We spoke to Alley Stoughton for this week’s featured show interview! Alley brings modern classical music to WMBR through the show Not Brahms and Liszt.
You can hear Not Brahms and Liszt on WMBR every Monday from 4-5:30pm.
* How did you first get involved with WMBR?
ALLEY: I’d been a long-term listener — even when I lived in Kansas, where Nancy Nangeroni and Gordene MacKenzie’s GenderTalk brought me to the station, but I especially loved Aural Fixation and James Dean Death Car Experience. Three years ago, I guest DJed on Aural Fixation. Because I was MIT Staff at the time (MIT Lincoln Laboratory), I thought why not join the station?
* What is your favourite part of hosting Not Brahms and Liszt?
A: I always loved modern classical music, but since I started doing research for a weekly show, I’ve become astounded by the quantity and quality of the work composers are producing. Modern classical music is a small enough niche that composers and performers are often more than happy to interact with producers and DJs interested in programming their work. I’ve connected with a number of composers on Twitter and by email. One composer recently told me “Sometimes I feel that our era may come to be regarded as a golden age compositionally”. I wholeheartedly agree, and I’m thrilled to be able to bring new work to the airwaves.
* Do you have any particularly memorable listener interactions?
A: I love it when listeners phone or text to say they are happily amazed I’m playing long pieces — in their entirety — on the air. This happened during my celebration of Steve Reich’s 80th birthday last fall, while playing his 57 minute long minimalist masterpiece “Music for 18 Musicians”. Another example was when playing Julia Wolfe’s Pulitzer Prize winning oratorio “Anthracite Fields”, which combines classical, rock and folk idioms.
* What has been your favourite music to play recently?
A: Among my recent favorites was mezzo-soprano Aylish Kerrigan and pianist Dearbhla Collins’s recording of Irish composer Seóirse Bodley’s 1978 “A Girl”. This piece is a cycle of twenty-two songs based on poems specially written by Irish author Brendan Kennelly. The girl of the title is pregnant, and the poem sequence “traces her emotions and thoughts as she moves toward the only logical solution she can see”.
[Learn more about Not Brahms and Liszt at Alley’s website!]
By kennedy Tue Sep 5th 2017 at 1:02 pm
Alley: you do a great job with the show… I not surprised listeners are so positive about what you are playing. Keep up the good work !
By John Keegan Wed Sep 13th 2017 at 3:08 pm
Alley,
such an unusual and fantastic show. Sometimes angular, sometimes ethereal, sometimes cacophonous. Who else curates and presents the wide range of fringe of the fringe of the way underappreciated contemporary classical music category? The show sounds cool in the car but the music really opens up on a on a sweet, old-school stereo. Challenging and rewarding. I would love to hear an all Boston show – I hope I haven’t missed it. Thanks.
John K.
By Alley Stoughton Mon Nov 6th 2017 at 11:40 am
Thanks so much for your comment, John! You’re right, I don’t think I’ve done an all-Boston show. Sounds like a good idea.