Modern Notebook for September 21

Modern Notebook for September 21 - 27, 2025

Photo: composer Reena Esmail (courtesy of the artist's website).

On the next Modern Notebook with Tyler Kline: Reena Esmail’s Saans began as a gift — a piano trio woven from the slow movement of her clarinet concerto, reimagined for a dear friend’s wedding. But over time, it became something more personal, tying together friendship, love, and the quiet breath of life that music can carry across time and distance.

Then: There’s a particular kind of memory that holds fast — not the dramatic, but the quietly beautiful. In Sunday, Shelley Washington writes from the memory of one perfect, unremarkable afternoon: reading, wandering, doing nothing. It’s a bittersweet portrait of stillness, written just before everything changed.

Also featured this week are works by Ahmed Alabaca, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Judith Ring, Narong Prangcharoen, Baljinder Sekhon, Margaret Brouwer, Peter Wilson, Gareth Farr, and Peter Van Zandt Lane. Performances by the Danish String Quartet, clarinetist Karel Dohnal, the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, Latitude 49, Ember Trio, flutist Lina Andonovska, pianist Alex Raineri, Heare Ensemble, steel pan player Dave Gerhart, the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Riot Ensemble, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Duo AYA, and Ensemble Vim.

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