Celebrating Women’s Voices: Saturday, March 5 | 9pm

by Maggie Molloy
Reena Esmail, Nathalie Joachim, and Caroline Shaw are featured in this week’s episode.

Throughout history, the classical tradition has been made richer by women’s contributions—even if they didn’t always receive proper credit.

On this Saturday’s episode of Second Inversion, we’re celebrating women’s voices. In honor of Women’s History Month, we’ll hear music from women who have helped shape, inspire, and expand the world of classical music. From the modal musings of Hildegard von Bingen to the ear-expanding experiments of Pauline OIiveros and the vibrant, cross-cultural folk songs of Nathalie Joachim, we’ll hear music from women who have made a mark on classical music history. Plus, we’ll talk about why women composers have been historically underrepresented in classical music—and how that’s changing in the 21st century.

To listen, tune in to KING FM on Saturday, March 5 at 9pm PT.

Celebrating Women’s Voices: Saturday, March 13 | 9pm

by Maggie Molloy
Reena Esmail, Nathalie Joachim, and Caroline Shaw are featured in this week’s episode.

March is Women’s History Month, a time to celebrate women’s achievements—and also a time to think critically about what all of us can do to create a more equitable world.

On this Saturday’s episode of Second Inversion, we’re celebrating women’s voices. We’ll hear music from women who have helped shape, inspire, and expand the world of classical music. From the modal musings of Hildegard von Bingen to the ear-expanding experiments of Pauline OIiveros and the vibrant, cross-cultural folk songs of Nathalie Joachim, we’ll hear music from women who have made a mark on classical music history. Plus, we’ll talk about why women composers have been historically underrepresented in classical music—and what you can do to help.

To listen, tune in to KING FM on Saturday, March 13 at 9pm PT.

Amanda Gookin Boldly Goes Forward (2.0)

by Dacia Clay

Amanda Gookin. Photo by Ryan Scherb.

In 2015, Amanda Gookin started a commissioning project called Forward Music Project. It premiered in 2017 at National Sawdust with seven pieces focused on issues that affect women and girls. Two years later, Gookin has returned with Forward Music Project 2.0.

True to its name, the project has taken big leaps forward. It now encompasses five new commissioned works that focus on more specific, personal issues for the composers, from body image to political oppression, sex positivity, and gender nonconformity. The performance includes electronics, video art by S Katy Tucker, and physically visceral cello playing from Gookin; the featured composers include Paola Prestini, Niloufar Nourbakhsh, Shelley Washington, Alex Temple, and Kamala Sankaram.

Forward Music Project 2.0 has an educational arm as well (Gookin is also a professor at Mannes and SUNY Purchase). Take a listen to find out more about the cellist’s latest step forward. To learn more about Forward Music Project 1.0, check out this episode of KING FM’s Classical Classroom podcast.

VIDEO PREMIERE: ‘Spirals’ by Maria Huld Markan Sigfusdottir

Nordic Affect (Left to right: Hanna Loftsdóttir, Guðrún Hrund Harðardóttir, Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir, and Guðrún Óskarsdóttir.)  Photo by David Oldfield.

by Maggie Molloy

“Hér” is the Icelandic word for here. That idea of being present—of listening, of connecting here and now through music is at the heart of Nordic Affect’s new album He(a)r. Out now on Sono Luminus, the album is a collection of seven world premiere recordings penned by women composers and performed by women musicians.

He(a)r is an ode to hear, here, hér, and her,” writes Halla Steinunn Stefánsdóttir, the ensemble’s artistic director and violinist. Wide-ranging sound worlds from Stefánsdóttir, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, Mirjam Tally, and Hildur Guðnadóttir comprise the album, each offering a distinct perspective on the ways in which we hear and create sound—our individual voices and the ways in which they interact.

“Spirals,” one of two works contributed by María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir, circles around these themes and expands outward: dense chords, hazy melodies, and fragmented sounds from an old music box echo and grow into an immersive meditation on time itself.

We are thrilled to premiere a brand new video for Sigfúsdóttir’s composition “Spirals,” performed by Nordic Affect.


Nordic Affect’s He(a)r is out now on Sono Luminus. Click here to listen to the full album.

Second Inversion’s 24-Hour Marathon of Women Composers

by Maggie Molloy

In celebration of International Women’s Day on March 8, we’re featuring a 24-hour marathon of women composers on Second Inversion. Tune in all day long to hear works by over 100 women who have helped shape, inspire, and expand the world of classical music.

Click here to stream the marathon from anywhere in the world, and click on the icons below for more resources on women composers.

Second Inversion hosts share a favorite selection from their Women Composers Marathon playlist. Tune in on March 8 to hear these pieces and plenty of other new and experimental music from women composers in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Meredith Monk: Dolmen Music (ECM Records)
Meredith Monk, Julius Eastman, Andrea Goodman, Robert Een, Monica Solem, & Paul Langland, voices

Meredith Monk has secured a place in history as one of the most singular and significant voices of the 20th and 21st centuries. For nearly six decades, she has redefined and revolutionized contemporary vocal music and performance, seamlessly weaving in elements of theatre and dance to create visceral musical experiences that transcend the confines of the classical tradition.

Her 20-minute masterwork Dolmen Music is an iconic example of her uncanny ability to merge ancient and modern musical ideas. In this piece, abstract vocalizations, primal rhythms, hypnotic dances, and ritualistic soundscapes come together in an intimate embrace of the human experience. – Maggie Molloy

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 8am hour today to hear this piece.


Maria Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir: Aequora (Sono Luminus)
Iceland Symphony Orchestra; Daníel Bjarnason, conductor

Mallets and string scrapes lend a creaky shanty boat sound to the opening of Maria Huld Markan Sigfusdottir’s Aequora, which seems appropriate given that her piece is about the moods of the sea throughout the day. The calm sea at sunrise feels like a warm, melodic blessing before the swelling strings and brass undertones breeze forward in a sheen of joy that sails through midday and retreats again at nightfall until a lullaby of soft mallets and harp details fade out to end the work with serenity. For its luminous and congenial atmosphere, Aequora is a musical wave that stands taller than the rest.
 Rachele Hales

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 10am hour today to hear this piece.


Amy Brandon: Scavenger (Self-Released)
Amy Brandon, nylon-string guitar

The boldly cross-genre music of Canadian guitarist-composer Amy Brandon fuses elements of jazz, classical, electroacoustic, and improvised music. Scavenger, the title track from her 2016 release, blends the meditative pacing of traditional classical guitar slow movements with repetitive structures and non-traditional harmonies from the 20th and 21st centuries. Fittingly, Brandon is currently pursuing an interdisciplinary PhD at Dalhousie University. – Seth Tompkins

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 12pm hour today to hear this piece.


Shih-Hui Chen: Fantasia on the Theme of Guanglingsan (Albany)
Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra

Crossings presents a mix of Chinese and American composers writing for a mix of Chinese and Western instruments. It features a Taiwan-based chamber orchestra brought to the U.S. by Shih-Hui Chen, a composer from Taiwan who teaches at Rice University and specializes in the cultural intersections between traditional Chinese music and modern Western art music. Her own contribution to the album is a concerto for zheng (forerunner to the Japanese koto) that’s loosely based on a classic Chinese piece depicting the assassination of a cruel king by a musician whose father had been one of his victims. Compare her martial passage starting at 5:03 to a corresponding section in the original for a taste of the relationship between new and old. – Michael Schell

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 1pm hour today to hear this piece.


Veronique Vaka: “Gaetni (Care)” (Moderna Records)
Veronique Vaka, violin & cello

Before I learned anything about this piece, I knew that I loved it. It grabbed me because it reminds me of so much of pieces of other music that I love: It’s got the warm embrace of early Sigur Ros, the hint of tragedy of some of Angelo Badalamenti’s music for Twin Peaks, a little bit of the watery mystery of Missy Mazzoli’s “Song from the Uproar,” and a shimmering depth that I can only assume is Vaka’s. It’s like a mermaid singing to you. I can’t wait to hear more of this album.
– 
Dacia Clay

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 2pm hour today to hear this piece.


Julia Wolfe: Big Beautiful Dark and Scary (Cantaloupe Music)
Bang on a Can All-Stars

The raw emotion that defines this work by Pulitzer Prize-winner Julia Wolfe really taps in to a characteristic of new music that is so important to me: the idea that this is what real life feels like. Julia’s music always makes powerfully personal connections, but this one really seems as personal as it gets, chronicling her feelings after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, which she witnessed from two blocks away with her young children. An unrelenting wall of sound and steady rhythmic energy drives the piece’s ever-increasing intensity, and though it feels inevitable, the ending leaves the listener more shell-shocked than anything else. – Geoffrey Larson

Tune in to Second Inversion in the 6pm hour today to hear this piece.