WRR101 Focus on the Arts: A 40th anniversary milestone for Chamber Music International

Dallas-based Chamber Music International presents three all-star musicians– violinist Cho-Liang Lin, cellist Clive Greensmith, and pianist Jon Kimura Parker – for an evening of works by Brahms and Tchaikovsky In this podcast, WRR's Amy Bishop chats with CMI’s Artistic Director Phil Lewis to get some insight into the pieces, and how these three musicians will bring them to life onstage. The conversation also takes a look at the remainder of CMI's milestone 40th season.

WRR101 Focus on the Arts: SMU’s commitment to cultivating tomorrow’s composers, today

The Emerging Sounds concert, presented by Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts, has been described as a vibrant representation of what SMU composition students have to offer. The program is entirely student-run and seeks to utilize novel instrumentations and connect those from diverse artistic backgrounds throughout Meadows. In this interview with SMU's Kaitlin Kleinau, we learn more about this community-building event, which serves as a launching pad for the student composers’ careers.

Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider loves music so much, she might just eat it

Snider’s supercharged relationship with her art form and open-book stance on depression and anxiety shine through in her new opera, which debuts this week in Los Angeles.

On ‘Lux,’ Rosalía pulls the entire world into her symphony

The Spanish singer Rosalía talks about her new album ‘Lux,’ a head-spinning, epic album that features classical music, opera and the artist singing in 13 languages.

One of music’s best kept secrets celebrates 100 years, quietly

For a century, the tiny Coolidge Auditorium, at the Library of Congress, has been a wellspring of cultural integrity, innovative music and American ingenuity. (And free concerts.)

WRR101 Focus on the Arts: Meet the DFW composer with a brand new piano concerto

Arsentiy Kharitonov, a composer and pianist based here in North Texas, has just had his impressive and dramatic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra recorded with the Kandinsky Symphony Orchestra and released by the Sound Atlas label. WRR's Kurt Rongey spoke with Arsentiy about the genesis of the concerto, his musical development and how his studies and experiences here in Texas influenced his music-making.

Making Music from the Sounds of War

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, the country has been hit with more than 50,000 drone strikes. The constant threats of war have changed many things about life in Ukraine, including the way the night time sounds. We meet members of a youth orchestra outside Kyiv who are marking the new sounds... Read more »

Whale calls, frog croaks: A composer debuts Puerto Rico’s loss in Dallas

Whale calls. Glaciers melting. Frog croaks. These are sounds audiences might not expect in an orchestral concert hall but were featured in last week’s world premiere of Angélica Negrón’s For Everything You Keep Losing at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. The piece explores the loss of sound due to climate change, especially in Negrón’s native Puerto... Read more »

Tyshawn Sorey’s powerful sounds of silence

The composer, multi-instrumentalist and MacArthur “genius” fellow, deftly straddles the classical and jazz realms while unleashing the power of spaces between the notes.

WRR101 Focus on the Arts: Wilhelmina Smith’s new release featuring works by Indigenous composer/cellist Dawn Avery

Wilhelmina Smith is regarded as a cellist whose artistic mission embraces a conversation through music, one that enthusiastically encompasses the music of the present placed within the context of a living past. In this podcast with WRR's Brooke Scholl, she talks about her new album, Sweetgrass, which features music by Indigenous composer/cellist Dawn Avery.