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Chris Lydon’s interview this week on Radio Open Source is with composer Yehudi Wyner. It’s a fascinating hour spent with an American “classical” composer  – he spends time discussing his influences, the way he approaches composition  and deconstructs some of his works on the piano.

Image: Boston Globe

As with many 20th century American composers, Wyner is open to the influence of “popular” forms on his work – particularly gospel and jazz. But as Stravinksy and Ives did with ragtime and marching band tunes, Wyner’s compositions refract these sources through his own personal tonal lens.

Wyner has been writing music since since his childhood in the 1920s, so he’s learned a thing or two about how creativity happens. I particularly liked his description of the compositional act – and the responsibility that comes with inspiration:

“When you stumble on these thickets of interesting material, you’re confronted with the most terrifying task of all, which is somehow living up  to it, continuing it, recognising not only that nugget is of value, but that nugget is of no meaning unless it’s in a proper context, unless it’s really enveloped in understanding and development.”

Wyner’s insight could apply to all creative acts – writing, painting, creating a business, raising a child. Most of us only experience very short and occasional moments of true inspiration. The real work of creativity is how we put context and create flow around these small original ideas.

I commend this conversation to you – the music is wonderful, the conversations surrounding it are enlightening, and Wyner’s critique of contemporary popular music is penetrating without being bigoted.

Possibly due to having too much free time and no other life, spoken word podcasts have become a little bit of an addiction, providing an easily digestible form of non-fiction and current affairs that doesn’t involve picking up a book.

None of the podcasts I subscribe to generally deal with music, although occasionally music does crop up, including Radio Open Source‘s tribute to Dave McKenna – recordings of, and interviews with, one of the finest solo jazz pianists of the past half century. Here’s a taste:

Dave McKenna: Blues (excerpt from Radio Open Source)

Listening to Lord Melvyn Bragg somewhere over northern Europe in 2006

A favourite format of mine is the long-form conversation, where two people talk for an hour or more, with minimal editing. In fact, the less production I hear, the more I enjoy the podcast. Over a couple of years, a regular listening schedule has developed that has effectively created a personalised on-demand radio station on my iPod. The lineup looks a bit like this:

• Electric Politics: George Kenney‘s weekly interview show is recommended for anyone looking for deeper perspectives on how America really works (or doesn’t). For better or worse, George’s show has done more to shape my political views over the past few years than any other single influence. Consistently illuminating
• Radio Open Source – Chris Lydon hosted the first ever podcast, and he still churns out interviews several times a week. Unashamedly “liberal” but very eclectic, some recent highlights include Mahmood Mamdani’s analysis of the Darfur phenomenon, and James Carroll on being an American and a Catholic today.
• NPR’s Speaking of Faith often posts soundfiles of its raw conversations, and I often find these more useful than the edited broadcast show.
• Knowledge@Wharton – Business and Economics themes from the staff at Wharton Business School
• In Our Time – Melvyn Bragg‘s Thursday morning roundtable about the forces shaping our intellectual world – science, theology, medicine, literature, philosphy, architecture. A show about everything, except for last week, when they talked about Nothing.
• This American Life – Andrew Dubber reckons this is the best radio show in the world. Who am I to argue?
• Rue des Entrepreneurs – Economic and business viewed through a spectacularly un-businesslike prism, every Saturday morning on France Inter
• Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 – OK, so I have a crush on Sandi Toksvig, alright?
• 2000 ans d’Histoire – Now I’m living in France, this weekday show helps in widening my understanding of the social, political and military history of the place.
• A Prairie Home Companion – Garrison Keillor‘s inimitable descriptions of life in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota.

I should probably make more of an effort to keep up with things back home in New Zealand – for instance maybe subscribing to Chris Laidlaw’s Sunday morning show on Radio NZ National? I’ll just have to find time to fit it into the schedule…

George Kenney (Image: Chad Evans Wyatt)

Also, Radio France now has most of their weekly shows available on podcast! (Note, that’s “le podcast“, not “la baladodiffusion” as they’re trying to enourage in Quebec.)

France Culture and France Inter on demand is something close to pure podcast heaven if, like me, you’re trying to retain your French language. Now I can listen to what I want, when I want, and don’t have to put up with a streaming live version of Le Fou du Roi at 11 o’clock at night. Like Lionel Dersot in Tokyo, I am grateful for this new small pleasure.