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In this week’s New Classical Tracks, cellist Ani and pianist Marta Aznavoorian celebrate the sounds of their ancestral homeland on their debut album, Gems From Armenia.

Cousins struggle with debts and may have to sell property long held by their family in a work created by former poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith and composer Gregory Spears.

NPR's Rachel Martin speaks with composer Rhiannon Giddens about the Silkroad Ensemble. A couple of years ago she replaced famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma as the creative director of the ensemble.

Bob Rafelson, who became an influential figure in the New Hollywood era of the 1970s, died on Saturday at his home in Aspen, Colo. He was 89. ‘Five Easy Pieces,’ one of his best known works, tells the story of a once-brilliant classical pianist who's been knocking around as a rough-mannered oil-rigger, but is caught up short by the news that his father is dying.

This week’s episode of Saturday Cinema, with guest host Bill Morelock, features composers who supplied the music foundation for those suspenseful Hitchcock scenes. Not just Herrmann! Listen now!

Sounds of Blackness is more than a band or gospel choir; it's a cultural institution. That, says the group's longtime director, Gary Hines, was the mission given to them by a mentor at Macalester College in St. Paul, where the Grammy-winning group was founded more than 50 years ago.

Hear one of the intrepid violinist's 22 commissioned works, focusing on the harrowing year that was 2020.

Composer Anthony Davis has been creating operas that center on the Black experience for years. With a recent thirst for Black operas, it’s easy to forget composers who have been here all along. Find out more in the latest episode of the 'Rhapsody in Black' podcast.

Images from the James Webb Space Telescope provide this week’s inspiration.

The play is based on Khaled Hosseini's 2003 best-selling novel, set in Afghanistan and among Afghan migrants in the United States.