On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: Allison Loggins-Hull wrote Legacy for The Cleveland Orchestra's community series, partnering with organizations preserving Ukrainian bandura traditions, the Hough neighborhood's history, and Black American theatrical artistry. A recurring vocal theme faces interruptions and reinterpretations but remains recognizable—much like legacy itself. Then: Tyler is joined by Eunmi Ko, president of Contemporary Art Music Project in T

Building New Music from the Ground Up with Mendel Lee LISTEN Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon Music | Acast | Deezer On today's episode of music/Maker with Tyler Kline, Tyler is joined by composer Mendel Lee. New Orleans-based composer, artistic entrepreneur, VCCA Fellow, and NPN Take Notice Fund grantee, Mendel Lee has built a creative practice that moves fluidly between writing music and building the infrastructure to support it. Since leaving his long tenure as

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: What happens when a composer working primarily with electronics takes something electronic and makes it acoustic? Alex Dowling's Inner Orbits reimagines melodies and ideas from a previous electroacoustic work for string quartet—a compositional move from electronic to acoustic forces that he describes as refreshing, the constraints guiding him toward new ways of thinking. Then: The 1996 eruption under Iceland's Vatnajökull

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: Learning to be fully present in a fast-paced world inspired Emma O'Halloran to write Only Moments to Live. The piece is structured as a dance between saxophone soloist and ensemble: gestures are picked up and expanded, with improvisational sections where everyone must listen and respond… and every performance will be different. Then: The movement of a spiral is usually depicted going downward, linked to anxiety and negativ

Letting the Music Find Its Own Way with Dai Fujikura Photo credit: Edgard Yamaguchi LISTEN Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon Music | Acast | Deezer On today's episode of music/Maker with Tyler Kline, Tyler is joined by composer Dai Fujikura . Born in Osaka and based in London since moving to the UK at fifteen, Dai Fujikura is one of the most prolific and wide-ranging composers working today. Winner of the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale, the Ivor Novello and

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: It's a reflection on beauty through light and shadow: Daniél Bjarnason wrote A Fragile Hope as a tribute to Jóhann Jóhannsson and the period when Iceland's distinct musical aesthetic was emerging. At the climax, a direct melodic reference to Jóhannsson's breakthrough work Englabörn. Then: Composer Bill Ryan has traveled to stunning landscapes across the United States with the GVSU New Music Ensemble, performing outdoors fo

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: Likoo is a traditional song form from Iran's Baluchistan province, performed on bowed lute or paired flutes—music about grief and longing for a loved one. Aftab Darvishi's Likoo draws on that essence, reflecting a deep longing for those lost since the Women, Life, Freedom movement began in Iran in September 2022. The piece explores loss in its various dimensions: mothers, lovers, homeland. Then: After reading Haruki Muraka

Unlearning Restriction and Expanding into Creative Freedom with Shuying Li Photo credit: Lauren “Elle Jaye” Jenkins LISTEN Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon Music | Acast | Deezer On today's episode of music/Maker with Tyler Kline, Tyler is joined by composer Shuying Li . Praised by the San Francisco Chronicle as "vivid, dramatic" and described by The Seattle Times as "a real talent," Shuying Li writes bold, emotionally charged music that blends rich colors wit

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: Sophia Jani wanted to break convention in her Woodwind Quintet No. 1: Music as Mirror—distributing the same musical elements equally across all five instruments instead of assigning each a specific role. The piece is built as a pulsating process that changes almost unnoticeably, slowly arriving somewhere completely different from where it began. Then: Unsuk Chin's double concerto for piano, percussion, and ensemble fuses s

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: We perceive inner light through eyes—contrasts of color influenced by emotion, memory, weather, the surrounding world. Ileana Pérez Velázquez's Lights of lives flowing from your eyes traces how light is drawn into the body and shines back out. It's music that moves between reflection and perception, shaped by a line from Matthew's gospel. Then: Repetition as structure and accumulation as gesture form the foundation of Zeyn

Composing from Intuition, Image, and Expanded Possibility with Jessica Ackerley LISTEN Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon Music | Acast | Deezer On today's episode of music/Maker with Tyler Kline, Tyler is joined by guitarist and composer Jessica Ackerley. Described by Wire Magazine as "one of the most exciting guitarists to have emerged from the free music scene in recent years," Jessica Ackerley has built a distinctive voice across 25 releases as a bandleade

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: Kimberly R. Osberg's Seek What You Want to Find was written in response to Henk Pander's paintings of Portland's 2020 protests, as well as the 1948 Vanport flood that displaced nearly twenty thousand people. The text by S. Renee Mitchell urges us to look closer, to find hope without dismissing the violence. The piece ends on a thick, ambiguous chord, asking: What do you see? Then: Hilda Paredes wrote Epitafio in memory o

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: Four soloists stand where one normally would in Jennifer Higdon's Low Brass Concerto, a work written as a portrait of the Chicago Symphony's legendary low brass section — their majesty, grace, and power. The piece alternates slow and fast sections, moving between solos, duets, and chorales. No special effects, just the challenge of the moving line. Then: The soul of the gamelan was said to live in the lowest gong, used to

Building Community and Finding Balance in Music with Nicky Sohn LISTEN Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon Music | Acast | Deezer On today’s episode of music/Maker with Tyler Kline , Tyler is joined by composer Nicky Sohn . Nicky's music is jazz-inflected and rhythmically driven, with vivid, colorful orchestration that tends to win over a room. Her work spans orchestral, chamber, ballet, and vocal repertoire, and has been performed by the St. Louis Symphony, the

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: Strength doesn't always announce itself through force. In For Edna, composer Leila Adu-Gilmore writes toward a quieter endurance – perseverance, openness, and the ability to remain connected in the face of strain. Dedicated to a close friend and activist, the piece honors resilience as something lived, sustained, and shared. Then: Memory doesn't arrive all at once – it surfaces in fragments, voices, and the spaces between

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: History can move – not just through words, but through bodies in motion. In A Green Double, composer Anthony R. Green draws on Black history and classical tradition to create a dance suite where protest, reflection, and joy share the same ground. Then: Ideas take root slowly — shaped by care, knowledge, and adaptation – in the String Quartet 2.5 by George Lewis, titled Playing with Seeds. Here, the composer treats the stri

Listening Across Place and Process in Music with Christopher Stark LISTEN Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon Music | Acast | Deezer On today’s episode of music/Maker with Tyler Kline , Tyler is joined by Christopher Stark . Christopher’s music is deeply rooted in the landscapes of the American West, shaped by his upbringing in rural Montana and informed by a sensitivity to sound, space, and place. A Guggenheim Fellow and Rome Prize recipient, his work has been

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: Nobody Know by Adolphus Hailstork is a concert aria shaped by perspective – a "song from the other cross." Drawing on spirituals and biblical echoes, the music centers a voice that speaks in the language it has known, asking for recognition and redemption. Then: Imagine music moving with urgency – driven, physical, and full of sharp contrasts, as if tracing a landscape shaped by force and memory. That energy sits at the he

On this edition of Living Classical with Tyler Kline: In Morning Piece , composer Devonté Hynes writes with an uncommon sense of balance – music where, as one listener put it, one note more would be too much, and one less, too little. It’s a work shaped by stillness, patience, and close attention to sound itself. Then: the title alone suggests a place of suspension – stillness, depth, and light held in balance. In …amid still and floating depths , composer Jeffrey Mumford unf

On the next Living Classical with Tyler Kline : Breath is something we rarely notice – until we slow down enough to hear it. In Respiratory Cycle , composer Rob Funkhouser builds large-scale music around that simple motion, shaping sound as something that expands, releases, and returns, opening wide sonic spaces that reveal themselves gradually over time. This hour includes a moment from that cycle, Iris Field , inviting close, patient listening. Then: In portrait RE , compos