Radio Eclectus #73: East meets West, North meets South (Dec. 3, 2020)

East meets West, North meets South, and anniversaries meet birthdays in this edition of Radio Eclectus. We honor the natal days of cross-cultural composers Osvaldo Golijov (60), Bright Sheng (65) and Richard Felciano (90). We sample new tracks by Dewa Alit, Sam Pluta, Spektral Quartet, Taylor Brook, Laura Schuler and Xerxes the Dark, while Jeff Cosgrove and his trio play William Parker. We preview the forthcoming Adam Rudolph album with its bicontinental inputs, as well as Robert Moran’s new portrait album where he makes an explicit connection between Baroque music and minimalism.

On the historical front, our 50 Years Ago in the Avant-Garde feature commemorates the remarkable (if short-lived) avant-jazz quartet Circle, as well as Tippett’s contemporaneous opera The Knot Garden, while our Rarities Department unearths a gem from the 1990s New York trio Trousers. Three hours of radical new music—improvised, fixed-media and composed—with cherishing commentary by host Michael Schell.