The Relache Chronicles

Episode Twenty-Nine: Michael Nyman Michael Nyman is a composer of concert music, film scores and the author of a book  that   influenced countless composers and educators in the late twentieth century that embraced musical styles counter to the modernist music of European and American composers whose works dominated university faculties worldwide . Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond certainly inf...

On February 25, 2026 “Comin’ On Home – A Concert for Guy” was held at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY. On the day before what would have been his 79th birthday, the concert celebrated the life and music of accordionist, composer and performer, Guy Klucevsek who passed away on May 22, 2025.  Guy was well known to international audiences for his exquisite playing.  His compositions for solo accordion numbe...

Created, written and performed by Arthur Sabatini, The Walkings are literary and poetic musings and commentaries set to music of William Duckworth’s “The Time Curve Preludes,” played by pianist Neely Bruce from a recording on the Lovely Music label. (Episode Twelve of The Relache Chronicles features Bill’s music plus commentary from the Relache Chronicles Team, who were all friends of Bill’s.) Art...

Composer Joe Kasinskas moved to the Philadelphia area when the Relache Ensemble was still in a formative stage of defining itself as a performing  entity. Its mission was, of course, performing new music within the experimental music traditions. In those days, the ensemble  tossed a wide net, hoping to snare young composers with visions of how to incorporate evolving performative styles and emergi...

Three works by composer and media artist Eve Beglarian titled “Fresh Air,” “Machaut in the Machine Age,” and “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” performed by the Relache Ensemble and the MATA Ensemble are featured. Throughout her extensive composing career, Eve has collaborated with numerous performers - poets, theater artists and directors, choreographers, and visual artists – to create works in a...

Bertolt Brecht, playwright, director, poet and provocateur, was a dynamic figure throughout his life, whether it be in his native Germany or during his residence in the United States.  Best known for collaborating with composer Kurt Weill to create a unique style of music and theater in the early years of the 20th century, Brecht also collaborated with other composers, principally Hanns Eisler wit...

This is a major work by the pioneering composer, sound artist and activist, Pauline Oliveros. Created in collaboration with dancer-choreographer, Deborah Hay , and the Relache Ensemble while in residence at the Yellow Springs Institute for the Arts and Humanities in Chester Springs, PA, “The Well” has been performed throughout the U.S., Europe, Japan, and South America by Relache and recorded on H...

Episode No. 2 Joe Kasinskas.   One of the more dynamic works in the Relache Ensemble’s extensive catalogue of site-specific performances is titled “Echoes in Palindromes” by composer Joe Kasinskas. Following a carefully scripted graphic score, four performers move throughout a performance space playing notated musical palindromes amidst reverberant echoes, the result of audio-playback procedures w...

Episode Twenty- Four – IN C by Terry Riley  Of all the musical  works that the Relache Ensemble played during its long history none is more memorable than IN C by Terry Riley. Arguably, IN C is one of the most important musical works of the mid-twentieth century. This episode – Episode twenty-four – will explore the impact that IN C had on the artistic evolution of the Relache Ensemble. Throughout...

This episode is devoted to our close friend and collaborator of many years, accordionist-composer, Guy Klucevsek. Guy passed away on May 22nd after a long battle with neuroendocrine cancer. To call Guy a virtuoso accordionist  is, of course, accurate. He was a master of the instrument’s potential to express extended lyrical musical lines amidst a rhythmic foundation drawn from folk traditions  fro...

Among the many composers to write music for the Relache Ensemble, Mary Ellen Childs has been one of the more active collaborators.  The first of her compositions for Relache is  named “Parterre.” It became a prominent part of Relache’s touring programs and was commercially recorded for the Minnesota Composers forum label. (You can hear it on Episode 18, Music in Motion Part Two.) Another work, and...

 Episode Twenty One – Kyle Gann For those of us who were participants in and/or avid listeners to “new” and “experimental” music in the mid-to-late 20th century, Kyle Gann’s name is resonant with the history of the musical arts during those extraordinary years. He is a writer, educator and composer. As a columnist/critic for the Village Voice he documented the work of musical artists in New York C...

 Paul Epstein’s music is deceptive. What appear to be beautiful melodies set within easy-to-recognize harmonies that cradle traditional tonal centers demand careful listening. Those melodies and harmonies are tricky. They slip in and out of an aural context that’s been carefully designed by an artist who has carefully studied the music from Machaut to Stravinsky to Reich. As Kyle Gann has so beaut...

Episode Nineteen of the Relache Chronicles is the third of three dedicated to Music in Motion, a project created by the Relache Organization in partnership with the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Between 1995 and 2001 the Relache Ensemble and four other ensembles, each dedicated to the creation and performance of contemporary music, collaborated with five presenting organizations in five cities thr...

Episode Eighteen is a continuation of Music in Motion, a project created by the Relache Organization in partnership with the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Between 1995 and 2001 the Relache Ensemble and four other ensembles, each dedicated to the creation and performance of contemporary music, collaborated with five presenting organizations in five cities throughout the U.S. The intent was to colla...

Episode Seventeen – Music in Motion & Arturo Marquez Music in Motion was a project created by the Relache Organization in partnership with the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Between 1995 and 2001 the Relache Ensemble and four other ensembles, each dedicated to the creation and performance of contemporary music, collaborated with five presenting organizations in five cities throughout the U.S. T...

Lois V Vierk is a unique voice in the recent history of music in America. She has composed stunning works for multiples of the same instrument that are technically complex and yield a mesmerizing aural experience. Among these is “Manhattan Cascade” for accordions, composed, recorded and performed widely by Guy Klucevsek , former Relache Ensemble member, composer and pioneering accordionist. (You c...

Episode Fifteen – Robert Ashley “Since he began composing and performing in the late 1950s, Robert Ashley has created a wholly original body of work. Continuously productive, his oeuvre encompasses nearly all versions of music and music/sound performance from instrumental and electronic compositions to film music and music videos to multi sectioned, intermediated staged operas. Ashley has also wri...

Episode  Fourteen -  Annson Kenney Annson Kenney was a dynamic presence in Philadelphia from the mid-sixties until his death in late 1981. A visual artist, writer, performer, and composer, Annson was a difficult man to pin down. Although initially trained in music, his imagination and introspection  led him far from his role as a contrabass player. In the 1970’s Annson designed a remarkable series...

Critical Band , an extraordinary  composition by James Tenney has been described as a “sound poem,” and an “aural flower” slowly unfolding  as the pitch tableau becomes evident and clear to the listener. John Cage, a long-time friend of Jim Tenney’s wrote him after hearing the premiere performance a congratulatory note, “…if this is harmony, I take back everything I said to you in the past.” (John...

William Duckworth – known as Bill to his friends – was a composer, educator and author who wrote for contemporary ensembles and soloists throughout a busy compositional career in the mid to late twentieth century. He was a professor of music at Bucknell University and published five books on twentieth century music and theory. At the time of his passing in 2012, Bill was developing large scale int...

Episode 11 Episode 11 is the third of three episodes of music and commentary from the New Music America Festival 1987 in Philadelphia, produced and presented by the Relache organization. Sound installations and outdoor performances in some unlikely locations have been part of New Music America festivals throughout the eleven-year history of the festivals. For this episode we have selected three ou...

Episode 10 is the second of three episodes of music and commentary from the New Music America Festival 1987 in Philadelphia, produced and presented by the Relache organization. This episode is one of our favorites. It features the premiere performance of accordionist-composer Guy Klucevsek’s “Polka from the Fringe,” a terrific investigation of Polkas in all their glory. Virtuosic, whimsical, outra...

Episode Nine -  New Music America 1987 Philadelphia (1 of 3) In 1979, a group of composers, performers, video artists, producers, presenters, and other experimental artists met at The Kitchen, a renowned Downtown NY performance space to present a festival named New Music New York. The following year in Minneapolis, The Walker Art Center produced and presented a festival based on New Music New York...

Romulus Franceschini was a composer, arranger, music editor and assistant curator at the Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral music in Philadelphia, his hometown. Raised in the vibrant Italian American community in South Philly, Romulus absorbed the rich classical music that was ever present in Philadelphia, while absorbing the equally rich jazz inflected music of the mid-twentieth century....