Since January 2005, Music From Other Minds has presented new and unusual music by innovative composers and performers from around the world. Produced weekly for KALW 91.7 FM San Francisco by Charles Amirkhanian and the Other Minds staff, and aired at 8pm every Sunday, Music From Other Minds aims to open up radio listeners to experimental classical work by living and recent composers. We bring you the latest in contemporary music from around the world, and some glimpses into the past, to give a context for today’s music.
Follow this link for information and track listings from programs prior to program 501.
Follow this link to download a complete list of works played on MfOM up to program 821.
Next: Program 851
New Works: Meredith Monk / Henry Threadgill / Elliot Sharp
KALW Broadcast: December 7, 2025
Host: Ed Herrmann
Host: Ed Herrmann
This program offers three new works by New York based musicians.
Cellular Songs, a new album by Meredith Monk, has 15 compositions for vocal ensemble, with some using vibraphone, piano, and percussion. Of the collection Monk says, “I wanted to make a piece that can be experienced as an alternative possibility of human behavior, where the values are cooperation, interdependence, and kindness, as an antidote to the values that are being propagated right now.”
Since founding the jazz trio AIR in the 1970s, Henry Threadgill has led many ensembles, and in recent years his compositions explore unusual instrumental combinations. His latest, Listen Ship, is for six acoustic guitars and two pianos.
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Elliot Sharp has a new work for six electric guitars called Mare Crisium. Sharp says it “offers a non-linear, non-rational coded response to the current world situation and hopes to provide positive psychoacoustic chemical change to the players and listeners.”
Previous Programs
Program 850: Arcomusical and the Berimbau
This week’s program features music by Arcomusical, a berimbau and percussion ensemble based in Illinois. The berimbau is an instrument traditionally played in the Brazilian body-game of capoeira however Arcomusical brings it into new music, following in the footsteps of legends like Naná Vasconcelos and Ramiro Musotto. Arcomuscial is both a musical ensemble and an educational organization run and founded by Gregory Beyer, a music professor at Northern Illinois University. We will be playing selections from two of their albums, Spinning in a Wheel from 2019 and Emigre and Exile from 2022. Both albums tonight featured performances by Alexis C. Lamb, Anthony Cable, Daniel Eastwood, Elena Ross, Ethan H. Martin, Kyle Flens, Raychel Taylor, and Gregory Beyer.
Program 849: The Genius of Margaret Leng Tan
On this Music from Other Minds, Liam Herb plays works performed by Margaret Leng Tan ahead of her appearance at Mills College at Northeastern in Oakland, CA on December 4, 2025 at 7:30pm. Tune in for her performances of works by John Cage, Ge Gan-Ru, Somei Satoh, and more.
The second half of the program is dedicated to the first ever broadcast of Charles Amirkhanian‘s Ode to Gravity, which first aired on March 4, 1970.
Program 848: New Music Concatenation
A New Music Concatenation! This program features a string of interconnected pieces by Galina Ustvolskaya, Rand Steiger, Butch Rovan, and Matt Sargent, each one relating to the next. How will we get from an octet of flutes and bassoons to a string octet? Listen to find out!
Program 847: Somewhat Sacred
This Music from Other Minds features music and poetry that is somewhat sacred and thereby dwells on the musical material of sacred music and how it might suggest the sacred, even if it might not, necessarily, be explicitly religious. Some of the selections use the instruments of sacred music, some selections have lyrics that are somehow ecstatic or religious in temperament, some selections refer to sacred music, and one selection was simply recorded in a church. This program features music and poems by: Frederic Rzewski, Daniel Strong Godfrey, Isaac Jarnot, Áine O’Dwyer, Alvin Lucier, and Robert Ashley.
Program 846: Reworking Traditions: Non-Western Music as Inspiration
Composers often reach outside their own tradition for inspiration. This program explores works that borrow instruments, adapt aesthetics, and transform aspects of non-Western music into new forms. Music by Jin Hi Kim, Peter Sculthorpe, Sarah Peebles, Ningxin Zhang, Toru Takemitsu, Reena Esmail, Bill Brennan, Andy McNeill, Werner Durand, Amelia Cuni, and Uli Hohmann. If there’s time, maybe a folk song setting by Luciano Berio.
Program 845: Rebroadcast of Program 673: From the OM Archives - Amirkhanian and Nancarrow in Conversation
On this rebroadcast of an earlier Music from Other Minds, Liam Herb plays an archival recording of Charles Amirkhanian’s Ode to Gravity: The Music of Conlon Nancarrow. Originally broadcast on NPR stations worldwide in April of 1987, this program includes interviews with the composer in his studio in Mexico City conducted by Amirkhanian in 1977, some of the composer’s Studies for Player Piano also recorded on that trip, and a recording of his String Quartet (1942) performed here by the Kronos Quartet.
Program 844: NoCal Mixtape
Music from Other Minds listeners are well aware of the rich history of musical experimentation from Northern California. This program celebrates that diverse and creative tradition with a mixtape, featuring music by Lou Harrison, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Henry Kaiser, Theresa Wong, Chris Brown, ROVA, Harry Partch, Cheryl Leonard, Maggi Payne, Tom Djll, Ron Heglin, Bart Hopkin, Sarah Cahill, Ellen Fullman, Samuel Adams, Giacomo Fiore, William Winant, and more!
Program 843: 6 for Other Minds Festival 29
This program features music by composers who are being featured at this year’s 29th Other Minds Festival, October 16th–19th at the Brava Theater in San Francisco’s Mission District. Get excited for the festival with Devin King as he plays music from James Tenney, Peter Garland, Ingram Marshall, and Samuel Adams.
Program 842: Other Minds 29, A Festival Teaser
On this Music from Other Minds, Liam Herb plays works by three OM 29 composers, Putu Septa, Kristine Tjøgersen, and Pamela Z. Tune in for a special broadcast which includes a soon to be released record version of Z‘s Simultaneous, which will be featured in three forms on the festival.
For more information and tickets CLICK HERE.
Program 841: OM 29 Podcast Sampler
On this Music from Other Minds, Joseph Bohigian shares a sampling of his interviews on the Other Minds Podcast with the artists visiting San Francisco for Other Minds Festival 29, October 16–19, 2025, at the Brava Theater. The program includes excerpts of interviews with Pamela Z, Samuel Adams, Zeena Parkins, Kristine Tjøgersen, Putu Septa, and Nancy Karp. The full interviews can be found at this link or on any podcasting app.
