For WQXR's Beethoven Awareness Month, Q2 Music gets back to its "500 Years of New-Music" roots and pays homage to the genre where the many strands of the composer's creative persona come into sharpest focus -- the piano concerto. Every night at 10 pm throughout November, Q2 Music streams back-to-back piano concertos, the first from the 19th century and behind the imposing shadow of Beethoven's own five masterworks and the second from today's active, international repertoire.

On Wednesday, October 26 at 7 pm, Q2 Music presents the second Re:Sound webcast: a special, patchwork-quilt, virtual concert of those pieces which received the most votes over the second half of the American Composers Orchestra's SONiC: Sounds of a New Century Festival 2011. Hear exclusive live performances of pieces by Marcos Balter, Son Lux, Andrew Norman, Tristan Perich, Matt Marks and many more. 

As a special tribute to a forefather of American classical music and his ever-youthful spirit of bold, adventurous experimentalism, Q2 Music presents a special program tonight at 7 pm devoted to Charles Ives. For today only, nab a free download of his Violin Sonata No. 4 from violinist Hilary Hahn and pianist 

Hey friends! I'm on a plane, tapping this out mid-boarding. We're flying from Keflavík, Iceland back to JFK. I've been in various locales for the past couple of weeks (South Carolina, Frankfurt, Reykjavík, Brooklyn) and will continue to travel for the next couple weeks.

Here at Q2, we strive to bring you as much of the best freshly-minted music we can possibly find, but our success depends on your help. If you have a recording of a great new piece, show or compilation that you’d like us to consider for airplay, send it our way!

On Wednesday, October 19 at 7 pm, Q2 Music presents the first Re:Sound: a special, patchwork-quilt, virtual concert of those pieces which received the most votes over the first four days of the American Composers Orchestra's SONiC: Sounds of a New Century Festival 2011. Hear exclusive live performances of pieces by Kati Agócs, Fabian Svensson, Kenji Bunch, Mark Dancigers and many more. 

Double your gift for Q2 Music right now! Here’s your opportunity to show how much you value Q2 Music and see your contribution go twice as far! Pledge your support for Q2 Music right now and every dollar you give will be doubled, thanks to Porter Anderson, who’s generously offered to match donations (up to $5000).

After his clarinet was stolen from a Paris phone booth, Derek Bermel explains, he gave up busking to become a goatherd in the south of the country. He has studied the music of Yemen in Jerusalem, the music of Thrace in Bulgaria, choro music in Brazil, and in Ghana the music of a xylophone-like instument called the gyil, and conducted a choir of emotionally disturbed boys at a residential center in New York City.

Q2 Music and the American Composers Orchestra are launching a crowd-sourced presentation of new-music from the premiere-laden SONiC Festival, happening through October 22.

Nico Muhly has already managed to build not one, but around three or four careers for himself as a composer. With his work on movie scores and indie-rock albums, he has one toe inching towards pop-culture recognition, while keeping one foot firmly in the classical mainstream with a substantial body of pieces composed for the likes of the New York Philharmonic and the English National Opera. 

With very few sudden, radical changes — just a handful of constant elements smoothly, gradually building and developing — the way that Steve Reich's musical language has come together, over his decades-long career, actually resembles the structure of his own music.

To celebrate the 75th birthday of Steve Reich (born October 3, 1936) and the second birthday of Q2 Music (born October 8, 2009), we're presenting a renewed and rejuvenated version of our first full festival, Maximum Reich: A Celebration of Steve Reich.

Osvaldo Golijov is an Argentinian of Eastern European Jewish descent living in Boston at the start of the 21st century, and his music is in many ways an exploration of what, exactly, all of that means. Here he introduces his best-known works.

To say that Kronos Quartet has earned a reputation as a tireless champion of new works with diverse collaborators doesn't come close to doing the ensemble justice. With a 30+ year career, over 750 commissioned works and arrangements, over 45 recordings, countless awards, including a newly minted Polar Music Prize and Avery Fisher Prize, and cemented relationships with iconic composers such as Terry Riley, Henryck Gorecki, Steve Reich, Philip Glass and Osvaldo Golijov, Kronos has an unmatched run of razor-sharp, new-music credentials.

There’s a doubleness to listening to Jacqueline du Pre play Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto. The music is powerful, beginning with vivid chords from the cello, which continues with a mournful, downward melody that is greeted by the winds. Jackie, as everyone called her, said she loved the piece because she “felt it had such a wide range of expression, it went from terrible pathos to ridiculous fun and amusement.”  

As part of The Requiem Project, we searched the WNYC Archives for voices that offer perspective on loss, grief and remembrance. The goal was for these voices to augment the music stream — text that would expand upon the themes in the music, and vice versa. We found accounts from volunteers who rushed to the World Trade Center site to help in the relief efforts, interviews with artists who struggled to capture the enormity of the event, and much more.

The fifth segment of Q2's 10-hour Requiem Project mix features suggestions from listeners, a composition from Ingram Marshall, stories from a musician, a scientist, a policeman and a relative of a 9/11 victim, and many other pieces that reflect on the timeless and universal themes of loss and consolation.

The fourth segment of Q2's 10-hour Requiem Project mix features suggestions from listeners, compositions from composers including Meredith Monk and Arvo Part, stories from writers and volunteers, and many other pieces that reflect on timeless and universal themes of loss and consolation.

The third segment of Q2's 10-hour Requiem Project mix features suggestions from listeners, compositions explored by producers and WQXR host Annie Bergen, stories from volunteers and artists, and many other pieces that reflect on timeless and universal themes of loss and consolation.