Q2 Music, WQXR’s online music station dedicated to vibrant, contemporary classical music, kicks off its first full festival, Maximum Reich: A Celebration of Steve Reich on Thursday, December 10th. Click ahead to read more about this weeklong immersion into the world of one of the most game-changing composers of the last 50 years.

Q2 artist-in-residence, violist and black-belt new music champion, Nadia Sirota takes center stage on Maximum Reich with a 2-hour daily exploration of that day’s particular theme and featured music. The seven daily features of Maximum Reich cover the breadth of his output, from the early days to his recent Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet, from percussion to choral music, from solo tape to large ensemble. If you’re Dante, and you need a Virgil in the musical universe of Steve Reich, this is for you.

Throughout Maximum Reich on Q2, you'll be able to hear Reich provide his own introductions directly for you for almost 20 of his seminal works. Only here can you hear each introduction in its entirety, from Drummingto Music for 18 Musicians to the recent Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet.

You can't get it on iTunes. You can't get it in a record store. But you can get it on Thursday as part of an exclusive download made available by Nonesuch Records . It's the six-minute-plus Dance Patterns composed in 2002 for xylophones, vibraphones, and pianos, and originally released online as a bonus track to the Daniel Variations CD. Have a peek now, but come back on Thursday and take it with you.

Tune in to Q2 tonight at 8pm for the first in a series of live webcasts from Greenwich Village's (Le) Poisson Rouge, as we join the versatile contemporary classical and jazz percussionist John Hollenbeck in his music and that of Meredith Monk.

"New music" isn't a description reserved solely for pieces that have just been written. It also applies to music that jostles the lingua franca, snaps the course of musical history out of a particular rut, or simply slips through the cracks and patiently awaits a revival. The music of English composer-pianist York Bowen has been waiting for almost half a century.

On Sunday, November 8th at 8pm, Q2 will stream live the U.S. choral premiere of David Lang’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Little Match Girl Passion in a performance from The Jerome L. Greene Space.

Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara might not yet be a household name here in the United States, but with the release of a 4-CD set of his complete concertos, that might change. Tune in to Q2 all this week as we feature these concertos and other pieces from his vast and exquisite catalogue.

Have you started seeing Q2 crop up in unexpected places? Check out what we’ve managed to document and join the Q2 movement.

Q2 Music is a eclectic 24/7 online music stream devoted to the best in New Music. Q2 Music is about passion, innovation and dialogue; a virtual meeting space for music lovers; a genre-blind virtual playground for innovative contemporary music.