Composers Datebook podcast

#Music #American Public Media

21:35

How does a B2B brand maintain speed and agility in the area of UX design, where it has often taken a considerable amount of time, effort, and testing to get to a better result? Today we’re going to talk about using AI strategically in UX research, design, and testing. To help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Jason Bowman, Executive Director of User Experience at The Office of Experience. About Jason Bowman Jason leads OX as the Executive Director of UX, bringing over 20+ years of meaningful UX and design experience to the firm, overseeing and managing Content Strategy, UX and Business Analyst teams. Jason has a true talent for guiding projects to successful launches as quickly and efficiently as possible. With strong collaboration skills and attention to detail, he is always looking for the right thing in order to create a better experience for users, clients, and teams. His expansive experience includes multinational, multilingual intranets, startups, marquee consumer brands, global agencies, mobile apps, and more. Notable client work includes Patagonia, Groupon, Samsung, Boston Consulting Group, Sitka Gear, Goop, American Medical Association, and more. RESOURCES The Office of Experience: https://www.officeofexperience.com https://www.officeofexperience.com This episode is brought to you by The Office of Experience, a design-driven, digital-first, vertically integrated and collaborative agency that believes in the power of ideas and the strength of people. Catch the future of e-commerce at eTail Boston, August 11-14, 2025. Register now: https://bit.ly/etailboston and use code PARTNER20 for 20% off for retailers and brands Online Scrum Master Summit is happening June 17-19. This 3-day virtual event is open for registration. Visit www.osms25.com and get a 25% discount off Premium All-Access Passes with the code osms25agilebrand Don't Miss MAICON 2025, October 14-16 in Cleveland - the event bringing together the brights minds and leading voices in AI. Use Code AGILE150 for $150 off registration. Go here to register: https://bit.ly/agile150 Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstrom Don't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://www.theagilebrand.show Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com…

Composers Datebook

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Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.

98 episodes

Composers Datebook

23 subscribers

updated 2 days ago

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98 episodes

#Music #American Public Media

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Composers Datebook

1
Pleyel in the Old World (and the New) 2:00

2 days ago2:00

2:00

Synopsis Drop the name “Pleyel” among classical music aficionados and one might say, “Oh, yeah, Pleyel. He was a French piano maker. I think Chopin liked Pleyel pianos.” Another might add, “He was a composer, too, but … I don’t think he was really French…” Another might add, “Didn’t he have something to do with Haydn?” Well, they’re all right. Ignace Joseph Pleyel was born near Vienna on today’s date in 1757. As a teenager, he became a pupil of Haydn, and in 1791, ended up in London, where, for a time, his orchestral concerts competed with Haydn’s. The two remained friends, however, dined together and attended each other’s concerts. In 1795, Pleyel set up shop in Paris, where he founded a publishing house and piano factory. His own compositions remained enormously popular. In 1805, he travelled to Vienna, visited the aging Haydn and heard that young upstart Beethoven improvising at the piano. In 1822, the whaling port of Nantucket, Massachusetts, formed a Pleyel Society ‘to chasten the taste of listeners,’ in the words of a local newspaper. According to the New Grove Dictionary of Music, “The most telling evidence of the appeal of Pleyel’s music lies in the thousands of manuscript copies that filled the shelves of archives, libraries, … and private homes, and in the thousands of editions of his music produced in Europe and North America.” Music Played in Today's Program Ignaz Pleyel (1757-1831): Symphony in G; London Mozart Players; Matthias Bamert, conductor; Chandos 9525…

Composers Datebook

1
Bach and Mattheson 2:00

3 days ago2:00

2:00

Synopsis Back in 1714, today’s date fell on a Sunday, and, if you had happened to be attending a church service at the German Court of the Duke of Weimar, you might have heard some new music by the Duke’s court composer and organist, Johann Sebastian Bach. It’s possible that Bach’s Cantata No. 21 received its first performance that day: its first part before the sermon, its second part right afterwards. The opening text, which Bach sets as a fugue, begins “Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis” or, in English, “I had much affliction.” Now even in Bach’s day, composers were afflicted with critics. In 1725, a famous composer — and critic — Johann Mattheson took Bach to task for the way in which he had set his text by quoting exactly what is being sung: "I, I, I, I had much affliction, I had much affliction, in my heart, in my heart. I had much affliction, in my heart…” etc… Mattheson’s point, apparently, was that vocal music should not stutter, but flow gracefully in the “gallant” style that was becoming more fashionable and trendy back then. Even so, Mattheson knew that Bach was the real deal, and earlier had praised Bach in print for church and keyboard music so well written that (quote), “we must certainly rate this man highly.” Music Played in Today's Program J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Cantata No. 21: Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis ; The Monteverdi Choir; The English Baroque Soloists; Sir John Eliot Gardiner, conductor; Soli Deo Gloria 165…

Composers Datebook

1
Charles Ives and Henry Brant 2:00

4 days ago2:00

2:00

Synopsis American composer Henry Brant is famous for his avant-garde “spatial” music — works that require groups of musicians stationed at various points around a performance space. But hard-core film music buffs might also know Brant as a master orchestrator of other composers’ scores for Hollywood productions in the 1960s. On today’s date in 1995, Brant conducted the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa, Canada, in the premiere of one of his orchestrations — in this case, a symphonic version of the Concord Piano Sonata by Charles Ives, first published in 1920. In the long preface to his Sonata, Ives wrote: “The [Sonata] is an attempt to present [an] impression of the spirit of transcendentalism … associated in the minds of many with Concord, Massachusetts … impressionistic pictures of Emerson and Thoreau, a sketch of the Alcotts, and a scherzo supposed to reflect a lighter quality … found in the fantastic side of Hawthorne.” Henry Brant had been profoundly influenced by Ives’ music long before he got to know the Concord Sonata , but when he did, Brant set to work orchestrating it. “I sensed that here was a tremendous orchestral piece,” Brant wrote. “It seemed to me that the complete Sonata, in a symphonic orchestration, might become the ‘Great American Symphony’ that we had been seeking for years … What better way to honor Ives.” Music Played in Today's Program Charles Ives (1874-1954) arr. Henry Brant (1913-2008): A Concord Symphony ; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Dennis Russell Davies, conductor; innova 414…

Composers Datebook

1
Byrne and Eno in Minneapolis 2:00

5 days ago2:00

2:00

Synopsis On today’s date in 1980, a week-long festival, New Music America, came to a close in Minneapolis with a concert at that city’s Guthrie Theater. The program included the premiere of High Life for Strings , composed by David Byrne, a musician best known for his work with a rock band called The Talking Heads. Byrne later recalled, “When I participated in the New Music America festival in Minneapolis, minimalism and New-Age noodling were making big in-roads into a scene that had been more insular and academic. My piece, for a dozen strings was on a program with Philip Glass.” He said he was influenced by the intricate rhythms of West African pop music. Brian Eno was another rock musician represented during the festival in Minneapolis. Some years earlier, Eno had been so irritated by the inane, chirpy muzak he heard while traveling that he composed a soothing ambient synthesizer score he called Music for Airports . Appropriately enough, during the 8 days of the Festival, his score was broadcast 24 hours a day throughout the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Decades after its composition, composer Michael Gordon arranged Eno’s synthesizer score for acoustic instruments, and recorded this arrangement of Music for Airports with the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Music Played in Today's Program David Byrne (b. 1952): High Life ; Balanescu Quartet; Argo 436 565 Brian Eno (b. 1948) arr. Gordon: Music for Airports ; Bang on a Can All-Stars; Point Music 314 536 847…

Composers Datebook

1
Godfrey's Quartet No. 3 2:00

6 days ago2:00

2:00

Synopsis It’s summertime, the livin’ is easy, and all across the country music festivals large and small are getting underway. In addition to the big symphonic festivals at Ravinia and Tanglewood, there are smaller ones devoted exclusively to the intimate art of chamber music. These festival often offer young, emerging composers the chance have their brand-new scores heard in workshop settings. Sometimes composers themselves are in charge of these summer festivals, partnering with established or specially-organized performing ensembles. In 1995, for example, two American composers, Daniel S. Godfrey and Andrew Waggoner, started the Seal Bay Festival, a two-week series of performances and workshops of recently composed chamber music in the Penobscot Bay area of Maine. On June 14, 2001, this newly-revised string quartet by Daniel Godfrey received its premiere by the Cassatt Quartet at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport. The quartet is inscribed to the memory of Godfrey’s mother, who died in 1997. “Her passing came to represent for me the losses, and the necessity of letting go, that have accompanied my arrival at late middle age,” he said. “To oversimplify, perhaps, the first movement grieves, the second looks back wistfully, and the third looks ahead with determination and, ultimately, with hope.” Music Played in Today's Program Daniel S. Godfrey (b. 1949): String Quartet No. 3; Cassatt String Quartet; Koch 7573…

Composers Datebook

1
Milhaud's 'French Suite' 2:00

7 days ago2:00

2:00

Synopsis In 1944, French composer Darius Milhaud was in California, teaching at Mills College in California, and received a commission to write a piece suitable for school bands. With a world at war, the Jewish composer had found safe refuge in the U.S., and so eagerly accepted the commission for a number of reasons. Milhaud, confined to a wheelchair for most of his adult life, sent his wife Madaleine to the College library to obtain a collection of French folk tunes. His idea was arrange of some these into a suite. As the composer himself explained after his Suite Française was finished: “The five parts of [my] Suite are named after French Provinces, the very ones in which the American and Allied armies fought together with the French underground for the liberation of my country. I used some folk tunes of these Provinces, as I wanted the young American to hear the popular melodies of those parts of France where their fathers and brothers fought on behalf of the peaceful and democratic people of France." Milhaud’s Suite Française was premiered by the Goldman Band in New York City on today’s date in 1945, and rapidly became one of the best-known and most often performed of Milhaud’s works, and one of the established classics of the wind band repertory. Music Played in Today's Program Darius Milhaud (1892-1974): Suite Francaise ; Eastman Wind Ensemble; Frederick Fennell, conductor; Mercury 289 434 399-2…

Composers Datebook

1
Jennifer Higdon 2:00

8 days ago2:00

2:00

Synopsis On today’s date in 2002, a high-profile musical event occurred at Philadelphia’s new Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. The city was hosting the 57th National Conference of the American Symphony Orchestra League, and the Philadelphia Orchestra was celebrating its 100th anniversary with eight new commissions, all to be premiered in the Orchestra’s new Verizon Hall. On June 12th, the new piece was a Concerto for Orchestra by 39-year-old composer Jennifer Higdon. Her concerto opened the Philadelphia Orchestra’s program, followed by Richard Strauss’ tone-poem Ein Heldenleben . Both pieces were performed before an audience of orchestral professionals from around the country — not to mention Higdon’s proud mother. Higdon, understandably a little nervous, quipped to a newspaper reporter, “You’ll know my mother because she’ll be the one crying before the piece starts.” She needn’t have worried. Her Concerto for Orchestra was greeted with cheers from both its audience and performers — the latter in typically irreverent fashion, dubbed the new piece Ein Higdonleben . Higdon, the only woman among the eight composers commissioned for the orchestra’s centennial project, calls herself a “late bloomer” as a composer. She taught herself the flute at 15 and didn’t pursue formal music training until college. She was almost finished with her bachelor’s degree requirements at Bowling Green State University when she started composing her own music. Music Played in Today's Program Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962): Concerto for Orchestra ; Atlanta Symphony; Robert Spano, conductor; Telarc 80620…

Composers Datebook

1
Riegger in Paris 2:00

9 days ago2:00

2:00

Composers Datebook

1
Some Brits in New York 2:00

10 days ago2:00

2:00

Composers Datebook

1
Belated Haydn Premieres 2:00

11 days ago2:00

2:00

Synopsis Contemporary composers may bemoan that their newly-composed opera or concerto might languish unperformed for years. “Haydn was lucky,” they whine, “His stuff got played right away!” Well, it’s true that Haydn did have his own orchestra at Prince Esterhazy’s estate and got his music played while the ink was still wet. But even Haydn had to wait for a premiere on occasion — in two instances, for a very, very long time. Consider the last opera Haydn wrote, L’anima del Filosofo, ossia Orfeo ed Euridice — or, in English, The Soul of the Philosopher, or Orpheus and Euridice . This was supposed to premiere in 1791 in London. But a spat between the Prince of Wales and his pop, King George III, meant the performance was off. The opera was eventually premiered 160 years later — on today’s date in 1951, at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, with a cast including Maria Callas and Boris Christoff, led by the German conductor Erich Kleiber. And the public premiere of a Cello Concerto, a work some think Haydn wrote at Esterhazy in the 1760s, took place in the 1960s. Haydn’s score was presumed lost until 1961, when it was discovered at the Prague National Museum and finally played by cellist Milos Sádlo and the Czech Radio Symphony, led by Sir Charles Mackerras, on May 19, 1962. Music Played in Today's Program Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809): L’Anima del Filosofo (Orfeo ed Euridice) ; Cecilia Bartoli, mezzo-soprano; Academy of Ancient Music; Christopher Hogwood, conductor; Decca 452668 Cello Concerto No. 1; Mstislav Rostropovich, cello; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields; Iona Brown, conductor; EMI 65701…

Composers Datebook

1
Tomaso Albinoni 2:00

12 days ago2:00

2:00

Synopsis For some composers, what made them popular in their own day is not always what makes them popular today. Take, for example, Italian Baroque composer Tomaso Albinoni, who was born in Venice on today’s date in 1671. Albinoni was the son of a wealthy paper merchant, so he was sufficiently well-off, not to have to land a job with the church or some noble patron. He was most famous as an opera composer and travelled outside Italy to lead productions. Unfortunately, his opera scores were never published and so were lost to posterity. He did, however, publish several collections of instrumental works, and it is on these that his fame rests today. By a quirk of fate, nowadays Albinoni’s best known work, his famous Adagio in g minor , was not one those works published in the 18th century. Rather, it was a 20th century recreation by musicologist Remo Giazotto based on a rather skimpy surviving sketch. No matter that there are scads of other Albinoni Adagios equally ravishing and straight from his own quill pen. In 1996 the Erato label even issued an album consisting of nothing but 22 original and legitimate Albinoni Adagios and slow movements — plus the famous Adagio that was cooked up by Remo Giazotto tossed in for good measure! Music Played in Today's Program Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751): Adagio , from Concerto No. 12; I Solisti Veneti; Claudio Scimone, conductor; Erato 0630-15681-2…

Composers Datebook

1
Claudette Sorel and Tania León 2:00

13 days ago2:00

2:00

Synopsis Claudette Sorel was a pianist, educator and passionate advocate for equal rights for women in music, especially composers and performers. In 1996, she founded the Sorel Organization to expand opportunities and stretch the boundaries for promising emerging female musicians through a variety of collaborations and scholarships, and to acknowledge notable masters in the field. On today’s date in 2022, for example, Cuban-born American composer Tania J. León was awarded the Organization’s Sorel Legacy Medallion for her life and work in music. While still in her 20s, León became a founding member and the first musical director of the Dance Theater of Harlem, establishing its music department, school, and orchestra. She has composed a number of both large scale and chamber works that have been performed here and abroad. In February 2020, the New York Philharmonic premiered her orchestral piece Stride and in 2021 that work was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music. León said, “ Stride was inspired by women’s rights pioneer Susan B. Anthony. She kept pushing and pushing and moving forward, walking with firm steps until she got [it] done. That is what Stride means. Something that is moving forward.” Music Played in Today's Program Tania León (b. 1943): Batá ; Louisville Orchestra; Lawrence Leighton Smith, conductor; Soundmark CD 48027…

Composers Datebook

1
Cowell in Paris 2:00

14 days ago2:00

2:00

Composers Datebook

1
Corigliano Dances 2:00

15 days ago2:00

2:00

Synopsis Merriam-Webster’s defines a gazebo as “a freestanding roofed structure usually open on the sides.” To most Americans, however, “gazebo” conjures up warm, summer days spent out-of-doors: If you imagine yourself inside a gazebo, you’re probably enjoying a cool beverage while gazing out at the greenery — or, if you fancy yourself outside one, you’re probably seated in a lawn chair, gazing at a group of gazebo-sheltered band musicians playing a pops concert for your entertainment. In the early 1970s, American composer John Corigliano wrote a series of whimsical four-hand piano dances he dedicated to certain of his pianist friends, and then later arranged these pieces for concert band, titling the resulting suite Gazebo Dances . “The title was suggested by the pavilions often seen on village greens in towns throughout the countryside, where public band concerts are given in the summer,” Corigliano explained. “The delights of that sort of entertainment are portrayed in this set of dances, which begins with a Rossini-like overture, followed by a rather peg-legged waltz, a long-lined adagio, and a bouncy tarantella.” The concert band version of Corigliano’s Gazebo Dances was first performed in Indiana on today’s date in 1973, by the University of Evansville Wind Ensemble, with Robert Bailey conducting. Music Played in Today's Program John Corigliano (b. 1938): Gazebo Dances ; University of Texas Wind Ensemble; Jerry Junkin, conductor; Naxos 8.559601…

Composers Datebook

1
Brahms rediscovered 2:00

16 days ago2:00