Modern Notebook for March 3 - 9, 2024

Composer Liliya Ugay (photo courtesy of the artist).

On the next Modern Notebook with Tyler Kline: Liliya Ugay is a composer who is also a mother, and she says that composer-mothers have been vastly underrepresented in the history of music,past and present. Her piece “Mother Tales” is inspired by the routines of motherhood, with the first movement depicting lulling a baby to sleep, and a second movement which captures the curiosity, awkwardness, and wonder of play.


Then: There is an effervescence and turbulence to artist Gwen O’Dowd’s abstract sea paintings, which serves as inspiration for Jane O’Leary’s work “underneath the dark blue waves.” It’s music that moves in waves of sound, at times capturing the brightness of the ocean’s surface, other times its peacefulness, and even its fury.


Listen for that, plus music by Johanny Navarro, Moira Smiley, Bethan Morgan-Williams, Amy Nam, Yu-Hui Chang, Julie Herndon, Lillie Harris, and others; and performances by flutist Amalia Toratjada Zanón with  guitarist Andrea González Caballero, Conspirare, violinist Sunmi Chang with pianist Clara Yang, fivebyfive, Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble, Kukuruz Quartet, Nordic Viola, and more.

Hour 1

  • Silbo by Andrea Casarrubios.
  • Johanny Navarro’s Bambuleá.
  • Haiku by Moira Smiley.
  • Liliya Ugay’s Mother Tales.
  • Parti Di-ffiniau by Bethan Morgan-Williams.
  • Amy Nam’s Of Breath and Fire.
  • Danza de los Saqsampillos by Gabriela Lena Frank.

Hour 2

  • Beata Moon’s Movement.
  • Germinate by Yu-Hui Chang.
  • Jane O’Leary’s beneath the dark blue waves.
  • When the Machine Rhythms With My Body by Julie Herndon.
  • Lillie Harris’ Elsewhen

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