Podcast
The Open Ears Project
Hosted by WQXR & WNYC Studios · EN
Part mixtape, part sonic love-letter, The Open Ears Project is a podcast in which people share the classical track that means the most to them and why. Created by journalist and former WQXR Creative Director Clemency Burton-Hill, each episode offers a brief and soulful glimpse into human lives, helping us to hear this music — and each other — differently. Guests from the worlds of film, books, dance, comedy and fashion as well as firefighters, taxi drivers, and teachers share cherished musical memories and remind us that extraordinary things happen when we simply stop and listen.
Transcripts are posted to individual episode pages as they become available.
The Open Ears Project is produced by WQXR and WNYC Studios.
23episodes
Episodes
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Introducing Classical Music Happy Hour with Emanuel Ax
Apr 3000:03:38Tap to summarizeHello Open Ears fans, pianist Emanuel Ax is dropping into the feed to introduce Classical Music Happy Hour, a new podcast he hosts that you might enjoy. The show is all about the joy in chatting about music with all sorts of people, including some of Manny’s dearest friends like pianist Yuja Wang, composer John Adams, actor David Hyde Pierce, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. So grab a drink and join Manny Ax for music, merriment and conversation. Listen and Subscribe to Classical Music Happy Hour wherever you get your podcasts. Classical Music Happy Hour is produced by WQXR in partnership with Carnegie Hall.
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Introducing Our Common Nature with Yo-Yo Ma
Nov 1200:33:01Tap to summarizeAna González is here to introduce you to her new podcast, Our Common Nature, a musical journey with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. When the world stopped in 2020, Yo-Yo Ma started thinking about how music can reconnect people to the natural world. In this limited podcast series, Yo-Yo goes around the country to places where people have deep connections to the earth. Host Ana González joins him to uncover stories of how culture binds us to nature, from Maine to Appalachia and Hawaii. The result is a seven-episode series that fuses music, personal narratives, and local histories from across the United States. Listen to more episodes from Our Common Nature series.Visit the website at ourcommonnaturepodcast.org.
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Janna Levin on Mozart’s Unfinished Ambitions
Jun 17, 202400:24:36Tap to summarizeJanna Levin is a theoretical cosmologist and professor of astronomy and physics at Barnard College in New York City, specializing in the study of black holes. A Guggenheim Fellow, she’s authored several books on the topics of space, mathematics, and the impassioned people that study them; her latest book, “Black Hole Survival Guide,” allows readers to imagine an encounter with a black hole. In the final episode of this season of The Open Ears Project, Janna Levin uses the music of Mozart to venture into the world of perfect circles, spacetime, and the drive to reach a platonic ideal. She muses on the benefits of limitations and rules, and how they have led to some of the most revolutionary scientific discoveries and works of art, from Einstein’s theory of relativity to Mozart’s unfinished Requiem Mass. This recording of Mozart’s Requiem was provided courtesy of the New York Philharmonic.
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Hanna Arie-Gaifman on Bach and Survival
Jun 10, 202400:15:52Tap to summarizeHanna Arie-Gaifman served as the director of the Tisch Center for the Arts at the 92nd Street Y for over 20 years, where she produced countless multidisciplinary projects, cementing 92NY’s place as a leading literary and performance art venue in New York City. Before then, Aire-Gaifman worked around the world as an arts administrator, linguist, and professor. In this episode, Gaifman shares why Bach’s Sarabande from the English Suite No. 5 reminds her of her late cousin, Zuzana Růžičková, who survived the Terezin concentration camp during World War II and went on to become an acclaimed harpsichordist.In this episode, you'll hear a performance of the Sarabande on the piano by András Schiff from his 1988 Decca recording of the Bach English Suites, as well as performance on the harpsichord by Zuzana Růžičková, courtesy of Arie-Gaifman.
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Caroline Shaw on Mendelssohn and Possibility
Jun 3, 202400:11:49Tap to summarizeCaroline Shaw is a tireless musician, active as a violinist, vocalist, producer, and composer. She’s won multiple Grammy awards and, along with Kendrick Lamar, is one of the youngest recipients of the Pulitzer Prize in Music. Throughout her career, she has continuously experimented across genres, her collaborations spanning from the likes of Nas and Rosalía to So Percussion and Roomful of Teeth. With all her acclaim today, it is hard to imagine that Shaw was once just a kid at band camp. In this episode of the Open Ears Project, Shaw recalls performing Felix Mendelssohn’s “Octet for Strings” as a teenager at summer camp, an experience which sparked her lifelong love of chamber music. This recording of Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-Flat Major was performed by the Gringolts Quartet and Meta4 from the 2020 Bis record, “Octets.”
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Nick Ferrone on Why Barber’s “Adagio” Gets a Bad Rap
May 27, 202400:24:41Tap to summarizeBy day, Nick Ferrone is a Brooklyn real estate agent, but on most Saturday nights, he can be found playing the harmonica at Sunny’s Bar in Red Hook. As the seventh of eight kids, Ferrone reaped the benefits of being exposed to records that most kids his age weren’t listening to, including the one that inspired him to start playing the harmonica: “Giant Step” by Taj Mahal. He also serves as a board member for the Hillside Dog Park and is a passionate fine pencil artist. In this episode, Ferrone shares his love for Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” and explains why he thinks it gets a bad rap for being too funereal. He describes the beauty he hears in the music and reflects on how it accompanied him through his child’s heart surgery.
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Lucy Boynton on Chopin and Getting Into Character
May 20, 202400:13:44Tap to summarizeYou might know actress Lucy Boynton from the television mini-series “The Ipcress File” and films like “Chevalier” and “Murder on the Orient Express.” She grew up with a music-loving family who always had something playing in the background. Here, Boynton shares a favorite piano piece by Chopin and reflects on the power of music to establish tone in filmmaking and to help her get into character. This episode features Chopin’s Nocturne in B flat minor, Op. 9, No. 1: “Larghetto”, as performed by Maria João Pires from her 1996 Deutsche Grammophon recording “Chopin — The Nocturnes.”
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Martha Lane Fox on Perseverance and Beethoven
May 13, 202400:17:52Tap to summarizeIf anyone can claim the title of Renaissance Woman, it is Martha Lane Fox. Though she gained prominence during the dot-com boom of the 1990s, her career has since led her serve as the Chancellor of Open University in the United Kingdom; to sit on the boards of companies likeChanel, WeTransfer, and Twitter; and, in 2013, she became the youngest female member to serve in the House of Lords.In this episode, Lane Fox reflects on her journey of recovery after a car accident in Morocco and explains how the “Prisoners’ Chorus” from Beethoven’s “Fidelio” informs her passion for prison reform.This Deutsche Grammophon recording of Beethoven’s “Prisoners’ Chorus” from Fidelio is performed by the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera Chorus under the baton of Leonard Bernstein.
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Steve Reich on Why Medieval Music Sounds So Fresh
May 6, 202400:25:31Tap to summarizeSteve Reich is one of the most important composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. A leader in developing and popularizing what many describe as minimalist music — but which Reich has often preferred to describe as music that unfolds over a gradual process — his music helped reassert the value of tonality and sonority within newly composed concert music and influenced generations of musicians. In this episode, Reich recalls the first time he heard the music of French medieval composer Pérotin, without whose influence some of his music “never would have happened,” and he reflects on why early music sounds so fresh to contemporary ears. The recording of “Viderunt Omnes” featured on this episode was performed by The Hilliard Ensemble on the 1989 ECM New Series album, “Perotin.”
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Anne-Sophie Mutter on Why Bach Is Always the Answer
Apr 29, 202400:12:32Tap to summarize“Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” is one of Bach’s best known works. For acclaimed violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, it has been part of her life since she was a child and has accompanied her through some of her life’s most important moments. As she puts it, “Bach is always the answer — for the joyous moments in life as much as for the moments where you doubt where you stand and what tomorrow brings.”This episode features recordings of “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” performed by Daniil Trifonov on the 2022 Deutsche Grammophon album, “BACH: The Art of Life;” and by The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge on the 1998 Decca album “The King’s Collection.”
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