Rebecca Foon & Aliayta Foon-Dancoes ~ Reverie What a joy to hear these sisters playing together! Cellist Rebecca Foon is well-known as an integral member of Thee Silver Mt. Zion and Esmerine, while violinist Aliayta Foon-Dancoes has won awards for her own work.  Those who saw Esmerine live on
https://acloserlisten.com/2025..../05/15/rebecca-foon-

The name of this tune is The Funky Drummer I have written about the Funky Drummer break several times here before, but this podcast episode is my best explanation of it. The main thing that’s new is the connection between this break and Afro-Latin tresillo patterns. I also programmed a bunch of variations on the groove for comparison purposes. The name of this tune …
https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2....025/the-name-of-this

Nainita Desai ~ Tesselations We first encountered Nainita Desai in 2021 as the composer of The Reason I Jump, one of our top film scores of that year.  Now she has composed the score for what may be one of the greatest light installations
https://acloserlisten.com/2025..../04/13/nainita-desai

Curve Ensemble ~ Towards the Light Take a moment to consider the phrase, Towards the Light.  Curve Ensemble‘s artistic director allowed each composer, some from within the ensemble and others without, to interpret the phrase in their own way.  This resulted in seven remarkable pieces that work
https://acloserlisten.com/2025..../04/04/curve-ensembl

Thelonious Monk plays the blues Everything is terrible, but at least we have the blues to help us through it. Blues melody week is my favorite week of pop aural skills class. Last session, after one of my sections worked through some Aretha Franklin and John Lee Hooker, we listened to a couple of jazz tunes, including “Functional” by Thelonious …
https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2....025/thelonious-monk-