“About a decade into the podcast boom, I’m continuously surprised there aren’t more shows about classical music,” writes Joshua Barone in last Sunday’s (12/30) New York Times. “The debut this month of ‘Aria Code,’ by WQXR and the Metropolitan Opera, is both a major event and a gift…. Host Rhiannon Giddens … takes a deep dive into a famous aria with diverse guests who have included singers, scientists and even a sex worker-turned-writer. Then she signs off by playing the song in full…. [In] another podcast, ‘Sticky Notes,’ hosted by conductor Joshua Weilerstein and dealing primarily in symphonic music … most episodes … are devoted to a single work. With endless enthusiasm and a curious mind, Mr. Weilerstein offers historical context and musical analysis…. Up until last year, contemporary classical music had been well represented in ‘Meet the Composer’ … hosted by the violist Nadia Sirota…. Each episode was a vivid portrait, poetic yet informative, of a living composer…. ‘Classical Chicago’ [features] episodes … tied to [Cedille record label] album releases, like a recent one featuring the violinist Jennifer Koh about the music of Kaija Saariaho…. New Amsterdam Records … recently announced it would launch a podcast … in 2019.”
Posted January 7, 2019
In photo: Nadia Sirota, a violist, hosted the podcast “Meet the Composer” from 2014 to 2017 on New York classical radio station WQXR. This season she is hosting nine contemporary-music concerts as the New York Philharmonic’s first Marie-Josée Kravis Creative Partner.
