WKCR 89.9FM NY

WKCR announces our annual Bach Festival. For the ten-day period from December 22 through New Year's Eve at midnight, WKCR (89.9 FM, 89.9 HD1, and wkcr.org) will dedicate all broadcasting to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Other than his gargantuan Carmina Burana, German composer Carl Orff is practically forgotten. Yet his contributions to opera were enormous. Tune in to Saturday Night At The Opera to hear his opera Oedipus der Tyrann. With text by Friedrich Hölderlin, Oedipus presents the tragedy as an austere amalgam of opera, theater, and ritual. Ferdinand Leitner conducts an all-star cast (Gerhard Stolze, Fritz Wunderlich, and Astrid Varnay) in this 1959 recording.

Tune in to WKCR tonight at 9pm for October's collaboration with the Advanced Consortium for Cooperation, Conflict and Complexity (AC4). Peter Coleman interviews José Pascal da Rocha, a professor of conflict resolution at Columbia. Pascal spent the 90s and early 2000s going on peacekeeping missions and serving as a mediator and advisor everywhere from Afghanistan to Somalia. Pascal discusses his experiences in the field and explains how paper-based role-playing games have helped him solve huge and seemingly intractible real-world problems.

Tune in to Jazz Profiles this week for one of the most comprehensive surveys of Japanese jazz music to be broadcast in the US. The survey will be chronological and focused on the music itself. Starting from the 1930s, each musical period will be examined through one musician or arranger's work. Join us to hear the sounds of Akiyoshi Toshiko, Shiraki Hideo, Umezu Kazutoki and many others.

Akiko Yano, Japanese jazz singer, songwriter, and pianist, will be our guest on this week's Musicians Show. Yano, who has recorded in Japan and the US, has performed with musicians across many genres and cultures during her nearly 40 year career. These musicians include including Ryuichi Sakamoto, Charlie Haden, the Chieftans, and Peter Erskine. Tune in to hear her discuss her influences, inspirations and what its like to work with performers across cultures and genre boundaries.

This Friday, November 21, tune into WKCR for our Coleman Hawkins birthday broadcast! As one of the first renowned jazz tenor saxophonists, Hawkins helped to establish the instrument as essential to the genre, especially for soloists. Hawkins' warm tone and signature vibrato, along with his melodic and technical virtuosity, made him a pivotal influence on future generations of jazz pioneers.

Tune in to Live Constructions this Sunday, November 16th at 10PM for a live in-studio performance by Kristian Hverring (Krishve). Performing under the names Krishve, Hverring has been developing unique sound projects centering around the use of synthesizers, stompboxes, acoustic instruments, and his body. He will come into the studio with Lars Graugaard of Clang Records to represent what he and some fellow Scandanavian sound artists have been working on. Hverring will be perfoming live and then talking to us with Graugaard after the set. Listen!

Tune in tonight at 7pm on Raag Aur Taal to hear the recorded performance of sitarist and tabla player, Roopa Panesar & Gurdain Rayatt. The performance was recorded during the Women's Voice Festival presented by Harmonyom on October 2014 and the show will be hosted by Manisha.

This Sunday at 11pm on our In All Languages show, we shall explore the different musical landscapes of South India. We will start with the Kathakali, a form of popular opera characterized by its use of gigantic masks, in which we shall hear a full performance of the epic Ramayana. Then we will move on to Carnatic devotional vocal music, followed by Carnatic instrumental music, in particular the veena (a plucked string instrument) and the mridangam (a long drum).

Tune in tonight at 9 PM for a special hour-long Arts and Answers. The show will feature an interview with Jenny Lee, producer and editor of the independent film "The Skeleton Twins". The film stars Kristin Wig and Bill Hader as estranged twins Maggie and Milo, who are reunited after cheating death on the same day. Lee discusses the film, her editing process, and her transition from editing comic books to editing feature film. The Skeleton Twins is currently playing at Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Don't miss a rare opportunity to hear Armen Tigranyan's final opera David-Bek. Although his earlier opera Anoush is considered the quintessential Armenian folk opera, David-Bek presents Tigranyan as a true master of choral and orchestral music, all while incorporating Armenian musical influences into his own writing. The featured recording was its very first, with an all-star Armenian cast including the "Armenian Nightingale," Gohar Gasparyan. Stepan Atamian hosts.

Tune in TONIGHT to listen to a live interview with the Mexican pianist Ana Cervantes. She is releasing her new album "Canto de la Monarca" and will be performing at Americas Society on November 17.

Tune in Wednesday evening from 6-9 PM to hear this week's edition of the Musician's Show, where we will be joined by saxophonist Matt Nelson. Nelson’s unique musical style brings together improvisation, indie and jazz music with extended saxophone techniques paired with use of effects pedals and amplifier feedback. Nelson recently released his debut solo record, a minimalist ecstatic extended technique saxophone LP entitled Lower Bottoms.

Tune in Friday evening as Columbia Men's Basketball opens its 2014-2015 season at Stony Brook. The Lions look to improve on last year's historically successful season, while the Seawolves look to build on recent success in the first-ever game at their new arena. Tune in at 6:45 p.m. for Lions Countdown ahead of all the exciting action! Then don't forget to tune in for Columbia football's final home game of the season on Saturday afternoon (Lions Countdown beings at 12:15 p.m.).

Tune to the In All Languages show Sunday, November 9th at 11pm featuring Hatim Belyamani, executive director of remix ←→ culture. Hatim has been making incredible field recordings through Morocco and the Middle East. He will share these amazing recordings with the WKCR audience and conclude with a live remix of his own.

Join us from 2-7pm Sunday November 9 for an in depth profile of the trumpet playing of jazz musician Bill Coleman hosted by Charles Iselin. Bill Coleman’s career was intricately linked to the spread of Jazz in Europe and specifically in France. Appropriately, he was born in Paris, Kentucky in 1904. As a musician he played early on in the non-professional band of trombonist J.C. Higginbotham in Cincinnati. Coleman moved to New York in 1927 with Cecil Scott’s band.

Tune in to Live Constructions this Sunday, November 9th at 10PM to hear a live, in-studio performance of Terry Riley's masterpiece, "In C" by the Brooklyn Raga Massive All-Stars. Riley was deeply influenced by his studies of Hindustani vocal music but according to the composer himself, as far as he knows, this is the only group that performs “In C” with an ensemble of mostly Indian instruments. The group includes which includes siitars, tablas, sarods, bansuri, vocals, cello, guitars, vibes, dilruba, sax, and more.

Tune in to this weeks Musicians Show featuring Avram Fefer. Avram is an acclaimed New York saxophonist and composer. Having performed with names such as Archie Shepp, Sunny Murray, Kirk Lightsey, Graham Haynes, and more recently the Dave Murray Big Band, Butch Morris Orchestra, and Mingus Big Band, Avram joins us to discuss his music, career, and influences.

Tune into our In All Languages program this Sunday from 11pm to 2am, where we will be exploring opera from non-Western countries. We will start off the show by listening to Japanese Gagaku music; from there, we will move onto selections from the Ache Lhamo, a Tibetan folk opera. Finally, we will listen to Peking Opera and hear a performance of The Reunion, featuring Lisa Lu as Lady Precious Stream.

Tune in this Sunday from 2pm to 7pm to hear an in-depth broadcast on the life and music of alto saxophonist, composer, author, and visual artist Marion Brown. A captivating yet often overlooked member of the jazz avant-garde of the late '60s and '70s, Brown appeared on albums such as Archie Shepp's Fire Music and John Coltrane's Ascension. Join this Sunday us as we celebrate Brown's legacy.

Don't miss an exclusive interview with Russian superstar Olga Borodina. For over two decades, the mezzo-soprano, who is in New York to reprise her acclaimed Amneris, has astonished audiences worldwide for her plush voice that has made her a definitive interpreter of works by Mussorgsky, Saint-Saëns, and Berlioz. The program will feature recordings of her in a wide variety of roles, from Rossini to Rachmaninoff. Stepan Atamian hosts.

Please join us at 6pm this Wednesday as we sit down with composer and multi-instrumentalist Oran Etkin.

Tune to our weekly IAL show tonight at 11pm as we will be looking at three great masters of the Imdadkhani Gharana in Hindustani Classical Music. (Ustad Vilayat Khan, Ustaad Shahid Parvz and Ustad Shujaat Khan). Through these pieces we will try to capture the explain the characteristics of the gharana and what makes this tradition of Hindustani music special and unique and briefly discuss the elements of the structural organization of the raga that this gharana employs.

Tune in tonight, Sunday the 26th at 7pm for Raag Aur Tal where we will feature a special guest; mandolin virtuoso Snehasish Mozumder. We will also air an exclusive preview of the new Jazz Carnatica album by the Arun Ramamurthy Trio. Be there!

Tune in this Sunday, October 26th, from 2pm to 7pm to listen about the life and works of Milton Nacimento. Born in rio de Janeiro and raised in Minas Gerais, Nascimento became a popular singer in the late 1960s in Brazil and even more when he joined the movement Clube da Esquina in the early 1970s with Lô Borges and Wagner Tiso. He entered the jazz scene in the USA after he participated in the Wayne Shorter's album 'Native Dancer' and later recorded with Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Jack DeJohnette and many others. Hosted by Augusto Ghiotto and Jassvan de Lima

Tune in on Thursday, October 30th as we dedicate 24 hours of programming to legendary trumpeter Clifford “Brownie” Brown in celebration of the 84th anniversary of his birth. In the course of only four years, from 1952 to 1956, Brown led and contributed to some of the greatest ensembles and recordings in jazz history, leaving his imprint on the genres of bebop and hard bop, as well as the art of jazz trumpet.

Tune in to Live Constructions at 10PM Sunday, October 26th, to hear an interview and performance by Neil Welch and Chris Icasiano, who make up the jazz duo, Bad Luck. Welch (saxophone) and Icasiano (drums) have been working together for almost a decade on the project, combining elements of jazz, classical, and indie music to create an energetic collection of compositions and improvisations. Currently on a nationwide tour, the duo stopped by WKCR while they were in New York for an interview.

Tune in for a very special Musician's Show featuring Jean-Michel Pilc and Coyote Anderson. Jean Michel Pilc has been described as a "musical genius" by the Washington Post and "dazzlingly inventive" by the New York Times. On this edition of the Musician's Show, we visit the great pianist at his home. In this intimate environment, he improvises and performs on his own instrument as he discusses music and his influences. Later in the show, guitarist Coyote Anderson, will play a live set with his Quartet in anticipation of their album release, "Innervoices".

Tune into our weekly Jazz Profile this Sunday for a look at the music of alto saxophonist Frank Strozier. Born in 1937, Strozier became a talented figure in hard-bop, performing with Harold Mabern, George Coleman, and Booker Little in the 50s. After a brief stint in the Miles Davis Quintet, Strozier went on to play with Roy Haynes, Chet Baker, Shelly Manne, Woody Shaw, Horace Parlan and the Don Ellis Big Band during the 60s and 70s. With a style on the horn that calls to mind Jackie McLean, Strozier leaves us with number of underrecognized recorings both as a leader and a sideeman.