WKCR 89.9FM NY

If you could ask a musician in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra anything, what would you ask? Tune in to Cereal Music this Thursday at 9:30AM to hear their answers! We'll be joined by the Billy Short (principal bassoon), Jason Haaheim (principal timapny), and Rob Knopper (percussion).

Join us for this week's Musicians Show with guest Max Johnson. Based in New York city, Max Johnson is a bassist, composer, and bandleader. His four albums as a leader, Elevated Vegetation, The Invisible Trio, The Prisoner, and Quartet have been praised by the New York Times, NYC Jazz Record, and JazzTimes. His latest release entitled Big Eyed Rabbit is the debut album of a collaborative trio with Ross Martin and Jeff Davis.

Tune in tonight at 9PM for a special arts interview with Julie Cohen, three-time New York Emmy-winner and producer of "The Sturgeon Queens," which explores the history behind Russ and Daughters, a famous lox and bagel store on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Cohen dicusses her experience with Jewish film audiences, and explains how the history behind the store reflects the experience of many Jewish immigrants.

Tune in to our weekly In All Languages program, tonight, Sunday November 30th at 11pm as we will feature popular music from various African countries and nearby regions. The show will also feature a special focus on the Nigerian musician and composer Fela Kuti, one of the pioneers of the Afrobeat genra.

Tune to Raag Aur Taal tonight at 7pm to hear our second part of the recordings of the Womens's Voices Festival featuring Dr Meeta Pandit which took place in October 2014 and was presented by Harmonyom. We will also hear recordings from a live session of Brooklyn Raga Massive featuring Samarth Nagarkar, Arun Ramamurthy and Sameer Gupta.

Tune in to Middle-Eastern Influences tonight at 12am as we will commemorate the life and work of the lebanese artist and singer Sabah who passed away earlier this week at the age 87 years old.

Sabah was born in 1927 and soon aquired a major role in the movie and music scene of the Arab World. Known as the "Diva" she recorded more than 3,500 songs and was one of the first female singers to perform outside of the Arab World, in Paris or New York.

Tune in this Wednesday at 10pm to listen to a live performance and interview with Arthur Kampela and guests. Born in Brazil, Kampela is currently a Professor in the Music Department at Columbia University and recipient of the 2014 Guggenheim Award for Creative Arts. On Nueva Canción y Demás, he will present his avant-garde works and for Som do Brasil, his version of Bossa Nova. Here's the line-up for Nueva Cancíon (live performer in parenthesis):

Tune in to Live Constructions this Sunday, November 23, for the broadcast of a live set by electro-acoustic duo Lea et Leila. The duo is made up of Lea Bertucci on bass clarinet and Leila Bordreuil on cello, who perform improvised music through the use of extended techniques and experimental amplification. We captured one of their performances at ABC No Rio last month, and we will be airing the performance in its entirety tonight. Listen!

Tune in to In All Languages this Sunday at 11pm as we will focus on the career of Zakir Hussain. Born in 1951 to Ustad Alla Rakha, a legendary Tabla player himself, Zakir Hussain studied prodigiously and began touring at the age of 11. Now known as one of the greatest Tabla players in the world, he has taught music at Princeton University and Stanford, and has collaborated with some of the greatest musicians of all time. During this show, we will explore several parts of his career, from his earliest recordings with Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma to his original compositions.

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.