Shows
Becoming Your Best VersionA Conversation with Lindsay McIntosh, Historical Oboist and Arts Educator for Underserved CommunitiesLindsay McIntosh is Juilliard-trained historical oboist with an impressive resume in the music world. She has appeared under world-renowned conductors such as William Christi and Masaaki Suzuki. In 2013, while completing her graduate studies at Juilliard, she founded New Vintage Baroque, an innovative period instrument ensemble dedicated to performing 21st-century repertoire on historical instruments. The ensemble received critical acclaim for its imaginative, cross-temporal programming and vibrant energy – hallmarks of Lindsay’s creative leadership. As artistic and executive director of NVB, McIntosh self-produced 25 distinct programs, fundraised more than $100,000, cultivated the organization’s board of directors, commissioned and performed 17 world premieres, collaborated in three o...
2025-09-1928 min
New Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel ConneryTeddy Abrams: PreludesEpisode 5 of Reverberations centers on a book of piano preludes written and performed by conductor, composer and pianist Teddy Abrams. In the episode, Connery and Abrams discuss his social and pedagogical agenda to reach amateur pianists around the country and the world. “I realized that there are very few living composers who have entered the repertoire for pianists,” says Abrams. “I wanted to write some music that would literally be accessible to anyone.” The episode also explores Abrams’ striking decision to use electronic production on the album. The ultimate result, a collaboration with producers Gabriel Kahane and Casey Foubert, exemplifie...
2025-07-0917 minNew Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel ConneryJuri Seo: Obsolete MusicEpisode 4 of Reverberations explores the question: “Can music go out of style?” Composer Juri Seo’s Obsolete Music album suggests that music is ageless. Obsolete Music is Seo’s collaboration with the flexible ensemble Latitude 49. Each track on the record pays homage to a form or style from the past (e.g. “Fugue” or “Ostinato”) in order to reimagine it. Seo’s own decision to become a musician is rooted in an important encounter with Bach and species counterpoint at the age of 11. The episode begins with Seo explaining this epiphany: “My mind and body came together through a fugue.” Suppor
2025-05-3019 minNew Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel ConneryAlex Paxton: DeliciousThis episode of Reverberations is a conversation with composer and trombonist Alex Paxton about his album called Delicious. Host Majel Connery and Paxton discuss his early adulthood as a children’s music educator and how that experience still frames his compositional approach. They delve into the complexity of Paxton’s scores, his concept of melody, and his teenage fantasy of speaking exclusively in trombone. Says Paxton, with characteristic zest for colliding opposites: “my music is influenced by biting into a strawberry, but also by brushing your teeth every day for thirty years, playing a spontaneous game with a child when yo...
2025-04-2422 minNew Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel ConneryDavid Longstreth: Song of the EarthIn this episode of Reverberations, host Majel Connery talks to David Longstreth about his album, Song of the Earth, an orchestral song cycle featuring Longstreth and his band The Dirty Projectors along with a host of other collaborators, including the commissioning ensemble, s t a r g a z e. Beginning with the album’s titular inspiration, Mahler’s Song of the Earth, Connery and Longstreth discuss the surprising proximity of Mahler and the Beach Boys; the courage to write a triad; Longstreth’s affinity for echo chambers; and what it means to try to write music about the enviro...
2025-04-0923 minNew Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel ConneryOwls: Rare BirdsThe opening episode of Reverberations Season 2 is a conversation with Owls, a pioneering string group that flips the traditional string quartet model to produce an ensemble with 1 violin, 1 viola and 2 cellos. All four members of the group are represented on the call: violinist Alexi Kenney, violist Ayane Kozasa, and cellists Gabriel Cabezas and Paul Wiancko. In the episode, we explore the implications of this “inverted string quartet” in terms of musical dynamics, and how Owls co-creates the repertoire it plays. We also touch on Owls’ childhood love of hockets, pitch matching, and their debut album, Rare Birds. Says Kenney: “We love t...
2025-03-2820 minNew Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel ConneryWilliam Brittelle: Alive in the Electric Snow DreamFor the lastepisode of the first season of Reverberations, host Majel Connery talks to William Brittelle, one of New Amsterdam Records' co-founders and co-artistic directors, about his album Alive in the Electric Snow Dream, which was released earlier this year and developed in collaboration with Metropolis Ensemble during the COVID-19 pandemic. Support the show
2024-12-1316 minNew Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel ConneryAdam Tendler: InheritancesIn this episode of Reverberations, host Majel Connery talks to pianist Adam Tendler about his upcoming album, Inheritances. This commissioning project became a live show and, ultimately, an album containing compositional pieces by Laurie Anderson, Missy Mazzoli, Devonté Hynes, and many more artists. Connery and Tendler talk about fragments on Inheritances that involve Adam’s speaking and singing voice. They also discuss Adam’s views on the relationship between music, grief, public healing, and queerness in music.Support the show
2024-11-1525 minNew Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel ConneryPeni Candra Rini: 'Wulansih' and 'Wani'On this episode of Reverberations, host Majel Connery and Peni Candra Rini discuss her double album, 'Wulansih' and 'Wani.' Candra Rini, who is from Indonesia, talks about her stylistic flexibility, vocal abilities, and the diverse regional influences in her music. She also addresses the recurring theme of climate change in her work and her ambition to become one of the few prominent female composers from her country.Support the show
2024-10-0119 minNew Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel ConneryCharlotte Jacobs: a t l a sThis episode of Reverberations features a t l a s, by Belgian-born Charlotte Jacobs. For Jacobs, music is a map and a personal mythology. a t l a s is not just the figure that holds up the world in Classical myths, but a creative urge to world-building present in all of us. Jacobs and host Majel Connery talk about processing anxiety through music, the use of ultra minimal reverb in making electronic landscapes, and Jacobs’ love of spoken word.Support the show
2024-09-1823 minNew Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel ConneryEllen Reid: Big MajesticIn this episode of Reverberations, we feature Ellen Reid’s "Big Majestic," which originated from Reid’s "Soundwalk," a multi-year sound installation that has traveled to city parks around the world. The album version of "Big Majestic" has been reimagined to provide a different sonic experience. Host Majel Connery and Reid discuss the genesis of the project, its evolution over time, Reid’s approach to creating music that interacts with the environment, and the key collaborators involved. This album is a joint release by New Amsterdam and Eclipse Projects.Support the show
2024-08-0923 minNew Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel ConneryDarian Donovan Thomas: A Room With Many Doors: Night (ARWMD)In this episode of Reverberations, host Majel Connery speaks with Darian Donovan Thomas about the double album "A Room with Many Doors." Discussing the second album (but first release) titled "Night," they talk about brutal honesty, mapping emotional journeys onto music, "safe spaces" in music, and the craft of artist prompts.Support the show
2024-07-1922 minNew Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel ConneryWild Up: Julius Eastman Vol. 4: The Holy PresenceThis episode of Reverberations centers on the Los Angeles-based chamber orchestra Wild Up, and their album Julius Eastman Vol. 4: The Holy Presence. The Holy Presence is the fourth in an ongoing series of releases by Wild Up celebrating the work of composer Julius Eastman, who died in 1990. Host Majel Connery speaks to Christopher Rountree, founder, conductor and creative director of Wild Up, and two of the soloists who helped shape the volume: bass-baritone Davóne Tines and cellist Seth Parker Woods. Their conversation ranges from the inspiration behind this multi-volume p...
2024-05-3131 minNew Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel ConneryMazz Swift: The 10000 Things: PRAISE SONGS for the iRiligiousThis episode of Reverberations features Mazz Swift’s new album, The 10000 Things: PRAISE SONGS for the iRiligious. Mazz and host Majel Connery discuss a series of dualities: spirituality for the irreligious; connection and disconnection with the past; and training and un-training virtuosity. Throughout, Mazz wrestles with Western Classical perspectives and how one can "give up the world."Support the show
2024-05-1031 minNew Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel ConneryAlex Sopp: The Hem & The HawThis episode of Reverberations features Alex Sopp’s new album, The Hem and the Haw. Alex and host Majel Connery talk about penny whistle freak-outs and landscape painting; Alex’s emergence as a singer and what she calls “the paralysis of potential;” and duality as an organizing force.Support the show
2024-04-2623 min
New Amsterdam Presents: Reverberations with Majel ConneryClaire Dickson: The BeholderIn this episode Claire Dickson and host Majel Connery chat about Dickson’s album, The Beholder, with forays into “princess music” (a.k.a. “pop” influences), demo love, broken madrigals, and the love triangle between performance, improvisation, and composition.Support the show
2024-03-2924 min
Inquiring MindsPlants have been listening to us this whole timeThis week, with guest co-host Majel Connery, we talk to author and researcher Karen Bakker about her new book The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants. The book explores stories of nonhuman sound and the often overlooked impact our own sound has on the natural world. Plus, things like: What do plants hear? How likely is interspecies communication? Will we one day be able to talk to dolphins? More info on Majel Connery, our guest host this week, can be found on her website.
2023-03-101h 01
A Music of Their OwnClassical Music’s #MeToo Moment
We’re bringing you a special episode of A Music of Their Own for Women’s History Month. Our current moment will certainly go down in women’s history as the ‘#MeToo era.’ #MeToo went viral in 2017 following the exposure of numerous sexual-abuse allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein. But Classical music has its own movement–sparked in part by Anne Midgette, who served as chief Classical music critic for the Washington Post. Host Majel Connery sits down with Anne to revisit her 2018 #MeToo article that prompted three prominent men in Classical music to lose their jobs.
Suggested...
2023-03-0600 minA Music of Their OwnClassical Music’s #MeToo Moment
We’re bringing you a special episode of A Music of Their Own for Women’s History Month. Our current moment will certainly go down in women’s history as the ‘#MeToo era.’ #MeToo went viral in 2017 following the exposure of numerous sexual-abuse allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein. But Classical music has its own movement–sparked in part by Anne Midgette, who served as chief Classical music critic for the Washington Post. Host Majel Connery sits down with Anne to revisit her 2018 #MeToo article that prompted three prominent men in Classical music to lose their jobs.
Suggested...
2023-03-0600 min
Her Music AcademiaGendered Music (with Majel Connery)In this episode, I chat with Majel Connery all about her experiences as a singer, her choice to leave the field of musicology, and our shared experiences as women in music. We also discuss her new podcast from CapRadio, "A Music of Their Own," which explores the ways women in music navigate the industry and the ways the music itself is gendered. Make sure to stream her show wherever you get your podcasts!
A Music of Their Own
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2023-01-231h 09
Wu Fei's Music Daily#701 — The things in between blue and green 蓝绿之间I am excited to share a podcast interview I did with CapRadio host Majel Connery. It is the most in-depth interview I have ever done talking about my life, childhood, drive and determination needed to succeed as a woman in the classical music industry. It is an honor for me to be featured on this new NPR series with five amazing women composers — Sarah Kirkland Snider, Nathalie Joachim, Angelica Negron, Inti Figgis-vizueta and Sarah Cahill. You can listen to my episode + all the episodes on:* CapRadio’s website * Apple Podcasts and Spot...
2022-12-0911 min
God & Other DelicaciesMajel ConneryMusic as foundational to understanding the spiritual; being a religious skeptic while loving the church choir; how the pandemic freed her musical “beast”; reflections on the future death of her mother; the release of control and the glee that followed.
Majel Connery is a vocalist and composer with the NYC art/punk band Sky Creature, which recently released its Bear Mountain/Childworld double EP. On the side, she composes electro/acoustic music as a solo artist, and recently released the album “The Rivers are Our Brothers,” a song cycle on the natural world. The male choir Cha...
2022-11-141h 03
God & Other DelicaciesMajel ConneryMusic as foundational to understanding the spiritual; being a religious skeptic while loving the church choir; how the pandemic freed her musical “beast”; reflections on the future death of her mother; the release of control and the glee that followed. Majel Connery is a vocalist and composer with the NYC art/punk band Sky Creature, which recently released its Bear Mountain/Childworld double EP. On the side, she composes electro/acoustic music as a solo artist, and recently released the album “The Rivers are Our Brothers,” a song cycle on the natural world. The male choir Chanticleer recently commissio...
2022-11-141h 03A Music of Their OwnIntroducing A Music of Their OwnHost Majel Connery explores what it feels like to be a woman in music and the immense drive and resolve required to succeed.
2022-11-0800 minA Music of Their OwnIntroducing A Music of Their OwnHost Majel Connery explores what it feels like to be a woman in music and the immense drive and resolve required to succeed.
2022-11-0800 min
Radiolab Podcasts (Radiolab)The UnsilencingMultiple sclerosis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, even psoriasis — these are diseases in which the body begins to attack itself, and they all have one thing in common: they affect women more than men. Most autoimmune disorders do. And not just by a little bit, often by a lot; in some cases, as much as sixteen times more. But why? On today’s episode, we talk to scientists trying to answer that question. We go back 100 million years, to when our placenta first evolved and consider how it might have shaped our immune system. We dive deep into the genome, to star...
2021-08-2600 min
RadiolabThe UnsilencingMultiple sclerosis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, even psoriasis — these are diseases in which the body begins to attack itself, and they all have one thing in common: they affect women more than men. Most autoimmune disorders do. And not just by a little bit, often by a lot; in some cases, as much as sixteen times more. But why? On today’s episode, we talk to scientists trying to answer that question. We go back 100 million years, to when our placenta first evolved and consider how it might have shaped our immune system. We dive deep into the genome, to star...
2021-08-2629 min
RadiolabGonads: DuteeIn 2014, India’s Dutee Chand was a rising female track and field star, crushing national records. But then, that summer, something unexpected happened: she failed a gender test. And was banned from the sport. Before she knew it, Dutee was thrown into the middle of a controversy that started long before her, and continues on today: how to separate males and females in sport. First aired in 2018, Dutee and the story of female athletes in sport are back in the spotlight this week, at the Tokyo Olympics. Join us for an update on Dutee’s second Olympic games, and the...
2021-08-0646 minRadiolab Podcasts (Radiolab)Gonads: DuteeIn 2014, India’s Dutee Chand was a rising female track and field star, crushing national records. But then, that summer, something unexpected happened: she failed a gender test. And was banned from the sport. Before she knew it, Dutee was thrown into the middle of a controversy that started long before her, and continues on today: how to separate males and females in sport. First aired in 2018, Dutee and the story of female athletes in sport are back in the spotlight this week, at the Tokyo Olympics. Join us for an update on Dutee’s second Olympic games, and the...
2021-08-0600 min
Boy with Girl's Name Morning Mixtape from BFF.fmBwGN AM Mixtape #135 – The (14th) one while Loose Canon Listening Club is on hiatusLet's all take a moment to pause and take a collective breath. This week's episode includes new and recent music by music by the Andrew Weathers Ensemble, FRKTL, Mamiffer, and Methods Body. The Loose Canon Listening Club will return...
Enjoying the show? Please support BFF.FM with a donation.
Playlist
0′12″ Breathing With You, With Me by Charles Spearin and Josefin Runsteen on Thank God The Plague is Over (self released)
2′13″ Requiem For The Static King Part One by A Winged Victory For The Sullen on A Winged Victory For The Sullen (Kranky)
4′44″ Still Beating, Still Born b...
2020-08-1100 min
Mondo JazzMajel Connery, Omer Avital, Nick Cave, Vijay Iyer and More New ReleasesThis week we go through another delicious stash of new and upcoming releases, many of them launched on Bandcamp on 1 May for the 'waived fee' events the website is promoting every first Friday of the month to support musicians in the time of Covid19. The cherry on the stash? The much anticipated first single, sung by Nick Cave, from Hal Willner's last production, "Angelheaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan & T. Rex.The playlist features also: Omer Avital, Ohad Talmor, Danilo Gallo, Antti Lotjonen, Vijay Iyer, Mike Ladd, Majel Connery, Hobby Horse, Moon Hooch, The Michael Leonhart...
2020-06-181h 14
Boy with Girl's Name Morning Mixtape from BFF.fmBwGN AM Mixtape #128 – The (seventh) one while Loose Canon Listening Club is on hiatusA companion to last week's mixtape: No words. Just music. Thanks for listening.The Loose Canon Listening Club will return...
Enjoying the show? Please support BFF.FM with a donation.
Playlist
0′07″ Orbit by Daniel Wohl on État (New Amsterdam/Nonesuch)
3′57″ Nighttime Birds and Morning Stars by Sarah Louise on Nighttime Birds and Morning Stars (Thrill Jockey)
11′30″ La Ballade d'Alain Georges by The Dead Texan on The Dead Texan (Kranky)
17′40″ Reprise by This Will Destroy You on Tunnel Blanket (Suicide Squeeze)
25′49″ Seeing More by Areni Agbabian on Bloom (ECM)
26′58″ Dream Pauline by Kelly Moran on Optimis...
2020-06-1600 min
NancyX & YThis week, Nancy is featuring an episode of Radiolab Presents: Gonads.
A lot of us understand biological sex with a pretty fateful underpinning: if you’re born with XX chromosomes, you’re female; if you’re born with XY chromosomes, you’re male. But it turns out, our relationship to the opposite sex is more complicated than we think.
This episode was reported by Molly Webster, and produced by Matt Kielty. With scoring, original composition and mixing by Matt Kielty and Alex Overington. Additional production by Rachael Cusick, and editing by Pat Walters. The “Ballad of Daniel...
2018-11-2640 min
#EduCast ?? Edugram#59: X & YThis week, Nancy is featuring an episode of Radiolab Presents: Gonads.
A lot of us understand biological sex with a pretty fateful underpinning: if you’re born with XX chromosomes, you’re female; if you’re born with XY chromosomes, you’re male. But it turns out, our relationship to the opposite sex is more complicated than we think.
This episode was reported by Molly Webster, and produced by Matt Kielty. With scoring, original composition and mixing by Matt Kielty and Alex Overington. Additional production by Rachael Cusick, and editing by Pat Walters. The “Ballad of Daniel Webster” and “Gonads” was written, perf...
2018-11-2641 min
RadiolabGonads: Sex EdIn this episode, an edited down version of a Radiolab Presents: Gonads Live show, host Molly Webster brings together a cast of storytellers, educators, artists, and comedians to grapple with sex ed in unexpected and thoughtful ways.
"Sex Ed" is an edited recording of a live event hosted by Radiolab at the Skirball Center in New York City on May 16, 2018. Radiolab Team Gonads is Molly Webster, Pat Walters, and Rachael Cusick, with Jad Abumrad. Live music, including the sex ed questions, and the Gonads theme song, were written, performed, and produced by Majel Connery and Alex Overington.
Ra...
2018-07-2748 min
RadiolabGonads: DanaWhen Dana Zzyym applied for their first passport back in 2014, they were handed a pretty straightforward application. Name, place of birth, photo ID -- the usual. But one question on the application stopped Dana in their tracks: male or female? Dana, technically, wasn’t either.
In this episode, we follow the story of Dana Zzyym, Navy veteran and activist, which starts long before they scribble the word "intersex” on their passport application. Along the way, we see what happens when our inner biological realities bump into the outside world, and the power of words to shape us.
2018-07-2227 min
RadiolabGonads: X & YA lot of us understand biological sex with a pretty fateful underpinning: if you’re born with XX chromosomes, you’re female; if you’re born with XY chromosomes, you’re male. But it turns out, our relationship to the opposite sex is more complicated than we think.
And if you caught this show on-air, and would like to listen to the full version of our Sex Ed Live Show, you can check it out here.
This episode was reported by Molly Webster, and produced by Matt Kielty. With scoring, original composition and mixing by Matt Kiel...
2018-06-3039 min
RadiolabGonads: FronadsAt 28 years old, Annie Dauer was living a full life. She had a job she loved as a highschool PE teacher, a big family who lived nearby, and a serious boyfriend. Then, cancer struck. Annie would come to find out she had Stage 4 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. It was so aggressive, there was a real chance she might die. Her oncologists wanted her to start treatment immediately. Like, end-of-the-week immediately. But before Annie started treatment, she walked out of the doctor’s office and crossed the street to see a fertility doctor doing an experimental procedure that sounded like science fiction: ov...
2018-06-2436 min
RadiolabGonads: The Primordial JourneyAt two weeks old, the human embryo has only just begun its months-long journey to become a baby. The embryo is tiny, still invisible to the naked eye. But inside it, an epic struggle plays out, as a nomadic band of cells marches toward a mysterious destiny, with the future of humanity resting on their microscopic shoulders.
If you happened to have caught this show on air, you can find the second half of our broadcast version here.
This episode was reported by Molly Webster, and produced by Jad Abumrad. With scoring and original composition b...
2018-06-1533 min