Composers find their inspiration in pretty much anything—from an architectural shape to subway noise. Join us on Cued Up this Sunday at 2 pm to hear Gavin Bryars, Jacob T.V., Nico Muhly, and more share the madness "behind the scenes" of their creative processes.

Chamber music carries a unique charm that's not always as easily experienced while listening to a large-scale orchestral work. The intimate setting of performance creates a close bond between performers and the listener. This week on Cued Up we'll keep warm from the cold winter weather with compelling chamber music by an assortment of contemporary composers. 

This year was filled with countless, captivating moments of music-making, nonetheless we're getting excited about the New Year! Join us for the last Cued Up of 2011 as we pay homage to some of the most memorable performances recorded live in venues across New York City.

For young composers, getting commissioned is a momentous occasion that calls for celebration. This Sunday at 2 pm, we celebrate commissions large and small and the performers that have sought new music from adventurous composers.

On Thursday, December 15 at 12 pm, Brazilian-born composer Alexandre Lunsqui joins host Gity Razaz to talk about his compositional aesthetic, the use of jazz and the traditional music of his homeland in his writing. He also discusses the excitement and anxiety surrounding the upcoming world premiere of Fibers, Yarn and Wire -- this year's New York Philharmonic CONTACT! new-music series commission. 

This week’s Cued Up revolves around fables and tales. Whether fictional or factual, these stories have stayed with us through years and across cultures. Dozens of these stories have come to define our persona, culture, and perhaps even our race.

This 
Sunday
 at 
2
 p.m., 
we 

welcome 
December
 and
 the 
end 
of 
the 
year 
with
 music 
inspired
 by
 nature’s
 graceful 
and 
sometimes
 unyielding power.

As part of WQXR's Beethoven Awareness Month, Q2 Music honors the spirit of arguably the most iconic and paradigm-shifting composer of all time with four weeklong portraits of some of today's most distinct and inventive compositional voices. Featuring insights provided by the composers themselves to their key works, this month draws back the curtain with exclusive, direct composer commentary on what it means to write music in the 21st century. This week: Sleeping Giant's co-founder and composer/pianist Timothy Andres.

As part of WQXR's Beethoven Awareness Month, Q2 Music honors the spirit of arguably the most iconic and paradigm-shifting composer of all time with four weeklong portraits of some of today's most distinct and inventive compositional voices. This week, indie-rock luminary Tyondai Braxton. 

As WQXR presents Beethoven Awareness Month, Q2 Music spotlights today's most distinct and inventive compositional voices. This week Nadia Sirota focuses on the music of Bang on a Can co-founder Michael Gordon. 

Rhythm is often experienced in a very primal way, and perhaps it is because of its organic presence within our own existence. It may first go unnoticed, yet underneath the deafening chaos of life, one cannot help but notice the soft, undying murmur of a certain pulse, carrying on like an agent of order. This week's Cued Up orbits around the rhythms of composers Andy Akiho, John Adams, Daniel Wohl, Julian Day and Filippo Perocco.

Concert music is perhaps one of the few art forms that is born purely of abstraction. Each composition demands the composer construct a new world with its own set of rules and regulations. The composition becomes the sole portal into this new sonic universe, through which we get a glimpse of the artist’s vision. However, some pieces come with a history, and, while entirely original and independent, connect with the audience somewhat differently. The experience of listening becomes filled with discovery of the new and surprises of sensing familiar traces.

It’s probably safe to assume that the human voice is the oldest of all musical instruments (and one with a slow, but unstoppable development). One of the conspicuous characteristics of the contemporary music scene is the radically diverse ways composers incorporate and alter the human voice and language in their music. This Sunday on Cued Up, we'll be having an hour-long exploration of the versatility and adaptability of this oldest of instruments. 

This Sunday at 2 p.m. on Cued Up, we'll be examining the notion that one can “feel” a natural or architectural space, and “see” the shadows and changing lights while listening to a piece of music. We naturally relate to most art forms through recognizing connections to elements of our surroundings -- we don’t need to see every single leaf of a tree to recognize one in a Van Gogh painting, for example.

To close off our week-long Maximum Reich 2.0 festival, on Sunday at 2 p.m., Cued Up is raising the champagne glass to some of the composer's most compelling and blissful chamber music.

This Sunday at 2 p.m., Cued Up presents the last concert of the 2011 MATA Festival, which held three evenings of adventurous music by a bevy of youthful voices this past May. Its closing night offers a program or world premieres by Ryan Carter and the tag-team of Brad Balliett and Elliot Cole, and US premieres by Marko Nikodijevic and Remmy Canedo.

On the second night of the 2011 MATA festival, composer/performers rule the evening. Corey Dargel joins Dither Electric Guitar Quartet; Angelica Negron teams up with the 40-member chorus Cantori NY; and Florent Ghys flies solo, looping-out with double bass.

This week, we visit the annual MATA festival. The opening night program features the New York-based ACME as well as L’arsenale, the Italian new music ensemble, for an evening of premieres and some unmistakably fresh music by eight composers from seven countries.

This week’s Hammered! offers a dedication to the 9/11 anniversary with David Lang’s Memory Pieces, Yiannis Konstantinidis’s Eight Greek Island Dances, as well as works by Caleb Burhans, and Bohuslav Martinu.

Rhythm is often experienced in a very primal way, and perhaps it is because of its organic presence within our own existence. This week's Cued Up orbits around the rhythms of composers Andy Akiho, John Adams, Daniel Wohl, Julian Day and Filippo Perocco.