Bandon Community Radio Producer Chip Cassin explores some of KBOG's favorite recording artists with in-depth interviews on a personal level and airs them, along with their new music, on his show Deep Dive, Sundays at 1pm PST. Michael Whalen is a two-time Emmy® Award winning composer and music supervisor (with 8 nominations) who has worked in advertising, television, film and video games for over 30 years. Some of his best-known work: "Veronika Decides to Die" (2014), "What the Bleep Do You Know?", "As The World Turns", themes for HBO, CBS News, ABC News' "Good Morning America", "The Oprah Winfrey Show", dozens of specials for PBS, National Geographic, Discovery, The BBC, NHK and the History Channel and television films for Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel. Michael is also an internationally known recording artist with 32 solo and soundtrack recordings to his credit. Well-known for his beautiful and thematic music, he performs when time allows. He has also produced and executive produced over 100 recordings for other artists. His work as a executive producer resulted in a Grammy Nomination in 2000. Sacred Spaces is an epic recording nearly 10 years in the making.  "I have been pursuing a spiritual ‘awakening' for most of my adult life.  Over the past decade, I realized that I am 100 percent responsible for whatever my relationship with a ‘higher being' might be," says Whalen.  Filled with sonic landscapes built from hundreds of layers of sound, "Sacred Spaces" is Michael's tour-de-force electronic project, which seamlessly blends his natural gift for melody with fresh textures and percolating rhythms. Deeply inspired by Michael's film and TV work and his love for progressive rock, "Sacred Spaces" is the ambient recording of the year. Enjoy Chip's fascinating deep dive with Michael, as he is one of those rare musicians that film directors will go to in order make a scene in a movie or tv show strike you in ways you may not even be aware of, by using layers of music to deliver a the deeper message in the scene. There are only a few in the world that can do what Michael does through music, and do it well. He is of a rare breed. Have a listen to a few tracks from Sacred Spaces below and then head to Michael Whalen.com to learn more, and you can find him on Spotify and Apple Music. Listen to Michael Whalen on the 97.9KBOG: Bandon OR - Deep Dive with Chip Cassin

Interview with KBOG Radio

Bandon Community Radio Producer Chip Cassin explores some of KBOG's favorite recording artists with in-depth interviews on a personal level and airs them, along with their new music, on his show Deep Dive, Sundays at 1pm PST. Multi award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter and pianist Laila Biali has toured with Chris Botti, Paula Cole, Suzanne Vega and Sting. She has headlined festivals and venues spanning five continents including Carnegie Hall. Her accolades include a 2019 JUNO Award for "Vocal Jazz Album of the Year", "SOCAN Composer of the Year" and "Keyboardist of the Year" at Canada's National Jazz Awards, a JUNO nomination for her studio recording Tracing Light, and a spot on DownBeat Magazine's "Best Albums of the Year" list for her follow-up Live in Concert. In 2015, Laila released her first album of entirely original music, House of Many Rooms – an indie-pop project featuring a star-studded lineup including the vocalist Lisa Fischer, who is featured in the Academy Award-winning documentary 20 Feet From Stardom. Check out Chip's Interview on 97.9KBOG: Bandon Oregon - interview with one of Canada's foremost Jazz pianists & vocalists along with a few tracks from her LP "Out Of Dust" below. In addition to being a musician and an all-around great person, you can catch Laila streaming as she hosts CBC Radio 2's weekly Saturday Night Jazz radio show, which has consistently ranked as that network's most streamed program. You can find the stream at CBC Radio 2 Saturday Night Jazz (from the US). Then head to Laila Biali to find out more, get tour dates and grab your copy!

Interview with KBOG Radio

Liberate Instrumental Music! The history of western music is one of the instrumental living in harmony (ahem) with the vocal. A Beethoven symphony, a Verdi opera. Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit, Duke Ellington's Isfahan. The Beatles' Let It Be, Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man. But recently, instrumental music has gone missing. Become nearly invisible. Inaudible. In old media. In new. Words and music, yes. Music alone, no.  Instrumental music must be restored to culture's apex. We need an Instrumental Music Liberation Front. SymphRONica to the rescue. This record is the opening salvo. A journey through the great fountainheads of the instrumental. Jazz meets classical musics (emphasis on the ‘s': European, Québecois, Sepahrdic, Manouche). Let musical freedom ring! Let Instrumental Music be Liberated! LISTEN TO THE JazzCast SEGMENT, attached

JazzCast

Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Myer and Chris Thile, each highly accomplished musicians in their own right, unite in their eagerly anticipated follow up album to Grammy Award winning The Goat Rodeo Sessions.  "Goat Rodeo" is an expression meaning a chaotic situation, one in which everything has to go right by skill or luck, or everything will be thrown off course. It's an appropriate title for the complexity of Not Our First Goat Rodeo. "Every Note A Pearl" shows this with dissonant notes in which the strings slide into new keys. In less skilled hands, this would be a mistake, but here it's a testament to the group's skill. It takes a good musician to sing in the wrong key on purpose, but it takes a great one to make the "wrong" key right.   Not Our First Goat Rodeo is a delicate ecosystem of sound. Like most ecosystems, any little change could bring the whole thing down, but here it's perfectly balanced. At the climax of "Scarcely Cricket" and "Not for Lack of Trying," each instrument takes on a life of its own. Rather than one sticking out and the rest supporting, they often each take their own stage, in a cacophony of interlocking chaos. A person can listen to the same track multiple times and get totally different impressions as the ear picks up new parts each time. It's the sonic equivalent of a forest path that demands multiple explorations to be fully known.  READ THE FULL mxdwn.com REVIEW

Violin virtuoso Niv Ashkenazi joins FM91: Toledo OH to talk about Violins of Hope, an artistic and educational project composed of instruments that were owned by Jewish musicians before and during the Holocaust. With his fellow Juilliard graduate, pianist Matthew Graybil, Niv has released the first solo album to be recorded on one of these instruments. LISTEN TO THE SEGMENT

Interview with WGTE's Haley Taylor

Since bursting on the scene as a child prodigy, Benjamin Grosvenor has established himself as the most exciting and accomplished British pianist of his generation. Remarkably mature for his 27 years, he has five albums under his belt since being the youngest pianist to sign with Decca in 2011. His latest release, the two Chopin concertos, marks his first orchestral outing since his 2012 Rhapsody In Blue album which featured Saint-Saens' second and Ravel's G major concertos as well as George Gershwin's showstopper. Opinion has always been divided over Chopin's ability as an orchestrator. There are some who think his scores for the two piano concertos, both written when he was 20 and still living in Poland, are boring and unadventurous. Others believe he got the job done, albeit unspectacularly, and that the instrumentalists complement the soloist. Whichever camp the listener falls into, there is no doubting that the piano writing is wonderful and memorable, and under the fingers of Grosvenor backed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra the two concertos are glittering and achingly lovely, fully-formed masterpieces. His technique shows great clarity and technical ease. His touch is light and there is an innate artistry, taste and thoughtfulness in his playing. Still only 27, there is no telling what new heights he may scale. This is certainly a beautiful and impressive survey of Chopin's two masterworks. READ THE FULL LIMELIGHT REVIEW

Norwegian composer and pianist Ola Gjeilo presents a stunning collection of brand-new original works for solo piano, composed and performed by Gjeilo himself. NIGHT is an intimate and meditative collection of peaceful piano music, inspired by the twilight hours in the place he now calls home – New York City.  Gjeilo's musical style is often described as cinematic and evocative, characterised by warm harmonies, flowing melodies and gently rocking, repeated figures. He is an exclusive Decca Classics recording artist, and the new album follows the highly successful Winter Songs (2017) and Ola Gjeilo (2016), which also feature Tenebrae, Voces8 and the Choir of Royal Holloway. NIGHT is his first solo piano album to be released on Decca. Gjeilo is one of the most frequently performed composers in the choral world. He grew up outside Oslo, Norway in a musically eclectic home listening to classical, jazz, pop and folk, a broad background he later incorporated into his classical composition studies at The Juilliard School and the Royal College of Music in London. He spoke with 89.7WCPE: Wake Forest, classical hoist - Rob Kennedy. Listen to the attached conversation.

Interview with WCPE's Rob Kennedy

On her latest release, multiple Grammy winner Sharon Isbin performs multi-faceted and virtuosic new works for guitar, written for her by four leading composers. From the Africa-influenced El Decameron Negro by iconic Cuban guitarist/composer Leo Brouwer, through the Chinese and Spanish-inspired Seven Desires by Tan Dun, to Richard Danielpour's sensual song cycle Of Love and Longing, and the jazz and world music-influenced Affinity by Chris Brubeck, Sharon Isbin gives her inimitable imprint to, and vastly enriches major new repertoire for guitar. The album has been covered for the whole note. See review as cover image

Nicholas McGegan may no longer be the artistic director of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, but the record of McGegan's inimitable touch - unmistakable, in the case of Handel's Saul - remains to savor. Everything about his artistry, including the buoyant and sprightly tempos, sly humor, deep reverence for beauty, and capacity for sincere emotional expression come through on this, his final live recording with PBO. Although Saul's covers and liner notes shockingly fail to give him credit, the recording was superbly produced, recorded, edited, mixed,  and mastered by PBO's former recording engineer, David v.R. Bowles of Swineshead Productions, LLC. Set down in Berkeley's First Congregational Church in April, 2019, this digital-only release shows the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Philharmonia Chorale, under Bruce Lamott, in fine form. Auditioned in 24/192 high-resolution, Bowles's achievement captures all the nuance and color that were transmitted by First Congregational's uniquely live, resonant, and spacious acoustic, and leaves me deeply regretting both his departure and that of his husband, McGegan. The recording is available on various streaming/download services, including Qobuz, Amazon, and others. If you download or stream this recording and discover yourself without libretto, biographies, and Lamott's introduction, you can find them at philharmonia.org/saul., Make sure to access them because they'll help you understand just how wonderful this performance is. Having said that, there are many times when the sound and music are so captivating that you may find yourself closing your eyes as your relish their beauties.    PHOTO: Laura Barisonzi READ THE FULL San Francisco Classical Voice REVIEW

Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann. Steven Spielberg and John Williams. Spike Lee and Terence Blanchard. Every visionary filmmaker needs a composer they can trust-someone they can call on to accentuate their work with music. And from 1964 until well into the 1980s, there was no greater director-composer partnership than Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone, the Italian film composer who died on Monday in Rome at age 91. It was through his long-term collaboration with the late filmmaker that Morricone created his most iconic scores and helped define the sound of the Spaghetti Western, the Italian film movement spearheaded by Leone and his so-called "Dollars Trilogy" starring Clint Eastwood: 1964's A Fistful of Dollars, 1965's For a Few Dollars More, and 1966's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Leone was hardly the only director to take advantage of Morricone's talents over the last 60 years. In fact, hundreds of filmmakers, among them Quentin Tarantino, Brian De Palma, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Terrence Malick, partnered with the composer in order to infuse their films with orchestral gravitas and vintage swagger. Morricone's prolific drive was astonishing: By the end of his career, he had scored more than 500 movies-an especially impressive number, considering how he refused to move to Hollywood and never learned to speak English. Some film composers consider it their duty to write music that blends into the scenery or prioritizes tasteful subtlety. Not Morricone. His scores are expressive, grandiose, and undeniably audacious in their oddball instrumental choices, from the pan pipes he used in 1989's Casualties of War to the Haitian drumming and children's choir he incorporated into 1977's Exorcist II: The Heretic. Such boldness was remarkably well-suited to the operatic scope and brooding emotional expanse of the Spaghetti Western. As Leone put it in an interview towards the end of his life, "I've always felt that music is more expressive than dialogue. I've always said that my best dialogue and screenwriter is Ennio Morricone." Fittingly, on Monday, everyone from Chance the Rapper to Bon Iver's Justin Vernon to El-P mourned the indispensable composer. As the director Edgar Wright put it, "He could make an average movie into a must-see, a good movie into art, and a great movie into legend." Movies will be a little quieter, and emptier, without Morricone. READ THE FULL Pitchfork ARTICLE

Not Our First Goat Rodeo is the long-awaited follow-up album to the Grammy Award-winning Goat Rodeo Sessions with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile. Both albums combine the talents of the four solo artists to create a singular sound that's part composed, part improvised, and uniquely American. The music is so complex to pull off that the group likens it to a goat rodeo – an aviation term for a situation in which 100 things need to go right to avoid disaster. Both the first album and the new recording also feature the voice and artistry of singer-songwriter Aoife O'Donovan. For July 6, Ma, Thile, Meyer, Duncan - Not Our First Goat Rodeo is the WFMT: Chicago 'Featured New Release.'  SEE THE PAGE

To these ears, the soundtracks Japanese composer Joe Hisaishi created for Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli classics Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, and Kiki's Delivery Service are so indissolubly bound up in their reception, it's hard to think of the music as a separate entity. To that end, Dream Songs: The Essential Joe Hisaishi does a superb job of enabling admirers to do precisely that by presenting his musical artistry sans visual accompaniment. In assembling a diverse selection of twenty-eight pieces spanning his nearly forty-year career, the release is a must-have for those already familiar with Hisaishi and those discovering him anew. READ THE FULL textura REVIEW