Conductor Bas Wiegers interviews composer Márton Illés after two intense days recording Illes' new cello concerto with Nicolas Altstaedt and the Münchener Kammerorchester at the Bayerische Rundfunk.  They discuss finding a personal compositional language, balancing freedom and structure, the physical and acoustic reality of sound, use of electronics, and how collaboration and selflessness shape complex contemporary music in rehearsal and recording. The music played in the episode can be found here:  Márton Illés - Violinkonzert (2019) Patricia Kopatchinskaja, WDR Sinfonieorchester, Michael Wendeberg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzsGf8NebOg Márton Illés - Ljubljana24 (2018–20/24) Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin Enno Poppehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1GbmfvlzKI&list=RDN1GbmfvlzKI&start_radio=1 

I speak about Charles Ives with the great Ives connoisseur Thomas Brodhead, whom I got to know when we worked on Ives’ Fourth Symphony with the Concertgebouw Orchestra back in 2012. Ives is such a fascinating composer and has been a constant inspiration in my life as a musician. At the moment, I’m preparing his piece Three Places in New England, which I get to conduct for the first time.    Links to the pieces:    Charles Ives: Country Band March  President's Own United States Marine Band https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avowzDI8uR0   Charles Ives (orch. T. Grahl, 2021): Walt Whitman - (1921) from 114 Songs Klangforum Wien, Thomas Hampson, Bas Wiegers  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqnO8dJJPYs   Charles Ives: Fourth Symphony  Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Peter Eötvös, Bas Wiegers, Ralph van Raat Private recording    Charles Ives: March No. 6 for Piano, with Here's to Good Old Yale Charles Ives, piano  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMW0r_ZxFm8&list=OLAK5uy_lE6Eb6U39_HOe_juxz9dJukRFRewUz3xs&index=41   Charles Ives: Three Places In New England - 1. The "St. Gaudens" In Boston Common Boston Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhbutHpwEh8   Charles Ives: They Are There!, second take Charles Ives, piano  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az0iNeRvNts&list=OLAK5uy_lE6Eb6U39_HOe_juxz9dJukRFRewUz3xs&index=39   Charles Ives: Four Transcriptions from Emerson: No. 1 (beg.) Charles Ives, piano https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c8lNFR5xWw&list=OLAK5uy_lE6Eb6U39_HOe_juxz9dJukRFRewUz3xs&index=1   Charles Ives: Three Places In New England - 2. Putnam's Camp, Redding, Connecticut Boston Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Ytm0l0FTU   Charles Ives: The Unanswered Question  Ricciotti Ensemble, Leonard van Goudoever Private Recording    

Today I'm spending some time with the 93 year old Theo Loevendie, one of the first living composers I worked with as a student. I'm coming back to his music after 25 years, to prepare two concerts with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. We speak about his youth, his influences, and about the two works I'm preparing: Flexio for orchestra and Six Turkish Folk Poems for singer and orchestra.   Here's info about the music you hear:    Draaiorgel Sarie Marais - Appeltjes van Oranje   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgOlWzqXXnY   Glenn Miller - American Patrol  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAVejLjXVdw   Umm Kulthum - 1967, Live at the Olympia, Paris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPGHpBOt5sE   Theo Loevendie - Six Turkish Folk Poems   Dorothy Dorow, soprano  Residentie Orkest  Ernest Bour, conductor  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU4090D14hs   Theo Loevendie - Flexio  Residentie Orkest  Peter Eötvös, conductor  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYxMTfeEbFQ&t=412s   Theo Loevendie - Venus and Adonis  Insomnio:   Carlos Galvez, bass clarinet  Bas Wiegers, violin  Martine Sikkenk, mandolin  Reinhold Westerheide, guitar  Ulrich Pöhl, percussion  (private recording)    Photo Loevendie: Teo Krijgsman   

I have a chat with Rebecca Saunders, who works very closely with musicians to find the sounds she loves. We speak about the new piece (Skull) which we have just premiered at the Achtbrücken Festival, but also about other pieces and musicians who have inspired her.    I’ve woven small fragments of her music into the episode. If you want to have a proper listen to the entire pieces, the links are below.    YES https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtuJLKb0Vwc Ensemble Musikfabrik, Juliet Fraser, Enno Poppe   DUST https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA2P7PQp0OU Dirk Rothbrust, percussion    SKIN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkdODcg2Fmw Klangforum Wien, Juliet Fraser, Bas Wiegers   SCAR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BriQ35IrGxA Klangforum Wien, Julien Leroy 

For this episode, I spoke with Johanna Zimmer, a wonderful soprano I had the joy of working with many times. She works as a soloist, as a chamber musician, in the choir, in opera. We speak about this versatility and why she needs it in her life. We speak about words in music and how important they are for us as musicians. At the moment, we are working with the SWR Vokalensemble on a program with music by Ligeti, Feldman and Orlando di Lasso.    The music you hear, is:    György Ligeti - Three Fantasies: Wenn aus der Ferne  SWR Vokalensemble, Yuval Weinberg  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvJzdYziCic   Morton Feldman - Rothko Chapel  SWR Vokalensemble, Marcus Creed  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGQe3NsuvfM&t=636s   Orlando di Lasso - Lagrime di San Pietro: il magnanimo Pietro  Ensemble Vocal Européen, Philippe Herreweghe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeHZQ83oFQM   Franz Tunder - Ach Herr, lass deine lieben Engelein Johanna Zimmer, Ensemble with Fabian Wöhrle, continuo 

For this episode, I spoke with Enno Poppe. At the moment of recording, I am doing his piece Speicher with Klangforum Wien. We speak about deciding what ideas you want to put in a piece, Enno's love of idiomatic material and his close relationship to players, which is so important for the way he writes. We speak about the different roles we can have: in the case of Enno, he is not only a composer, but also a conductor, a player, and, of course, also sometimes audience. How does his persona change when his role changes? Is a conductor a different person?  The music you hear is:   Enno Poppe - Speicher (Klangforum Wien, Enno Poppe)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR_43dJWjFw   Enno Poppe - Augen (Sara Maria Sun, WDR Symphony Orchestra, Bas Wiegers)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkiG3uWah1s    

In this episode, I try to describe the process of getting to know a composer I haven't worked with before. To my great joy, I finally get to work with Chaya Czernowin. I try to explain how I get into her music, I speak to her about the music, and we listen to some inspiring musicians playing her music. 

In this episode, I try to share how I fell in love with Joseph Haydn. It's a shout out to my former theory teachers!  I'm preparing two of his symphonies (38 and 101) for a concert with the Münchener Kammerorchester, and studying and rehearsing these works is so exciting and refreshing. Why does Haydn inspire me so much? And how can we keep discovering his music over and over again?  Here are links to the full recordings of the fragments I used:    Starsailor, Four on the floor  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k98fnaHGjwU   String Quartet no 57, Dudok Quartet  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9umdVIyx13w   Symphony no 103, Sigiswald Kuyken & La Petite Bande  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWexiBzbqTw&t=3   Symphony no 101, Frans Brüggen, Orchestra of the 18th Century  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9Qtu15FLTM&t=2s          

A chat with composer and good friend Trevor Grahl about taste and fashion in music, the pressure to follow this fashion, and the journey to to find your own voice.  Links to the pieces:  Kapote https://youtu.be/ZXs8Q6UYANU Sterre Konijn, voice Jurjen Hempel, conductor RKST21   Dreams of Machines: https://youtu.be/4RtBrQG6hnw Brno Contemporary Orchestra, Pavel Šnajdr, conductorWolfgang Heisig, pianola   Of Ancient Days: https://youtu.be/XNCihLvcjDo Trevor Grahl, organ    Babbelbox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXbShFT_rGY&ab_channel=Lonelinoise Sebastiaan Kemner - trombone & chickenVincent van Wijk - Oboe D'amore & poser    

In this episode, I speak with the great composer Georg Friedrich Haas. I try find out what he has to say about "interpretation", this space between what a composer writes down and what a musician makes of it. We speak about communicating your ideas with an orchestra, teaching young composers and writing for Austrian brass bands. 

I have the magnificent Mollena Lee Williams Haas as my guest. We speak about the opera Sycorax and its characters. About women in opera, people of color in opera, and generally about how to make stories that translate to as many people as possible. About opera as a way to make people see what life is. Also, about Georg Friedrich Haas, and about our previous collaboration in Mollena’s and GF’s joint piece Hyena.  The music is an excerpt of Hyena, the live recording of the première at Wien Modern, with Mollena speaking, Klangforum Wien playing and me conducting. The recording can be found here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oa4uCKbj4g&list=RD5oa4uCKbj4g&start_radio=1 By the way, contrary to what I’m announcing in the talk, we heard a bit of the BEGINNING of Hyena, not the ending.  Mollena’s own podcast can be found here:  https://allthatandmo.com  

Discovering the building stones of Sycorax, the new opera by Georg Friedrich Haas. We hear some Haas, some Grisey, some Vivier, some Tibetan throat singers, and a wonderful Jubilate.    G.F. Haas - Limited Approximations - SWR Sinfonieorchester and Sylvain Cambreling  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoqvGLdjUhE&t=1540s Gérard Grisey - Partiels - Asko Ensemble and Stefan Asbury https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v7onrjN6RE&t=30s Claude Vivier - Lonely Child - AskoSchoenberg and Reinbert de Leeuw  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP23EnBQjw8 G.F. Haas - String Quartet no 9 - Jack Quartet  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk_2bg3utv8&t=409s W.A. Mozart - Exsultate, Jubilate - Julia Lezhneva and Helsinki Baroque Orchestra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLan_H8w8S4 W.A. Mozart - Ach, ich fühl's by - Christiane Oelze, English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg96zrTe_jY              

Prologue to The Treasure Hunt, a personal account by conductor Bas Wiegers about how a musical score functions as a treasure map and leads to a concert. Also an upbeat to episode 1, where I will tell you more about Sycorax, a new opera by Georg Friedrich Haas, opening at the Bern opera house in September 2022.