Composing isn't always a solitary activity. This week, Nadia Sirota explores a variety of different composer collectives, including Bang On a Can, the NOW Ensemble, Sleeping Giant, Ears Open!, and Common Sense.

We open this week's show with an interview with the multi-stylistic multi-instrumentalist Jherek Bischoff, a performing guest in the upcoming Ecstatic Music Festival Preview concert in The Greene Space on Wednesday, February 1.

Kung Hei Fat Choi! When I was in kindergarten, my super awesome teachers Ms. Danielson and Ms. Doane had us bring in paper bags, in which we cut holes three holes (a big one in the very bottom and two smaller ones on the sides), adorned with construction paper scales, and pulled over our heads to march down the hallway of our school as a giant, kindergartener-fueled Lunar New Year dragon. It was pretty much the best day of kindergarten.

It may sound kind of obvious, but one of the perks of working at this station is constantly being exposed to new music. This week, we are celebrating Polish music from the past 50 years or so, and I’m happy to say that aside from the heavy hitters (cough, Penderecki, Górecki, cough) this music is basically all completely new to me! Not just new, but both awesome AND new.

This is a really special week on the show. While I know you’ve become accustomed to my riffs on the providence of music written by people who are still alive, this week we get to hear about everything – from inspiration to circumstance to execution – right from the mouths of the creators. That’s right, this week I’ll be joined by a dozen or so composers who will guide us through the lion’s share of this week's programming.

Hey there, 2012, you’re looking mighty fine! Every time I cross the threshold of a new year, I cannot help but think of it as a mild miracle of time travel. Remember the first time, in grade school, a classmate bid you farewell for the weekend with the remark “see you next year?” It was mind-blowing!

TEN! NINE! EIGHT! SEVEN! SIX! Wait wait!! We’re not quite there yet!! We still have a few precious moments left of 2011, and even more pertinently, just a few more days left until the twenty eleven charitable donations deadline!! What better way to sort out your 2011 taxes than to make a tax-deductible donation to your favorite locale on the internet for all things new and wonderful, Q2 Music!

This week, in celebration of some of the longest nights of the year, Q2 Music is exploring music about the stars, planets, celestial bodies and other glittery, wintry nighttime things.

One of Alan Gilbert’s loveliest initiatives as the music director of the New York Philharmonic these past three seasons has been the CONTACT! concert series, dedicated to living composers and new works. This year’s series kicked off this past weekend with works by Alexandre Lunsqui, Magnus Lindberg, and HK Gruber.

New York has wonderful holiday traditions, but maybe none so awesome as Unsilent Night, Phil Kline's piece essentially for holiday carolers holding boomboxes who form an amorphous, directional sound sculpture on the streets of New York City, or indeed whichever of the 26 urban areas this wonderful tradition has spread to inhabit. I caught up with Phil for a lovely interview about Unsilent Night, the holidays in general, and many other topics, including his soon-to-be-premiered work Peregrine. You can check out the audio above!

Festively motivated, for the show this week I thought it'd be great to explore others who were born in the first week-or-so of December, and boy howdy! Turns out, this is a great week to be born a composer!

Missy Mazzoli has a distinct, poignant compositional point-of-view -- a voice which rings clearly throughout her work, be it music written for orchestra, her chamber-pop band Victoire or operatic voices.

There must be some deep-seated, funny, psychologically-sound logic behind the release of big-budget disaster films during the hottest months. For whatever reason, there seems no more appropriate course of action these days than watching explosions and zombie-slayings, riding roller coasters and eating absurd fried things. Summer is a season of excess, and this week’s show features bombastic, over-the-top, Micheal Bay-esque music. (These shows originally aired the week of July 25, 2011.)

The weather, it seems, has finally broken and the Fall is truly upon us. Hooray Autumn!! All the various ensembles are starting back up post summer hiatuses, we get to enjoy un-iced coffee, and I personally can start ramping up for the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. I enjoy the holidays, and I’ve just found out that two of my close friends are playing this season’s Radio City Christmas Spectacular (my not-so-guilty pleasure; the first 15 minutes of that thing truly justify its being called a spectacular. Plus: boozy slushies with light-up swizzle sticks and 3-D and live camels and the Rockettes.) Everything’s gonna be fine.

“There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.” Can you guess which composer spoke these words? Don’t worry, I’ll wait!

Featuring over 100 composers under the age of 40, the American Composers Orchestra’s SONiC (Sounds of a New Century) Festival is energizing New York with a stellar kickoff to the season – eight days of amazing new work performed by 16 extraordinary ensembles. Yay!