When most of us think about new music, we think about a concert – or maybe a recording. But for the musicians who perform this music, the dominant experience isn’t the concert: It’s the days, weeks, even months spent alone practicing the music. So we thought we’d ask our musicians: what’s it like to receive a new score?

Bonus! Listen to the live performance of Helga Arias Parra’s Incipit (which we’re rehearsing in the episode above) and e-mail us to let us know what you take away from it:

HERE ARE SOME LINKS TO MUSIC YOU HEAR IN THIS EPISODE:

Ensemble Dal Niente performing music by Pierce Gradone (To Paint Their Madness) and Jeff Parker (Water on Glass).
Drew Baker’s Nox, performed by the combined musicians of Ear Taxi Festival.
The Spektral Quartet performing music by Tomeka Reid (Prospective Dwellers) and Samuel Adams (Quartet Movement)
(GRAMMY winners!) Third Coast Percussion’s performance of their own collaborative-composition Reaction Yield