The Next Track

John Wyver's company Illuminations produces films of live performances: theater, dance, opera, and music. He joins us to discuss the future of live performances in what he calls The After, that period when Covid-19 is just a memory. Will live performances be able to start again even if there isn't a vaccine? How can social distancing allow live performances to return? Help support The Next Track b...

We meet harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, who is showing how the harpsichord is no longer an instrument just for "old" music. His latest recording features contemporary music for harpsichord and electronics. Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self-sustaining so your support is what keeps us going. Thanks! Support The Next Track . Guest : Mahan Esfah...

Plex is a great way to manage your media library. Doug and Kirk discuss how they use it. Note: we recorded this episode before the lockdown began, but held off publishing it because we had a number of interviews with musicians in lockdown. Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self-sustaining so your support is what keeps us going. Thanks! Support T...

TJ Connelly is a sports DJ: he provides "scores" for live sporting events, such as baseball, football, and hockey games. Since the lockdown, he's been out of work, and he has been focusing his attention on Uncertain Times, a daily streaming radio show. We talk with him about what it means to score live sports, and how his streaming show is reconnecting him with real radio. Help support The Next Tr...

Timo Andres is a young composer and pianist, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 2016. We discuss his music, and how he missed his first solo recital at Carnegie Hall du to the coronavirus lockdown, and decided to make home videos of all the works to present his program to the public. (Apologies for the audio; we made some mistakes when recording.) Help support The Next Track by making regular don...

Oliver Craske has just published the first biography of the legendary Indian musician Ravi Shankar. Craske knew and worked with Shankar near the end of his life, and carried out extensive research to tell the tale of the man who brought Indian music to the west. (Apologies for the poor Skype audio quality.) Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self...

Anne Midgette resigned as classical music critic for the Washington Post a few months ago, but she is well placed to discuss the dangers facing live performances of classical music in The After. And she tells us about the historical novel she's writing about the woman who built pianos for Beethoven. Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self-sustain...

We talk with harpsichordist, conductor, and "general music addict" Richard Egarr, about original performance practice in early music. Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self-sustaining so your support is what keeps us going. Thanks! Support The Next Track . Guest : Richard Egarr Show notes : Richard Egarr on Harmonia Mundi Richard Egarr on Linn R...

We talk with pianist Marc-André Hamelin, whose repertoire, in more than 60 recordings, covers many little-known composers, as well as a number of twentieth-century works, by composers such as Ives, Rzewski, and Feldman. Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self-sustaining so your support is what keeps us going. Thanks! Support The Next Track . Gues...

We talk with Ian Bostridge, Kirk's second-favorite lieder singer, about life in lockdown, and about Schubert's Winterreise, the song cycle that Bostridge is best known for, through his many performances, recordings, films, and a book he wrote about it. Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self-sustaining so your support is what keeps us going. Than...

Michael Connelly writes crime fiction, and his character Harry Bosch loves jazz. We talk with Michael about how he decided what music Bosch liked, and how he uses music in the novels and TV series. Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self-sustaining so your support is what keeps us going. Thanks! Support The Next Track . Guest : Michael Connelly T...

A lot of musicians, suddenly faced with no opportunities for public performance, are opting to stream live from their homes. Andy Doe joins us to discuss what it means for all the musicians to have to build streaming studios in their homes from scratch, and gives tips on how best to set up cameras, lights, and microphones. Guest : Andy Doe Show notes : Tim Cook's video Rode NT-USB Mini , a small,...

We chat with violinist Alina Ibragimova, who is taking advantage of the lockdown to learn the Paganini caprices in her home in London. Guest : Alina Ibragimova Alina Ibragimova on Hyperion Records The Alina Ibragimova Violin Playlist on Apple Music Show notes : Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien Review of Rolf Wallin violin concerto, Proms 2018 Bach: Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin Our ne...

In this episode, we talk with the pianist and author Stephen Hough, about how the lockdown is affecting him, how he has "the backside of a rhinoceros," and we discuss how classical concerts could change in the future. Guest : Stephen Hough Angela Hewitt on Twitter Stephen Hough on Hyperion Records The Stephen Hough Piano Playlist an Apple Music Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More Show notes...

In the first of a number of out-of-band episodes that we're planning to release in the coming weeks, we talk with pianist Angela Hewitt, best known for her extraordinary recordings of all of Bach's keyboard works. Guest : Angela Hewitt Angela Hewitt on Twitter Angela Hewitt on Hyperion Records The Angela Hewitt Bach Playlist an Apple Music The Angela Hewitt Baroque Playlist on Apple Music Show not...

These are difficult times for many people, who are now required to stay at home. Music can help us get through this. In this "two guys not in a pub" episode, Doug and Kirk reflect on social isolation and music. Show notes : Bus-sized fatberg weighing 40 tonnes cleared from London sewer GrimeGran's Twitter feed The Dropkick Murphys - Streaming Up From Boston Royal Shakespeare Company in cinemas Nat...

While there are lots of reasons to opt for minimal audio equipment, for some people there is an enduring allure for vintage stereo amps and receivers from the hi-fi heydays of the 1970s. The time when audio gear had knobs and dials and VU meters, like the fins and grilles on 1950s cars. We discuss our lust for those baroque audio devices of yore. Show notes : How a Digital Guy Fell in Love with a...

Ashley Kahn wrote the book on Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, the jazz album everyone owns if they one at least one jazz album. We talk with Ashley about the recording of Kind of Blue, and about its legacy. (Apologies for the audio issues.) Guest : Ashley Kahn Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece Show notes : Miles Davis: Kind of Blue Glenn Gould's 1955 and 1981 recordings of Bach's...

We talk with Kyle Devine, author of a new book about the environmental impact of music recordings, which raises a number of issues that we had never previously considered. Guest : Kyle Devine Decomposed: The Political Ecology of Music Show notes : Nightmares on wax: the environmental impact of the vinyl revival Shellac (Wikipedia) Vinyl Record Production in Peril After Fire at California Plant Wha...

Andy Doe joins us again to discuss the perils of having software-controlled audio equipment. After the Affaire Sonos, when the company announced that a lot of its older products would become "obsolete," perhaps it's time to think more carefully about how long hardware we buy will last, when it depends on software. Guest : Andy Doe Show notes : Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance LSO Liv...

Chris Connaker of Audiophile Style renovated the attic of his house and turned it into the ultimate listening room. He then tuned it using amazing speakers, acoustic treatment, and DSP (digital signal processing). He explains how he went about this, and how the room itself is perhaps the most important element in an audio system. Guest : Chris Connaker Show notes : A New Listening Room Part One A...

For the first episode of the new decade - the last one recorded in the previous decade - Doug and Kirk look back on their year in music. Show notes : Honkyoku (Kirk's shakuhachi website) The Zen of Everything (Kirk's podcast) Rode Procaster microphone Yamaha AG03 mixer Episode #147 - Kirk's New Sonos Amp KEF Q350 speakers Q Acoustics 3020I speakers Amazon Echo Dot Tivoli Audio model One Episode #1...

There’s got to be a German word for this. It’s that feeling, that first second, when you heard Jingle Bells in the middle of summer. Show notes : Episode #58 – David Weigel on the History of Progressive Rock Trio Mediaeval: Folk Songs Bruce Springsteen: Santa Claus is Coming to Town Do They Know It’s Christmas We Are the World Bob Dylan: Christmas in the Heart Bob Dylan: Must Be Santa (video) The...

Sid Smith is the official biographer of King Crimson. He recently updated his book, In The Court Of King Crimson - An Observation Over 50 Years, that tells the tale of this seminal band. We talk with Sid about everything Crimson. Guest : In The Court Of King Crimson - An Observation Over 50 Years Show notes : DGM Live Episode #161 - Philip Thomas on Morton Feldman's Piano Music Episode #97 - Jerry...

Lewis Shiner's latest novel Outside the Gates of Eden is a saga that begins at a Dylan concert in 1965, then follows a musician and his friends as they age, up to the present. This novel has a huge scope, with moving scenes about music, and about a generation growing up. (Apologies for the sketchy Skype audio quality.) Guest : Lewis Shiner Show notes : Outside the Gates of Eden Episode #28 – Music...