk about the piece getting a performance with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra this weekend, Cornucopia. It's music he initially played himself on the electric guitar with taped sounds and it was Steve Reich who thought the sounds would work well for acoustic chamber orchestra.
The real fun on-air began when Paul shared a kind of desert island disc playlist. Mahler, Bach and North Indian classical made it on today even though he had piles of discs with him from Berkeley. We'll save those for next time!
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