Conductor, pianist and one-liner machine Hans van Bulow called J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier the "Old Testament" of music (Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonatas were the "New"). This week at 10 am (new time!) find out why.

How does a composer even think to write a piano concerto today when the masterpieces of Mozart, Brahms and Ravel are your compositional context? This week on Hammered! we hear some of the great creations of this historical dare.

Brooklyn-based composer Ryan Anthony Francis draws on the influences of artist M.C. Escher and poet Wilhelm Muller. Hear what they've told him this week at 11 am and pm on Hammered!.

The champagne may be flat but we're still riding the celebratory wave of birthday boy Philip Glass's 75th by exploring the fertile genre of post-minimalism that he helped inspire. Tune in this week at 11 am and pm for reworkings, reinventions and revampings of Glass-brand minimalism during this repeat episode of Hammered!

This week on Hammered! we hear five consecutive cases of works that require an extended temporal space to achieve a more slowly evolving mode of expression. Otherwise put: works that last the full duration of each episode.

This week on Hammered! we explore the mountains of chamber music that includes piano(s), or, otherwise put, music for piano+. Hear music from Thomas Ades, Ezequiel Vinao, Benjamin Broening and many more. 

Did you know that Stephen Sondheim was a pupil of Milton Babbitt? Or that Cage studied with Schoenberg? This week we tease out the often unexpected musical relationships between some of the last century's greatest pedagogues and their students.

Without question Arnold Schoenberg is one of the great composers of the twentieth century. Many would argue, in fact, that musical modernism began with his music. This week on Hammered! we hear the composer's five incomparable piano works alongside the music of composers he may -- or may not -- have impacted.  

This week's programmatic sorbet on Hammered features unlikely pairings: Bach and Rzewski, Beethoven and Ligeti. Find out what these jarring relationships say about the music at hand.

One thing that became clear during last week's Bach-inspired program of passacaglias, chaconnes and variations is that almost all cogent musical structures have some kind of repetition or cycle. But of what? This week on Hammered! we decode the musical cycles behind some of the century's most fascinating architectural blueprints.

Conductor, pianist and one-liner machine Hans van Bulow called Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier the "Old Testament" of music (Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonatas were the "New"). This week at 10 am (new time!) on Hammered! we explore Bach's far-reaching influence on contemporary piano music by returning to the source.

Thank you to those that have pledged support during our Winter Fund Drive! It's because of those contributions that we can bring you festivals like American Mavericks, which is a whole other conversation (!), but for Hammered! means two days focused on the music of Julius Eastman and Morton Feldman. 

A counterpoint of instructive voices host this week on Hammered! as we pass the mic among a collection of composers who will introduce their own works for piano. Hear their musical secrets all week at 11 am and pm.

Among diverse cast of characters informing Brooklyn-based composer Ryan Anthony Francis's musical language are author Haruki Murakami, artist M.C. Escher and poet Wilhelm Muller. Hear what they've told him this week at 11 am and pm on Hammered!.

How does a composer even think to write a piano concerto today when the masterpieces of Mozart, Brahms and Ravel are your compositional context? This week on Hammered! we hear some of the great creations of this historical dare.

The champagne may be flat but we're still riding the celebratory wave of birthday boy Philip Glass's 75th by exploring the fertile genre of post-minimalism that he helped inspire. Tune in this week at 11 am and pm for reworkings, reinventions and revampings of Glass-brand minimalism.

We agree with Time Out magazine: the 2012 Ecstatic Music Festival is "overflowing with awesome". Tune into Q2 Music, the festival's digital venue, for weeklong Ecstatic-themed programing on Hammered!, including live tracks from last year's Music Marathon and performances from this year's headliners.

Despite the immense stylistic variety of Polish music from the last fifty years, many of these works demonstrate a keen sense of historical context, nodding appreciatively through the centuries. Tune in for the piano course to this week's Muzyka Nowa smorgasbord and explore the keyboard music of Polish modernism. In context.

New-music junkies thrive on hearing new sounds, on experiencing novel, sonic worlds. Really, is there anything more exciting than listening to a piece for the first time?

You might think that your thoughtful criticisms and carefully considered suggests are simply lost in cyber ether upon clicking submit, but we actually heed and thrive on your comments. So, this week on Hammered!, you're the programmers!