Peter Maxwell Davies' chamber opera The Lighthouse (1979) is based on a real incident in 1900 when three keepers of an Outer Hebrides lighthouse disappeared in unexplained, Marie Celeste-like circumstances. The opera's exploration of the inter-personal tensions and paranoia of the three men is one possible version of what may have happened. A prologue moves between a court of enquiry into the incident and flashbacks to the arrival of the relief boat. The boat's three officers answer questions posed by a solo horn, with small discrepancies emerging in their three stories. Watch an excerpt of Maxwell Davies The Lighthouse from a performance featuring Andrew Slater, Paul Carey Jones and Sean Clayton . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Composer Alice Shields talks about her electronic piece The Transformation of Ani (1970): "The text of 'The Transformation of Ani' is taken from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, as translated into English by E. A. Budge. Most sounds in the piece were made from my own voice, speaking and singing the words of the text. Each letter of the English translation was assigned a pitch, and each hieroglyph of the Egyptian was given a particular sound or short phrase, of mostly indefinite pitch. Each series, the one derived from the English translation, and the one derived from the original hieroglyphs, was then improvised upon to create material I thought appropriate to the way in which I wanted to develop the meaning of the text, which I divided into three sections. Listen to  Alice Shields' The Transformation of Ani . . . it's our SOUND ART for the week.

New York based composer David T. Little wrote his piece Spalding Gray (2008) in memory of the writer Spalding Gray, and it was premiered December 9th, 2008 by the NOW Ensemble at Princeton University. The music of American composer David T. Little has been described as "dramatically wild ... rustling, raunchy and eclectic, and "showing "real imagination" by New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini. Little’s highly theatrical, often political work draws upon his experience as a rock drummer, and fuses classical and popular idioms to dramatic effect. His music has been performed throughout the world - including in Dresden, London, Edinburgh, LA, Montreal, and at the Tanglewood, Aspen, MATA and Cabrillo Festivals - by such performers as the London Sinfonietta, eighth blackbird, So Percussion, ensemble courage, Dither, NOW nsemble, PRISM Quartet, the New World Symphony, American Opera Projects, the New York City Opera, the Grand Rapids Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony. Little has taught music in New York City through Carnegie Hall’s Musical Connections program, served as the inaugural Digital Composer-in- Residence for the UK-based DilettanteMusic.com, and is currently the Executive Director of New York’s MATA Festival. Listen to a performance of David T. Little's Spalding Gray (2008) played by the NOW Ensemble . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFUL for the week.

Philadelphia born composer Vincent Persichetti was the recipient of three Guggenheim Fellowships and grants from the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities, and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. His Night Dances, written in 1970, was commissioned by the New York State School of Music Association and was introduced during that organization’s meeting at Kiamesha Lake, New York, on December 9, 1970, by the All-State Orchestra under Frederick Fennell. Persichetti has said of this work (which he considered a companion piece to his Symphony No. 9): "Lines of poetry, floating about in my head, seemed to suggest a kind of music that flourished in the fertile climate of the Symphony. I believe these two companion pieces are linked spiritually, but subconsciously. As in my three volumes of Poems for Piano (1939), each of the seven sections of this work reflects, or parallels, the mood of a single line recalled from a poem. After the last page of music in the score, I have listed the titles of the seven poems from which these lines came, but the music is a parallel of these specific lines only, and has nothing necessarily to do with the respective poems in their entirety (though my choice of title may have been influenced by that of the Sylvia Plath poem quoted in the penultimate section). These Night Dances do have to do with what we all dream in a different reality from that of our waking thoughts. In dreams things appear, bidden or unbidden, as an underside of something made of a fabric that will hold together because it is part fantasy. These seven pieces form a crystal created by a melodic pair of dewdrops." [notes from "Recorded Anthology of American Music, Inc."] Listen to a performance of Persichetti's Night Dances, op. 114 (1970) played by the Juilliard Orchestra, James DePriest conductor . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Portland Chamber Music Festival will kick off its 2011 season with a program entitled "Leclair, Vaughan Williams and Mendelssohn", and Maine Public Radio will be providing its listeners with a front row seat to the start of this critically-acclaimed series. Held at the Abromson Center at the University of Southern Maine, the Portland Chamber Music Festival program will feature Jean-Marie Leclair's Sonata in C major, Op. 3 No. 3, Ralph Vaughan Williams' On Wenlock Edge and Felix Mendelssohn's Octet in E flat major, Op. 20, This program will feature famed tenor John McVeigh. A Maine resident, Mr. McVeigh has performed with the Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago. The PCMF has garnered nationwide attention since its inception in 1994. The festival's five-concert series has been broadcast on National Public Radio and WGBH in Boston and has been awarded two grants from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music. Join in the excitement Thursday, August 11th at 8pm - either live (at Abromson Center at the University of Southern Maine in Portland) or over the airwaves and online at MPBN Radio or online at MPBN.net. Check it all out at the Portland Chamber Music Festival's website.

Discussing the genesis of Peter Maxwell Davies' guitar piece "Hill Runes", Julian Bream, who commisioned the work in 1981 has said, ". . . somehow I never felt his musical language would fit naturally onto the guitar. Composers of astringent yet complex textures, like Max Davies, often find the colour of the instrument too personal, too exotic, and not abstract enough for their musical language. But having heard some of Max’s more recent works, I felt he was in a musical period in his life when he was writing music that might be suitable and indeed even work well on the guitar." Known to his friends simply as Max, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is one of the most prolific and frequently performed of British composers. His several hundred compositions draw from an eclectic array of influences, from Indian music to serialism to Renaissance polyphony. Davies has also worked tirelessly in the area of music education and as an environmental activist. Watch a performance of Peter Maxwell Davies' "Hill Runes" (1981) played by guitarist Giacomo Fiore . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Karl Korte is a scrupulous composer of music that’s of high quality and not easily categorized. These three works are the fruit of his ongoing recent collaboration with Duo46 (Matt Gould, guitar, and Beth-Ilana Schneider-Gould, violin). Korte has a gift for writing music that’s fluid (it always has an idea and knows how to develop it), focused on clear and memorable motives, and harmonically rich but neither chromatically clotted nor too tonally predictable. He has a naturally sophisticated rhythmic sense. Check out Duo46's recording "The Guitar Music Of Karl Korte" (Centaur 3059) . . . it's our FEATURED RECORDING for the week.

Elliott Jungyoung Bark's works have been performed/read by many orchestras, ensembles and musicians, including the New York Youth Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra musicians, Indiana University Orchestra & New Music Ensemble, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Zzyzx Saxophone Quartet, Indiana University Saxophone Ensemble, Kuttner String Quartet, Luna Nova Chamber Ensemble, duo parnas, conductor Kevin Noe, violinists Liana Gourdgia and Michelle Lie, countertenor Daniel Bubeck and saxophonist Zach Shemon. His works have also been presented at the Bowdoin International Music Festival, the Festival of New Music at Florida State University, Midwest Composers Symposiums at Universities of Indiana (‘07), Iowa (‘08) and Michigan (‘09), North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conference, Belvedere Chamber Music Festival, United States Navy Band International Saxophone Symposium and 2010 GAMMA at University of Texas at Austin. Here a performance of Elliott Bark's "Neutral Tones" (2008) . . . it's one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS for the week.

Francis Poulenc loved Paris, poetry, and the human voice. He fused those three loves into his melodies, crafting those French art songs into works for which he is best known. Poulenc was born and raised near the city of his heart and his earliest memories center on the popular tunes he heard in cultural institutions such as the cabaret, music hall, and circus. It is not surprising, then, that the composer infused his music with that popular flavour. In doing so, Poulenc paid homage to his Parisian musical roots, intentionally keeping his music "French." In addition, by utilizing the popular elements he heard all around him when he was young, Poulenc lends a nostalgic air to his music (Karen Jee-Hae McCann). Hear a performance of Poulenc's Les Chemins de l’Amour (1940) . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.