On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: Across cultures, a fifth element sits alongside earth, air, fire, and water – aether in ancient Greece, void in Japanese Buddhism, akasha in Vedantic Hinduism, where it carries the specific property of sound. Avner Dorman's The Fifth Element takes that idea as its subject: a quietness that lets us truly listen, and sound as the access point to everything else. Then: The title of Erkki-Sven Tüür's accordion concerto Prophec

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: Nepali activist Nasreen Sheikh, a survivor of sweatshop labor, once said she spoke to the clothes she was forced to make, hoping whoever wore them might feel her tears. Evan Williams's Woven in Tears responds to a portrait of Sheikh by drawing on Dowland's Renaissance air "Flow, My Tears," transforming that lament over the course of the piece into something bursting with freedom. Then: Brittany J. Green lies awake thinking

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: Gentle plucked notes open Eric Chasalow's Second String Quartet, supporting a sustained line passed between the instruments – until petulant outbursts start interrupting the revelry, growing until they take over. Chasalow calls his approach metaclassicism: memories of the iconic quartet repertoire triggered obliquely, then used as a jumping-off point for something new. Then: For violinist Sarah Plum, a piece isn't finished

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: Every living thing breathes – and in recent years, Katelyn Petersen writes, everything has struggled to: the environment suffocating from pollution, people from isolation and illness, the spirit from a lack of rest. In her piece Respire, the instruments breathe together as one, each with its own struggle along the way. Then: At the southern tip of Baja California, granite arches mark the meeting of the Pacific and the Sea

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: Companion of the ether, indolent smoke – those words from a Belle Époque art song by Reynaldo Hahn gave Geoffrey Gordon both the music and the meaning of his clarinet concerto Fumée. Every phrase traces back to that single chanson, its melody and its image of life consumed and then vanishing into air. Then: Three instruments move at three distinct velocities in Peter Kramer's Pietà – the violin quickest, the cello slower b

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: The clarinet was where David Maslanka's musical journey began – and by the time he wrote his Clarinet Concerto, it had become a voice through which his music could speak freely. The piece moves between two masks: a "Lamentation" turned deeply inward, and a "Dance" that leaps forward into a new world. Then: We came from the ocean, John Luther Adams reminds us, and we may be returning to it – through melting ice caps and ris

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: For composer and violinist Nalah Aiden Palmer, progress came in the form of turning corners – the tops of hills finally reached, in a mentor's words. Turning takes that image as its title and its premise, written for the violin instructor who witnessed the climb. Then: Peter Van Zandt Lane built Coastal Portrait: Cycles and Thresholds from real environmental data–measurements of temperature, salinity, and sea level gathere

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: Anchored by the anthem "Lift Every Voice and Sing," Omar Thomas's Of Our New Day Begun is built from the traditions of the Black American church – singing, stomping, clapping, the sound of refuge in trying times. Thomas wrote it in memory of the nine lives lost at Charleston's Mother Emanuel church in 2015, holding both grief and grace in the same music. Then: Inkjaw by Luke Garrigus blends traditional notation with hand-d

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: A dialogue between piano and orchestra – sometimes contentious, sometimes unified – runs through Paola Prestini's Hindsight: Let Me See the Sun, a concerto that coalesces by its close into a single whistling line. Shaped by the composer's own experience as an immigrant artist, the piece holds both the optimism and the fragility of voices calling out for equity. Then: What happens to a rhythm when you stretch it far enough

On this edition of Living Classical, Tyler Kline marks July 4th with music by living American composers—from a piece inspired by the Star-Spangled Banner's 200th anniversary to works rooted in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the desert Southwest, and the architecture of Chicago. A survey of the people, places, and ideas that make up this country, told through the composers writing American music today. Music by Allison Loggins-Hull, Jessie Montgomery, Katherine Bergman, Marcus Maro