Briggs Kennedy

Starting in July (today!), I will post playlists and send newsletters on the 1st and 3rd Fridays of every month (newsletters also contain Find New Music! Map updates and new music shows/events in Arizona). If there are interesting shows that… Continue reading

I started a playlist of black, US-based composers to celebrate Juneteenth, and in doing that I wanted to primarily feature black composers that I haven’t already featured on previous playlists and that aren’t the composers that are on EVERY “Black… Continue reading

For my 100 Days of Summer Listening project, I created 10 group names to give the project some structure and help me select albums. They’ve turned out to be fun listening guideposts so I’m going to use them as playlist… Continue reading

I’ve created a starter pack of concertos that aren’t your typical INSTRUMENT + ORCHESTRA. I’ve included several concertos for orchestra (each section gets a feature), a concerto for string quartet, and a concerto for piano and electric ensemble. Normally, I try… Continue reading

My playlist this week is full of song cycles! WTF is a song cycle? Literally a group of songs meant to be performed together, usually in a specific order. I’ve picked 6 cycles that are wildly different for you to… Continue reading

This week’s playlist is music for rare and prepared instruments. A prepared instrument is where you put stuff in or on an instrument to alter its sound. Threading aluminum foil through harp strings makes it rattle and placing a brick… Continue reading

I have a confession – I don’t really like music for saxophone – which means I need to listen to more contemporary works for sax and find some that I at least want to get to know better. I think… Continue reading

One of my favorite composers is Eve Beglarian – and in an effort to find a playlist theme that was a little more cohesive, I started with her work Until it Blazes, a piece for various stings, but I went… Continue reading

The recorder is a weird instrument. In the US, most of us have images of plastic sticks with holes that shrieked Hot Crossed Buns. The reality is, the recorder is hundreds of years old with the first recorded music published… Continue reading

In my heyday of podcast binging, one of my regulars was New Sounds, a WNYC Studios production. “New Sounds is New York Public Radio’s home for the musically curious, since 1982. It’s a hub for discovering weird and wonderful music… Continue reading