Classical Gas

In October 2026, Mazzoli’s opera, Lincoln in the Bardo, with libretto by Royce Vavrek, will be premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She tells Wein that the novel by George Saunders “felt like a weighty work that was about America at a very divided moment.” The characters of the story are all ghosts, except for Abraham Lincoln. “That really set my imagination free in terms of what could happen on the stage,” said Mazzoli. She also describes the process of assembling the cast, which includes Christine Goercke, Anthony Roth Costanzo, and Stephanie Blythe. In 2016, Mazzoli, along with the composer Ellen Reid, founded Luna Composition Lab, an intensive program for female and non-binary composers age 13-18. Each year, six of these young women are paired with a mentor who is a prominent female composer, giving the youngsters an immersion in professional musical life in New York. For its 10th anniversary, Luna Lab commissioned dozens of its alumni to write one or two new works – nearly 100 in all – each of which will receive its premiere in the 2026-27 season across the United States.

Stephen Hough is a concert pianist, a published author and an accomplished composer.   His work for piano and string quartet, Les Noces Rouge will have its first West Coast performance at the Music@Menlo festival in California in July 2026.  Hough spoke with Classical Gas podcast host Gail Wein about the music and its inspiration – the book My Antonia by one of his favorite authors, Willa Cather. Hough said that in the book there is a story-within-a-story that really caught his imagination, a vignette about a pair of Russian brothers who fled from their hometown to the plains of Nebraska after a horrific incident. 

Augusta Read Thomas is the composer-mentor for the DeGaetano Composition Institute, an ambitious program for emerging composers founded by the Orchestra of St Luke’s. She talks with Gail Wein about this unique institute, what it takes to mentor younger composers, and how she helps them tap into their imaginations.   In 2019, Orchestra of St. Luke’s launched the institute, which is funded by the estate of the composer Robert DeGaetano, who died a few years earlier.   The 2026 institute culminates in a concert of the world premiere performances of works by Grace Ann Lee, Ben Rieke, Xingyue Song, and Justin Weiss. The Orchestra of St. Lukes will present the program on July 28 at the Dimenna Center in New York City.

The first time she picked up a baton, about five years ago, the bassoonist Rebekah Heller had a revelatory moment. She was working with the New World Symphony as a coach, and decided that one of the selections required a conductor. “It's like it woke something up in me. I was so present. I was so connected, and it made me realize that the work of a conductor is kind of the work I had been doing all along in my career, which is to act as a translator between the vision of the composer to the ensemble, and then with the ensemble as a translator to the audience.” In this conversation with Classical Gas host Gail Wein, Heller talks about getting the “conducting bug”, as well as developing an obsession for music written for multiple bassoons. Her forthcoming album, “Righteous Rage” (Cantaloupe, July 2026) includes works by Steve Reich, Julius Eastman, Brittany Green and others, all scored for bassoon ensemble. She plays all the parts on the recording, and tells Wein about the advantages and the challenges of playing with herself.

Sarah Fritz is a musicologist who has been obsessed for the better part of the last decade with the life, music and place in history of the composer and pianist Clara Schumann. Her biography, “Madame Composer: The virtuosic genius of Clara Schumann”, will be out in October 2026 on Pegasus Books. “Clara Schumann (nee Wieck) was a prodigy on an epic scale. She was internationally famous by the time she was 18 years old and all the men were jealous of the fame she achieved so young. And so for part of their marriage, Robert was known as the husband of Clara Wieck. But also, the more respectability her husband gained as a composer, Clara’s her own social status would then elevate,” said Fritz.

The composer Joan Tower has won many awards, including the prestigious and lucrative Grawemeyer award in 1990. But for her, the biggest honor came when the Library of Congress announced that they would hold her manuscripts, papers and photos in their archives, in a collection called “The Joan Tower Papers.” She said that was the biggest award she ever got, because it means that her music will have an institutional home, forever. At age 87, Joan Tower is as active and vibrant as ever. In this episode of Classical Gas, Tower talks with podcast host Gail Wein about challenges and rewards of composing, her best piece of advice for composition students and how she worked through her grief on the loss of her husband of 50 years.    

Flutist Claire Chase embarked on a herculean project a few years ago – to expand the repertoire for flute by commissioning nearly 100 new works over 24 years. She calls the project Density 2036. It's inspired by a four-minute piece for solo flute by Edgar Varese, Density 21.5, that has fascinated Chase since childhood.   For the project, Chase is determined to create an entirely new program for flute each year, ending in 2036, the centennial of Varese's work. Her intent is to “reimagine solo flute literature over a quarter-century through commissions performances and recordings.” She's at the midpoint of the project, and there are already dozens of new compositions by Terry Riley, Pamela Z, Vijay Iyer, Lisa Lim and others. Chase will perform a world premiere by Annea Lockwood at The Kitchen in New York City in December 2025.   In this conversation, Chase talks with Gail Wein about the special properties of a flute made of platinum, what she still doesn’t know about her own instrument, how she chooses composers to commission for Density 2036, the non-profit organization she created called Density Arts, and more.

Colin Jacobson is a violinist, composer and co-founder of the Knights Chamber Orchestra and the string quartet Brooklyn Rider. I spoke with Colin earlier this year about Brooklyn Rider’s new concert program, Citizenship Notes, which commemorates the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence; and about the group's 20th anniversary. Brooklyn Rider premieres the Citizenship Notes program at Tippet Rise on September 14, 2025 and will perform it in Australia, Paris, Pittsburgh, Tulsa, New York City and other locations in the coming season.

Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate talks about his unofficial role as an unofficial ambassador Indian country to the fine arts world, a new work recorded by the Dover Quartet and encouraging the next generation, including his young son, to be involved in music. I first heard Tate’s music in 2005, when I wrote about the National Symphony’s premiere of his work “Iholba” for The Washington Post. That composition for chamber orchestra and chorus took my breath away, and in the review, I praised Tate’s “ability to effectively infuse classical music with Native American nationalism.”

The legendary soprano Lucy Shelton gives us an inside look at Arnold Schoenberg's groundbreaking composition "Pierrot Lunaire."