Part of Classical 105.9 WQXR, Q2 Music is a listener-supported, New York-based online station devoted to the music of living composers; a home for immersive festivals, live Webcasts and on-demand concerts from today’s leading New Music performers and venues.

Michael Gordon's Decasia: Live from the Winter Garden

Friday, February 03, 2012

On Friday at 7:30 pm, enjoy a live Webcast of composer Michael Gordon's live scores to the silent films of acclaimed American filmmaker Bill Morrison.

  • New Music Calendar

    Discover the most exciting and innovative new-music in NYC with the Q2 Music New Music concert calendar.

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    Send Q2 Music your recordings and help us shape tomorrow's classical canon.

  • Cued Up

    Cued Up is a show on Q2 Music devoted to New Music concerts recorded live in New York City. Cued Up connects listeners with today's vibrant New Music scene ...

  • Hammered!

    Say hello to Hammered!, Q2 Music's hour-long, weekday program devoted the extraordinary breadth and ever-evolving repertoire of music for keyboard. From concert grand to disklavier, synthesizer to clavichord, prepared ...

  • Say Hello to Q2 Music

    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 ...

  • Nadia Sirota

    Violist, former WNYC Overnight Music host and New Music black-belt Nadia Sirota hosts weekdays from 12-4, a.m. and p.m., on WQXR’s internet station, Q2 Music. Every week ...

Recently in Q2 Music

Michael Tilson Thomas and John Adams in The Greene Space

Monday, March 26, 2012

On Monday, March 26 at 7 pm, Q2 Music welcomes San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas, composer John Adams and the St. Lawrence String Quartet to The Greene Space.

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Jherek Bischoff & Wordless Music Orchestra: Live from Merkin Concert Hall

Saturday, February 04, 2012

On Saturday, February 4 at 7:30 pm, Q2 Music and New Sounds Live present a live Webcast of the Ecstatic Music Festival’s kick-off concert, featuring Jherek Bischoff in collaboration with David Byrne, Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier, and Wordless Music Orchestra, among many others.

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Michael Gordon's Decasia: Live from the Winter Garden

Friday, February 03, 2012

On Friday at 7:30 pm, enjoy a live Webcast of composer Michael Gordon's live scores to the silent films of acclaimed American filmmaker Bill Morrison.

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Judd Greenstein: Pulsating Complexity with Indie-Classical Populism

Friday, February 03, 2012

Few composers personify New York's young new-music scene in quite the same way as Judd Greenstein. As a composer, he has been commissioned by the ETHEL string quartet and by the Minnesota Orchestra. New Amsterdam, the label he co-founded with composers Sarah Kirkland Snider and William Brittelle, serves as an umbrella for many of the city's most celebrated young composers and ensembles, including his own NOW Ensemble of new-music virtuosos. In 2011, he inaugurated the Ecstatic Music Festival, bringing together indie rock, jazz, and classical music for a series of cross-genre concerts and collaborations.

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Lunaire Eclipse with Steven Mackey

Friday, February 03, 2012

This Friday at 1pm, the New Canon celebrates the centennial of Pierrot Lunaire with Steven Mackey, a composer who derives much influence from Schoenberg's masterpiece and whose own homage to the work plays at Symphony Space, asking the question: How much did one work change the way music is made?

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Live in the Greene Space: Hungarian Echoes

Thursday, February 02, 2012

Join us Thursday at 7 pm to hear host Nadia Sirota and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen trace the overlaps of Hungarian culture in works by Haydn, Bartók and Ligeti during last year's Magyar Magic, recorded live in The Greene Space.

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Paul Moravec: Mining Tonality for New Complexities

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

With the attention Paul Moravec received after his Tempest Fantasy (2004) won the Pulitzer Prize for music, one might have hoped that this would have put to rest—once and for all—the tired dialectics suggesting that tonality and complexity, or intellectualism and accessibility, are somehow mutually opposed. But even if these canards persist in the conversation about new music, at least the prize fulfilled its function of bringing to the front ranks a composer heretofore quietly esteemed by connoisseurs.

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Watch: Ecstatic Music Festival 2012 Preview

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

On Wednesday, Feb. 1 at 7 pm in The Greene Space, Q2 Music presents a live concert and videocast with a star-studded lineup of composer-performers from this season's hotly-anticipated Ecstatic Music Festival 2012. Hosted by WQXR's Terrance McKnight, the show includes performances by composer-percussionist Jason Treuting, multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negron, and musical polymath Jherek Bischoff.

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Celebrate Philip Glass at 75 with his Symphony No. 9

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

On January 31, 2012 at 4 pm, Q2 Music celebrates the 75th birthday of iconic downtown composer Philip Glass with a premiere Webcast of his Symphony No. 9 with conductor Dennis Russell Davies and the Bruckner Orchestra Linz.

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Jóhann Jóhannsson's The Miners' Hymns

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Tonight at 7:30 pm, Q2 Music and New Sounds Live present a live Webcast of Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson's visceral score to filmmaker Bill Morrison's silent film, "The Miners' Hymns."

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Jherek Bischoff on David Byrne and Writing in Closets

Monday, January 30, 2012

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.

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Philip Glass at 75

Sunday, January 29, 2012

There will be no shortage of Philip Glass news in 2012, as the composer turns 75. This week’s Cued Up features in-concert recordings of Glass’s work taken from the last two years.

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The Daedalus Quartet Gets Architectural with Fred Lerdahl

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Best to carve out an uninterrupted 70 minutes to listen to the complete Fred Lerdahl string quartets sequentially. Read on for why with Q2 Music's Album of the Week, and to snag a free selection this week only from Lerdahl's String Quartet No. 3.

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Written on the Wind: Huang Ruo and Min Xiao-fen

Friday, January 27, 2012

Tonight at 7 pm in The Greene Space, composer Huang Ruo joins host David Garland for an evening of conversation and premiere performances from New York and China-based composers.

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Interview: Musical Polymath Min Xiao-fen

Friday, January 27, 2012

Born in Nanjing, composer, singer, and pipa player Min Xiao-fen has become a fixture on the new-music, jazz and Chinese traditional musical scenes. Collaborations with such artists as John Zorn, Christian Marclay, Randy Weston, DJ Spooky, and Derek Bailey attest to her relentlessly exploratory spirit and open-minded approach to improvisation and music-making.

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Ecstatic Electricity with Christopher Tignor

Friday, January 27, 2012

This Friday at 1pm, the New Canon jams with composer and Slow Six bandleader Christopher Tignor, asking in advance of his Ecstatic Music Festival appearance: Should there be a line between Indie Rock and Indie Classical?

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Interview: Ambassador and Visionary Chou Wen-chung

Thursday, January 26, 2012

It would difficult to overstate the importance of Chou Wen-chung when it comes to contemporary music. Not only has he developed over the course of his almost 90 years a shimmering, pointillistic yet lyrical style, but he edited and completed many of his teacher Edgard Varèse's works.

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Calligraffiti: from China to New York

Thursday, January 26, 2012

This Thursday, January 26 at 8:30 pm, ET, Q2 Music streams an eclectic set of chamber and vocal works from award-winning Chinese composer Huang Ruo, as recorded live on January 10 at Greenwich Village's (Le) Poisson Rouge.

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Interview: Composer Lei Liang on Cultural Identity

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Tianjin-born and California-native composer Lei Liang joins us from a studio in Rome to discuss his creative process, the importance of putting the weight of one's life into every sounding note, and the manner in which cultural identity manifests itself in his music.

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Interview: Downtown Staple Composer-Performer Du Yun

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

As an active presence on the New York new-music scene, the young Shanghai-born composer Du Yun cuts a striking figure. From prestigious work with New York City Opera and The New Juilliard Ensemble to downtown, electronic experimentation with the International Contemporary Ensemble and schizoid balladry at Cornelia Street Cafe, Du Yun is a distinctive voice that will stretch well into the 21st century.

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