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Modern Notebook for October 26, 2025

Photo: composer Daniel Thomas Davis.
Photo credit: Melissa Rivard.
Photo: composer Daniel Thomas Davis.

On the next Modern Notebook with Tyler Kline: Composer Daniel Thomas Davis calls What if We’re Beautiful an experiment in musical gift-craft — a set of movements stitched together like handmade sonic objects. With its boisterous charm and delicate sincerity, the piece includes a hurdy-gurdy tune that’s as playfully heartfelt as the friendships it honors.

Lila Meretzky’s For Linda Catlin Smith is a quartet written in tribute to one of her key influences. Smith’s music often lives in the realm of ambiguity — subtle, spacious, and shaped by her love of painting and literature — and Meretzky’s piece seems to breathe in that same quiet way.

Also featured are works by Sarah Kirkland Snider, Joan Tower, Quenton Blache, Sayo Kosugi, Nathan Hudson, Catherine Likhuta, Bright Sheng, Orlando Jacinto Garcia, and Michele Deiana. Performers include flutist Lina Andonovska, pianist Alex Raineri, Hub New Music, the Sphinx Virtuosi, harpist Jennifer Craig, saxophonist Timothy McAllister, pianist Liz Ames, violist Jordan Bak, Unheard-of//Ensemble, trombonist William Lang, and the Perpetuo Saxophone Quartet.

Tune in Sunday night from 8 ET on Classical WSMR 89.1 and 103.9. Stream the next day at wsmr.org.

Hour 1

Parallel Play by Sarah Kirkland Snider

Joan Tower’s Petroushskates

What If We're Beautiful by Daniel Thomas Davis

Quenton Blache’s Habari Gani

Nebula, Blooming by Sayo Kosugi

Nathan Hudson’s Music for Falling/Flying

Hour 2

Moment of Impact by Catherine Likhuta

Bright Sheng’s The Stream Flows

For Linda Catlin Smith by Lila Meretzky

Orlando Jacinto Garcia’s nubes nocturnas

By the Sea by Michele Deiana

Each week, Tyler Kline journeys into new territory and demystifies the music of living composers on Modern Notebook. Listen for a wide variety of exciting music that engages and inspires, along with the stories behind each piece and the latest releases from today’s contemporary classical artists. Discover what’s in store on Modern Notebook.