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A weekly exploration of the most fascinating time in classical music history: right now.

With composers from nearly every country in the world creating music in diverse styles, there has simply never been a more exciting time for classical music. Relevant Tones creator and host Seth Boustead dives into this treasure trove of music accompanied by first-person interviews, in the field segments that take him to festivals and concert halls around the world, with stellar performances by talented ensembles and soloists.

Host Seth Boustead is an award-winning composer, radio host, arts manager, concert producer, writer, and speaker who works to change classical music and how it is perceived by the general public. Seth is the founder and executive director of Access Contemporary Music, where he has produced more than a hundred live concerts and created the Sound of Silent Film Festival, the ACM School of Music, the Thirsty Ears classical music street festival and many more programs designed to present classical music as a living art form. Seth is a regular contributor to Newcity Magazine. He is the voice of the New York Philharmonic’s Biennial Minute video series. Seth has also given a TEDx talk about the future of classical music.

Ana Lara official site

Born in Mexico City, Ana Lara attended the National Conservatory of Music, where her teachers included Mario Lavista and Daniel Catán; she later studied at CENIDIM with Federico Ibarra. She did postgraduate studies with Zbigniew Rudzinski and Wlodzimierz Kotonski at the Warsaw Academy of Music; and received her Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland in 2004. Her compositions–ranging from solo pieces to orchestral works–have been performed throughout Europe, Japan, as well as in the U.S., Central and South America, and her native Mexico. Lara served as composer in residence of Mexico’s National Symphony Orchestra; and has won the Mexican Ministry of Culture’s grant for young creators, the U.S./Canada/Mexico Creative Artists’s Residency Program Grant, and the Bellagio Artistic Residency.

In 2003, Lara was chosen by the American Composers Forum’s Continental Harmony program to write a collaborative work with Robert Maggio. The resulting 40-minute Dos Visiones / Two Visions, jointly commissioned by the Long Beach Symphony and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Mexico, was premiered under the direction of Enrique Diemecke. Her collaborations with dance companies include Montreal’s Louise Bedard Danse and Chicago’s Luna Negra Dance Company.

Lara has collaborated in various music journals and produces a program at Mexico City’s University Radio (Radio UNAM) devoted to contemporary music. She was a Latin Grammy Nominee for Best Classical Album Producer in 2000. Since 1998 she has been the founder/artistic director of Mexico’s International Festival Música y Escena, which received the Award of the Mexican Union of Critics of Theater and Music. Lara was also the Artistic Director of Puebla Instrumenta Verano 2004, a summer course for young players, and the artistic producer of the Universal Forum of Cultures, Monterrey 2007. She is currently the Mexican Cultural Attaché in Paris. 

Gabriela Ortiz official site

Two-time Latin Grammy nominated Gabriela Ortiz is one of the foremost composers in Mexico today, and one of the most vibrant musicians emerging in the international scene. Her musical language achieves an extraordinary and expressive synthesis of tradition and the avant-garde; combining high art, folk music and jazz in novel, frequently refined and always personal ways. Her compositions are credited for being both entertaining and immediate as well as profound and sophisticated; she achieves a balance between highly organized structure and improvisatory spontaneity. 

Although based in Mexico, her music is commissioned and performed all over the world.  Her music has been commissioned and played by prestigious ensembles, soloists and orchestras such as Los Angeles Philharmonic and Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kroumata and Amadinda percussion ensembles, Kronos quartet, Dawn Upshaw, Sarah Leonard, Cuarteto Latinoamericano, Pierre Amoyal, Southwest Chamber Music, Tambuco percussion quartet, The Malmo Symphony Orchestra, Mexico City’ Philharmonic Orchestra, Simon Bolivar Orchestra in Venezuela, BBC Scottish Symphony, The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic among others.Recent premieres include: Unicamente la verdad (her first opera) with Long Beach Opera, Altar de Piedra for three percussion players, timpani and orchestra premiered in Europe by Amadinda percussion Quartet and The Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra under Zoltan Kocsis; and the American premiere of the same work by the commissioning ensemble, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra with Esa- Pekka Salonen and Kroumata percussion ensemble. 

Ortiz has been honored with the National Prize for Arts and Literature, (the most important award for writers and artists given by the government of Mexico), The Mexican Academy of Arts, Civitella Ranieri Artistic Residency; John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship; the Fulbright Fellowship; the First prize of the Silvestre Revueltas National Chamber Music Competition, the First Prize at the Alicia Urreta Composition Competition; Banff Center for the Arts Residency; the Inroads Commission, a program of Arts International with funds from the Ford Foundation; the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mozart Medal Award. In 1994 she wrote the music for the choreographic work Errant Manoeuvres performed by the Emma Diamond Dance Company at the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York and in 1995 she completed the music score for the award winning film Frontierland produced and directed by Rubén Ortiz and Jessie Lerner. 

In 2000 she returned to film music with the music score for the Mexican film Por la Libre produced by Alta Vista films and directed by Juan Carlos de Llaca.Born in Mexico City her parents were musicians in the famous folk music ensemble Los Folkloristas founded in 1966 to preserve and record the traditional music of Mexico and Latin America. She trained with the eminent composer Mario Lavista at the National Conservatory of Music and Federico Ibarra at the National University of Mexico. 

In 1990 she was awarded the British Council Fellowship to study in London with Robert Saxton at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 1992 she received the University of Mexico Scholarship to complete Ph.D. studies in electroacoustic music composition with Simon Emmerson at The City University in London. She currently teaches composition at the Mexican University of Mexico City and as a visiting faculty at Indiana University.Her music is currently published by Schott, Boosey and Hawkes, Arla Music and Ediciones Mexicanas de Música, saxiana presto and tre fontane.

Felipe Pérez Santiago official site

Felipe Pérez Santiago is a Mexican/Dutch composer considered by the international press as one of the most active and recognised musicians of the current artistic scene. He has received several prizes and recognitions in Europe, United States and Latin America including many composition awards and a platinum album for his work as musical director of the project “Symphonic Rock in your Language”, and has been invited as resident composer and lecturer to conservatories, universities and institutions all over the world.

His music has been played and commissioned in more than 40 countries by internationally renowned formations such as the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, the Dutch Chamber Choir, the Choir of Madrid, the Cello Octet “Conjunto Iberico”, the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble and the internationally renowned Kronos Quartet, amongst many others soloists, ensembles and orchestras worldwide; and has been performed in major venues such as the Theatre de la Ville in Paris, the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, the Forbidden City Music Hall in China, the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico, the Sidney Opera House, the Auditorio Nacional of Madrid and the Carnegie Hall in New York, he has as well conducted many orchestras, chamber ensembles and choirs for recordings, concerts and world premieres.

His compositions are included in over 10 discographic production sand in2010 he became part of the National System of Art Creators in Mexico where in 2013 he was considered honorary member. In 2014 he was considered one of the seven most important artists in Mexico being the only musician in this category and in 2017 he was chosen, together with other two artists, to represent Mexico at the “Keep Walking” campaign of Johhnie Walker.

He is founder and artistic director of the “Mal’Akh Ensemble”, formation that combines contemporary music with rock, free jazz, improvisation, folklore and with a very important element of electronic music and multimedia; with this ensemble he has been awarded with many grants and prizes and has toured extensively through Mexico, the US and Latinamerica.

His work includes orchestral pieces, opera, chamber music, electronic works and music for films, dance, video and multimedia installations.

Mario Lavista on Wikipedia

Considered the foremost composer in Mexico today, Mario Lavista (b. 1943) began piano studies as a child and enrolled at the Conservatorio Nacional de Musica in 1963 under the guidance of Carlos Chavez, Hector Quintanar and Rodolfo Halffter. He studied at the Schola Cantorum in Paris  (1967-1969), where he also attended courses given by Henri Pousseur, Nadia Boulanger, Christoph Caskel and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Upon his return to Mexico he founded Quanta, a collective improvisation group. In 1972, he worked at the electronic music studio of radio and television in Tokyo, Japan. He has worked on interdisciplinary projects, such as Jaula (1976), and in the creation of multiple scores for films produced by Nicolas Echevarria. Around 1980, he explored extended techniques of traditional instruments in collaboration with performers Marielena Arizpe (flutist), Bertram Turetzky (bassist), Leonora Saavedra (oboist) and El Cuarteto Latinoamericano (strings), in the compositions Triptico, Dusk, Marsias and Reflejos de la noche, respectively. In 1982, he founded Pauta, one of the most important music journals in Latin America, and has served as its chief editor ever since. As a writer, he has produced many essays, most of which are collected in Textos en torno a la musica.

In 1987. he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for his first and only opera Aura, based on the short story by Carlos Fuentes. He has received many awards, such as the Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes and the Medalla Mozart. Since 1998, Lavista has been a member of the prestigious EI Colegio Nacional. He has taught in Mexico and abroad, especially in North American institutions, including the University of Chicago, Cornell University, the University of California San Diego, Indiana University and McGill University. His works are frequently performed by some of the most distinguished chamber and orchestral groups.
Mario Lavista’s music is published by Ediciones Mexicanas De Musica, A.C., Mexico City. Peermusic Classical is sole agent outside of Mexico.

Suliman Tekalli official site

Violinist Suliman Tekalli has established his unique voice as an exciting and versatile soloist and chamber musician through his visceral yet elegant and mature performance style, captivating audiences with the depth of his interpretations an assured technique. The abundance of his musical appetite is manifest in his vast repertoire ranging from the standards in the concerto and recital oeuvre through contemporary music and his own original compositions and transcriptions.

As the top prize winner of the 2015 Seoul International Music Competition and prize winner in the Sendai, Lipizer, and Szeryng International Violin Competition, Suliman Tekalli’s performing career has taken him throughout the U.S., Canada, Central America, Europe, and Asia, gracing the stages of numerous halls including Stern Hall at Carnegie Hall, the Seoul Arts Center, Wigmore Hall, and the Millennial Hall at the Kennedy Center among others. His performances have been broadcasted on live TV and radio from KBS TV in Korea, Montreal Canada’s CBC Radio 3, WQXR, and NPR.

An exponent of chamber music, Mr. Tekalli has made appearances at numerous festivals including Music@Menlo, Yellow Barn, and the Banff Centre. He has collaborated and performed with eminent musicians such as Gil Shaham, Cho-Liang Lin, Donald Weilerstein, Paul Watkins, Wu Han, and David Shifrin. He also extensively concertizes as part of the Tekalli Duo, formed with his sibling, pianist Jamila Tekalli with whom he had recorded an album entitled “Duality”, which includes works of Messiaen, Ravel, and Brown.

Suliman Tekalli has commissioned works from composers of his generation such as Michael Brown and Reena Esmail. As a composer/arranger/performer, he has transcribed and orchestrated classical and contemporary repertoire, from works of Chopin, Schubert and Ravel to Fazil Say, some which have been performed by ensembles such as the International Sejong Soloists. He gave the world premiere of his composition “Mephistoccata” from his solo violin suite Fables at the Montreal International Music Competition in 2013, receiving the Maurice and Judith Kaplow Prize for Uncommon Creativity from the Cleveland Institute of Music in the same year.

Mr. Tekalli commitment towards spreading a love and appreciation for music and the arts have made him a passionate educator, performing for classrooms at schools and various community centers, throughout the New York/New Jersey area. He has also worked with talented youths giving master classes at the University of Tampa, University of Delaware, as well as in South America at the Departamento de Artes Musicales in Buenos Aires, Argentina and La Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.

A native of Daytona Beach Florida, Suliman Tekalli was admitted to the Juilliard School at the age of 17 under the Bachelor’s Degree program studying with Hyo Kang, and received a Masters Degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music studying with conductor and former violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet Joel Smirnoff. His early teachers include Lev Gurevich and Sergiu Schwartz