(Photos: Swarmius performs in studio, Nathan Gibbs/KPBS)
Tom Fudge : Classical music. It's that music that comes from Europe that we have a very strange relationship with in this country. All you have to do is think of adjectives, positive and negative, we use to describe it: high class, inspiring, intellectual, dull, stuffy, anachronistic.
There are a lot of musicians at our universities that are highly trained in classical music who also recognize that the global community, in fact American alone, has a lot more to offer. So what do we do with this European musical tradition? That's a question that's occurred to the members of the group called Swarmius .
They're classically trained and they are in search of a kind of music that can draw on classical and other traditions.
Guests
- Joe Waters, composer who performs on laptop computer.
- Felix Olschofka, violinist.
- Todd Rewoldt, saxophonist.