The Next Track
A podcast about how people listen to music today.
Episodes
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Episode #195 - Timo Andres: Making Home Videos and the Creative Process
October 28th, 2020 | 1 hr 9 mins
We last spoke with composer and pianist Timo Andres early in the lockdown, after he made a series of videos for a recital program that had been cancelled at Carnegie Hall. Over the past few months, Andres has refined the art of filming himself at the piano, and uses both audio and video recording as part of his creative process.
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Episode #194 - Pianist Simone Dinnerstein
October 14th, 2020 | 41 mins 51 secs
Pianist Simone Dinnerstein used the lockdown to record an album of music by Philip Glass and Franz Schubert. We discuss how she built her career, how she recorded this album, and talk about Schubert's wonderful last piano sonata.
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Episode #193 - Is Stereo Wrong?
September 30th, 2020 | 30 mins 56 secs
Is stereo the right way to listen to music? After all, it is an artificial attempt to reproduce the sound of live music. Perhaps we should revolt against the tyranny of the sweet spot.
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Episode #192 - The Same as It Ever Was
September 16th, 2020 | 31 mins 18 secs
Following our discussion of CDs in episode #190, we continue our discussion about these plastic discs, mainly because Doug bought some new audio gear and is now CD-obsessed.
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Episode #191 - Exile on Monday
September 2nd, 2020 | 33 mins 56 secs
We begin an irregular series of key albums that stand out in the history of music. For our first foray into this type of discussion, we talk about The Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street.
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Episode #190 - Nostalgic about CDs
August 19th, 2020 | 26 mins 13 secs
We wax nostalgic about CDs, those plastic (and partly metal) discs that changed the music industry starting in the mid-1980s, and whose popularity has waned since the rise of streaming.
Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self-sustaining so your support is what keeps us going. Thanks!
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Episode #189 - Renaissance Men of Music
August 5th, 2020 | 27 mins 50 secs
A reviewer suggested that we mentioned John Cage in this podcast as a "cheap marketing ploy." That made use think about taste: highbrow, lowbrow, and unibrow. We reflect on whether we are really the "Renaissance men of music."
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Episode #188 - Kathryn Williams on the Breath in Music
July 22nd, 2020 | 37 mins 52 secs
Kathryn Williams plays the flute, and, because of some health issues, has a unique approach to the breath. In addition to being a free diver, she has been commissioning pieces of music for one single breath. And she's going to try to break the Guinness world record for the longest sustained note on a wind instrument.
Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self-sustaining so your support is what keeps us going. Thanks!
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Episode #187 - Live Performances during Covid-19, and After
July 8th, 2020 | 41 mins 35 secs
John Wyver's company Illuminations produces films of live performances: theater, dance, opera, and music. He joins us to discuss the future of live performances in what he calls The After, that period when Covid-19 is just a memory. Will live performances be able to start again even if there isn't a vaccine? How can social distancing allow live performances to return?
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Episode #186 - Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani
June 24th, 2020 | 51 mins 52 secs
We meet harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, who is showing how the harpsichord is no longer an instrument just for "old" music. His latest recording features contemporary music for harpsichord and electronics.
Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self-sustaining so your support is what keeps us going. Thanks!
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Episode #185 - Use Plex to Manage Your Media Library
June 10th, 2020 | 20 mins 6 secs
Plex is a great way to manage your media library. Doug and Kirk discuss how they use it. Note: we recorded this episode before the lockdown began, but held off publishing it because we had a number of interviews with musicians in lockdown.
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Episode #184 - TJ Connelly, Boston Sports DJ
May 29th, 2020 | 49 mins 22 secs
TJ Connelly is a sports DJ: he provides "scores" for live sporting events, such as baseball, football, and hockey games. Since the lockdown, he's been out of work, and he has been focusing his attention on Uncertain Times, a daily streaming radio show. We talk with him about what it means to score live sports, and how his streaming show is reconnecting him with real radio.
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Episode #183 - Composer and Pianist Timo Andres on Concertizing at Home
May 22nd, 2020 | 1 hr 2 mins
Timo Andres is a young composer and pianist, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 2016. We discuss his music, and how he missed his first solo recital at Carnegie Hall du to the coronavirus lockdown, and decided to make home videos of all the works to present his program to the public. (Apologies for the audio; we made some mistakes when recording.)
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Episode #182 - Oliver Craske on His Biography of Ravi Shankar, Indian Sun
May 15th, 2020 | 35 mins 36 secs
Oliver Craske has just published the first biography of the legendary Indian musician Ravi Shankar. Craske knew and worked with Shankar near the end of his life, and carried out extensive research to tell the tale of the man who brought Indian music to the west. (Apologies for the poor Skype audio quality.)
Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self-sustaining so your support is what keeps us going. Thanks!
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Episode #181 - Classical Music Critic Anne Midgette
May 8th, 2020 | 43 mins 23 secs
Anne Midgette resigned as classical music critic for the Washington Post a few months ago, but she is well placed to discuss the dangers facing live performances of classical music in The After. And she tells us about the historical novel she's writing about the woman who built pianos for Beethoven.
Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self-sustaining so your support is what keeps us going. Thanks!
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Episode #180 - Harpsichordist and Conductor Richard Egarr
May 1st, 2020 | 39 mins 33 secs
We talk with harpsichordist, conductor, and "general music addict" Richard Egarr, about original performance practice in early music.
Help support The Next Track by making regular donations via Patreon. We're ad-free and self-sustaining so your support is what keeps us going. Thanks!