Eleanor Hovda (1940–2009) was a full professor and composer-in-residence at Princeton, Yale, and Bard College who suffered a debilitating illness that led to her eventual death in Arkansas in 2009. She was a minimalist not in the systems-based sense of a Steve Reich or holy minimalist tradition of a Górecki but in the sense that her arrangements are generally spare, with often an instrument or two prominently featured and only rarely a dense ensemble sound in play. A dancer herself, in her later work she collaborated often with leading choreographers, including Nancy Meehan and Meg Stuart. A native of Minnesota, Hovda spent much of her career in New York and was a respected and beloved member of the contemporary music community - her compositions championed by leading new music ensembles all across the country, including the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Boston Musica Viva, the Cassatt and Kronos Quartets, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and Zeitgeist. Watch a performance of Hovda's Jo Ha Kyu (1990) played by oboist Libby Van Cleve. . . it's one of our NEW MUSIC VIDEOS for the week.

Young-Shin Choi is a composer for both instrumental and electroacoustic music with a strong interest in interactive digital arts. Choi strives to cultivate an aesthetic based upon a unique combination of musical elements drawn from Korean traditional music and modern Western musical idioms. Listen to Young-Shin Choi's UJO IMU III (2009)  . . . one of our SOUND ART for the week.

John Newell's earliest musical training was in piano. He has studied with Iain Hamilton, Mel Powell, and Morton Feldman. While at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he studied with Feldman, he held the first Edgard Varese Fellowship in composition. Like many composers today he draws from a variety of musical traditions. His objective is to create works that reflect his personal sensibility, that arise from his spiritual journey and response to the world. He finds inspiration in the beauty and wonder of nature, in poetic and visual imagery, and in what he learns from the world's sacred traditions. Newell is equally at home composing for vocal ensembles, chamber groups and orchestra. Listen to a performance of John Newell's Quartet for Strings - A Day's Journey (2008) . . .  it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.

And check out a scene from Polar Express (2004) with music by Alan Silvestri . . . it's this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.