Extra Eclectic

Many composers of our time have answered the tragedies and atrocities brought upon African Americans throughout history with compositions that serve as musical responses. This week on Extra Eclectic, host Steve Seel features some of them.  

This week’s Extra Eclectic falls on the first day of Black History Month. Host Steve Seel features a survey of contemporary Black composers whose music speaks to the Black American experience in many ways — from George Walker to Jessie Montgomery, Jonathan Baily Holland to Quinn Mason, and many more.

This week on Extra Eclectic, host Steve Seel introduces the multitalented Bryce Dessner, who is the lead guitarist in the critically acclaimed band the National and a composer. Listen with Seel as he plays Dessner's ‘Concerto for Two Pianos,’ written for the sister duo of Katia and Marielle Labeque.

Classical music truly has become a global village in the 20th and 21st centuries. This week on Extra Eclectic, host Steve Seel transports us to Asia in the first hour of the program. In the second hour, it's a tapestry of musical dreams, from John Cage, Ellen Reid, "Blue" Gene Tyranny and Anna Thorvaldsdottir.  

Steve Seel offers solidarity with the women composers of the 21st century on this edition of Extra Eclectic, including works by Ellen Taaffe Zwillich, Jennifer Higdon, Missy Mazzoli and more. Listen now!

What's the best way to begin a new year, musically? On an "up" note, of course. This week on Extra Eclectic, Steve Seel shares a variety of upbeat and positive pieces for his first program of 2023.

2022 was an excellent year for new classical music. On this week's Extra Eclectic, host Steve Seel brings us a "highly subjective and thoroughly incomplete" sampling of some terrific releases.

Steve Seel presents his annual winter solstice program, with modern classical sounds for the longest night of the year, chosen especially to compliment the chilly, starry nights of the season. It's music that explores stillness and contemplation on this episode of Extra Eclectic.

The winter solstice is almost here — but for one more week, the days are still getting shorter. As we experience the longest nights of winter together, Extra Eclectic host Steve Seel shares a program on themes of darkness and light.

Extra Eclectic host Steve Seel features Howard Skempton on the first hour of this week's show, and in the second hour, a piece by John Luther Adams that typifies his Alaska-inspired musical landscapes: ‘In a Treeless Place, Only Snow.’