The final song of the day for this week is Andrea Clearfield’s arresting You Bring Out the Doctor in Me from the 2013 AIDS Quilt Songbook. The AIDS Quilt Songbook (AQSB) is an ongoing, collaborative song cycle that had its initial premiere in Alice Tully Hall in 1992,...
written by
Daniel Reza Sabzghabaei
Hans Abrahamsen: Now I do not mind
Written for soprano/conductor/force of nature Barbara Hannigan, and the Berlin Philharmonic, let me tell you is a song cycle by Dutch composer Hans Abrahamsen on texts from British writer Paul Griffiths 2008 novel of the same name which takes the 481 words Ophelia...
Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Parviz Meshkatian: Bīdād
The third song this week is the long-form cycle Bīdād (بیداد) “Injustice” by Persian music master vocalist and instrumentalist Mohammad Reza Shajarian (محمدرضا شجریان), and the late Persian composer and santour (a Persian hammered dulcimer) virtuso Parviz Meshkatian...
Frank Zappa: The Jazz Discharge Party Hats
My second choice this week is the tongue-in-cheek song “The Jazz Discharge Party Hats,” by another American, and wearer of many hats, Frank Zappa, from his 1983 release The Man from Utopia. Zappa wrote music in all genres from rock to orchestral, and was noted for the...
Nina Simone sings “Strange Fruit” by Abel Meeropol
For Song of the Day all this week, I am going to be giving you five songs, that for me, define and defy the genre, and have been not only influential to me as a composer, but have also changed my view on art as a whole. My first selection is Jewish-American songwriter...