The Relache Chronicles: Recent Episodes
The Relache Chronicles Team
THE RELACHE CHRONICLES is a podcast about musicians residing in what we call “the Margins of American Music.” In these 30-to-45-minute episodes, we’ll play recordings – primarily by The Relache Ensemble from Philadelphia - of complete musical works plus commentary by composers, performers, and others with insight to the music. Throughout the podcast, we’ll discuss the guest composers’ processes, how they utilized current and past technologies and how the acoustical properties of a given space informed the creation and performance of a musical work. Finally, we will discuss how the composers’ relationship with the musicians brought the music to life.The first set of five episodes feature the music of John Cage and Robert Ashley, Joe Kasinskas, Pauline Oliveros, Guy Klucevsek, and Eve Beglarian. THE RELACHE CHRONICLES is produced, edited, and recorded by Joseph Franklin, Arthur Stidfole, and Joe Kasinskas. Throughout their careers, they have been performing musicians, composers, executive and artistic directors, radio hosts and authors, dedicated to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Episode 30! Wow. We at The Relache Chronicles cannot believe that we’ve crafted thirty episodes of the podcast over a five-year period featuring recorded performances and commentary of a time in American music history that, to our minds will likely not be repeated any time soon. Sure enough, we’ve selected composers and music that celebrates our admiration for them – socially and artistically - while telling stories that reflect our times together. Episode One features two artists whose artistic visions gave rise to The Relache Ensemble. To tie together this totemic period (mid-to-late twentieth century), Episode Thirty is wrapped around the music of composer Aaron J Kernis.
As you will learn from our conversation with Aaron, we’ve known him since the early years of The Relache Ensemble. Our conversation with him is full of good memories and stories. The music that we’ve featured is an early work of Aaron’s titled “Music for Trio IV” composed for flute, cello and piano composed in 1982. The performance is from New Music America 1987 in Philadelphia. So, settle back and enjoy this trip down the proverbial memory lane.
Episode Twenty-Nine: Michael Nyman
Michael Nyman is a composer of concert music, film scores and the author of a book that influenced countless composers and educators in the late twentieth century that embraced musical styles counter to the modernist music of European and American composers whose works dominated university faculties worldwide. Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond certainly influenced the producing team here at The Relache Chronicles. Michael’s music for films is likely best known for those directed by Peter Greenaway. His score for Jane Campion’s film, “The Piano” is possibly his best-known work. Michael’s music has been referenced as “…taking no prisoners…” It is hard-driving, episodic, repetitive, at times very loud, and always unique. So, of course, it attracted the Relache Ensemble who then commissioned him to write a piece that is titled “HRT.” Composed in 1995-96, “HRT” was a dominant work in The Relache Ensemble’s repertoire during those years, and it was recorded on the Monroe Street Music label in 1997, now out of print. It is that recording and a conversation about Michael we’ll feature on this episode.
The members of The Relache ensemble were Laurel Wyckoff, flutes and piccolo; Ken Ulansey, saxophone and clarinet; Lloyd Shorter, oboe and English horn; Jon Gaarder, bassoon; Kathleen Carroll, viola; Douglas Mapp, bass and electric bass.
On February 25, 2026 “Comin’ On Home – A Concert for Guy” was held at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY. On the day before what would have been his 79th birthday, the concert celebrated the life and music of accordionist, composer and performer, Guy Klucevsek who passed away on May 22, 2025. Guy was well known to international audiences for his exquisite playing. His compositions for solo accordion number in the hundreds. He performed and recorded numerous works by other composers that were commissioned specially for him. He was a sideman or leader of numerous ensembles in the United States and Europe. He created pieces for ensembles such as Relache and Little Big Top (both of them are featured in this episode). His quartet Accordion Tribe toured Europe and became the subject of a documentary film. You can see a complete listing of his compositions, solo performances and collaborations with artists worldwide on his website .
Three earlier episodes of The Relache Chronicles are dedicated to Guy’s music. Episodes 4 and 10 feature conversations with him and the team as well as recordings of his music. Episode twenty-three is a personal tribute to Guy by the Relache Chronicles producing team, all close personal friends. To those episodes, we add Episode Twenty-Eight.
“Comin’ On Home – A Concert for Guy” featured thirty-one works played by eight soloists and twenty-four ensemble players who were friends and collaborators of Guy’s. From those thirty-one works, we have selected eight to play on this episode. They are performed by The Relache Ensemble, Little Big Top Ensemble, accordionists Nathan Koci, Alex Meixner and Will Holshauser, violinists, Andie Tanning and Todd Reynolds, pianist Joe Kubera, and singer Kamala Sankaram.
We have included links to the complete audio and video recording of Comin' On Home - A Concert for Guy and the 28-page program booklet (with program notes on each piece in the concert order.)
The complete audio and video recordings of the concert can be found on the Roulette website HERE. You can download the program booklet HERE.
Created, written and performed by Arthur Sabatini, The Walkings are literary and poetic musings and commentaries set to music of William Duckworth’s “The Time Curve Preludes,” played by pianist Neely Bruce from a recording on the Lovely Music label. (Episode Twelve of The Relache Chronicles features Bill’s music plus commentary from the Relache Chronicles Team, who were all friends of Bill’s.) Arthur’s personal and professional association with Bill Duckworth and his wife, media artist, Nora Farrel is explained by Arthur as he charts a mythical path through time as “The Chronicler,” the name he adopted as a member of The Cathedral Band. (Cathedral, the iPod Opera and iOrpheus were creations of Bill and Nora in collaboration with a group of artists.) This episode consists of thirteen preludes from The Walkings. Click HERE for a full recorded performance of all twenty-four preludes. Although different fromArthur’s collaborations with Bill, Nora and The Cathedral Band, The Walkings represent a tribute to their artistic legacies. It is beautifully performed by Arthur and Neely Bruce. The Walkings is somewhat of a departure from the format of earlier episodes, but true to the intent of The Relache Chronicles, it honors the music and related projects created and performed by members of Relache’s extended family.
Composer Joe Kasinskas moved to the Philadelphia area when the Relache Ensemble was still in a formative stage of defining itself as a performing entity. Its mission was, of course, performing new music within the experimental music traditions. In those days, the ensemble tossed a wide net, hoping to snare young composers with visions of how to incorporate evolving performative styles and emerging electronic and computer technologies in a compelling manner that would appeal to a new, inquisitive audience. Joe’s timing was impeccable. He envisioned musical works that used analog audio-acoustic systems to enhance, alter and extend the sounds generated by traditional musical instruments. He often used mythological stories as vehicles within which to set his musical creations. That is the focus on this episode of the Relache Chronicles.
Two works will be featured that were incorporated into a musical theater piece titled “Demeter’s Lament.” The first, titled “Vesperal Span” for solo flute features an analog delay technique that produces an aural illusion of sound moving in space. The second work, titled “Flight of Birds” for solo violin uses an analog delay to create an environmental echo suggesting a group of birds talking flight, an illusory image emanating from the violin. Each work was intended to serve as a concert performance piece as well as a part of “Demeter’s Lament.”
Composer Joe Kasinskas moved to the Philadelphia area when the Relache Ensemble was still in a formative stage of defining itself as a performing entity. Its mission was, of course, performing new music within the experimental music traditions. In those days, the ensemble tossed a wide net, hoping to snare young composers with visions of how to incorporate evolving performative styles and emerging electronic and computer technologies in a compelling manner that would appeal to a new, inquisitive audience. Joe’s timing was impeccable. He envisioned musical works that used analog audio-acoustic systems to enhance, alter and extend the sounds generated by traditional musical instruments. He often used mythological stories as vehicles within which to set his musical creations. That is the focus on this episode of the Relache Chronicles.
Two works will be featured that were incorporated into a musical theater piece titled “Demeter’s Lament.” The first, titled “Vesperal Span” for solo flute features an analog delay technique that produces an aural illusion of sound moving in space. The performer is Laurel Wyckoff who premiered it with the Relache Ensemble. The second work, titled “Flight of Birds” for solo violin uses an analog delay to create an environmental echo suggesting a group of birds talking flight, an illusory image emanating from the violin. It is performed by Bridget Kasinskas, who premiered it on a Relache Ensemble concert. Each work was intended to serve as a concert performance piece as well as a part of “Demeter’s Lament.”
Three works by composer and media artist Eve Beglarian titled “Fresh Air,” “Machaut in the Machine Age,” and “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” performed by the Relache Ensemble and the MATA Ensemble are featured. Throughout her extensive composing career, Eve has collaborated with numerous performers - poets, theater artists and directors, choreographers, and visual artists – to create works in a variety of media, including her long-term project named Book of Days. Listen as Eve and the podcast team discuss her career and how each of the works performed were created. Duration is 49’30.”
Bertolt Brecht, playwright, director, poet and provocateur, was a dynamic figure throughout his life, whether it be in his native Germany or during his residence in the United States. Best known for collaborating with composer Kurt Weill to create a unique style of music and theater in the early years of the 20th century, Brecht also collaborated with other composers, principally Hanns Eisler with whom he shared a distinct political perspective. Both Brecht and Eisler resided in Los Angeles with other European artists and intellectuals, after fleeing their respective homes prior to and during WWII. During those years in Los Angeles and upon their return to what became East Germany following the war, they collaborated on a collection of songs as Brecht continued to write poetry and plays. Their collaboration is the focus of Episode Twenty-Five.
In the early 1980’s members of the Relache Ensemble – and friends – developed a music theater work that celebrated Brecht and Eisler’s songs and poetry. The title of the piece is “Bertolt Brecht and Song.” Part One of the work features songs by Brecht-Weill sung by Relache’s featured vocalist, Barbara Noska accompanied by the late accordionist-composer, Guy Klucevsek. Part Two features songs by Eisler-Brecht and poetry by Brecht performed by Barbara Noska, actor Christopher Hayes and guitarist Joe Kasinskas. “Bertolt Brecht and Song” premiered at the Yellow Springs Institute in Pennsylvania. This is the performance that is featured on Episode Twenty-Five of The Relache Chronicles.
This is a major work by the pioneering composer, sound artist and activist, Pauline Oliveros. Created in collaboration with dancer-choreographer, Deborah Hay, and the Relache Ensemble while in residence at the Yellow Springs Institute for the Arts and Humanities in Chester Springs, PA, “The Well” has been performed throughout the U.S., Europe, Japan, and South America by Relache and recorded on Hat Hut Records. The podcast team discusses how “The Well” was developed and shaped in collaboration with Pauline and Deborah, with assistance from Guy Klucevsek, who was an original member of the Relache Ensemble. Duration is 34’34.”
Lois V Vierk is a unique voice in the recent history of music in America. She has composed stunning works for multiples of the same instrument that are technically complex and yield a mesmerizing aural experience. Among these is “Manhattan Cascade” for accordions, composed, recorded and performed widely by Guy Klucevsek, former Relache Ensemble member, composer and pioneering accordionist. (You can hear Guy’s music on Episode Four of The Relache Chronicles.) This episode of The Relache Chronicles features a work Lois composed for the Relache Ensemble in 1992 titled “Timberline.” Lois and members of the Relache Ensemble are in perfect synch with one another. Prior to the recording of “Timberline” is a conversation with Lois, Laurel Wyckoff, Joe Kasinskas and Joseph Franklin to discuss her influences and some of the events that led to her creating “Timberline.”
Episode Fifteen – Robert Ashley
“Since he began composing and performing in the late 1950s, Robert Ashley has created a wholly original body of work. Continuously productive, his oeuvre encompasses nearly all versions of music and music/sound performance from instrumental and electronic compositions to film music and music videos to multi sectioned, intermediated staged operas. Ashley has also written essays and scores, and published books as well as dozens of audio and video recordings.” This from the opening paragraph of an article written by Arthur Sabatini for Performing Arts Journal in 2005, reveals a snapshot view of Robert Ashley’s profoundly creative life.
Throughout the history of experimental music – especially in the United States - there have been many extraordinary artists whose lives interacted with one another in dynamic ways. From John Cage to Morton Feldman; from Philip Glass to Terry Riley; from Robert Ashley to Alvin Lucier…all shared a unique perspective on music, sound, and performance throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Episode Fifteen of The Relache Chronicles features the work of one of the most fascinating artists from the fascinating genre known as “New Music,” Robert Ashley. Better known for his theater works, operas, if you will, we at The Relache Chronicles will focus on two works that define Bob’s exploratory interests: sound production and technology and instrumental/timbral contrasts within the context of performance. Specifically, we’ll hear excerpts from “The Wolfman,” created in 1964, and a complete recording of “Outcome Inevitable,” composed for the Relache Ensemble in 1992.
Episode Fourteen - Annson Kenney
Annson Kenney was a dynamic presence in Philadelphia from the mid-sixties until his death in late 1981. A visual artist, writer, performer, and composer, Annson was a difficult man to pin down. Although initially trained in music, his imagination and introspection led him far from his role as a contrabass player. In the 1970’s Annson designed a remarkable series of works using classic luminous tubing (neon tubes) that explored a variety of linguistic concepts. Still, he continued making performative works for himself and members of the Relache Ensemble with whom he had close working and personal relationships. On this episode we’ll listen to some of those sonic works and learn about Annson through commentary by his friends and collaborators who share their memories and insights to his life and work.
Critical Band, an extraordinary composition by James Tenney has been described as a “sound poem,” and an “aural flower” slowly unfolding as the pitch tableau becomes evident and clear to the listener. John Cage, a long-time friend of Jim Tenney’s wrote him after hearing the premiere performance a congratulatory note, “…if this is harmony, I take back everything I said to you in the past.” (John and Jim had two quite different concepts of Western harmony.) The world premiere of Critical Band is the single work to be heard and discussed on this episode of the Relache Chronicles, performed by the Relache Ensemble in 1989. It has been described by former members of Relache as the most profoundly important work composed for the group. Listen carefully as you find your way to the critical band, an aural phenomenon that is both revealing and soothing.
William Duckworth – known as Bill to his friends – was a composer, educator and author who wrote for contemporary ensembles and soloists throughout a busy compositional career in the mid to late twentieth century. He was a professor of music at Bucknell University and published five books on twentieth century music and theory. At the time of his passing in 2012, Bill was developing large scale interactive digital works for the internet in collaboration with his wife, Nora Farrell, a computer software designer. He is best known for “The Time Curve Preludes, a work for piano solo and “Southern Harmonies” for choral ensemble. On this episode of The Relache Chronicles we will discuss and listen to an early work of Bill’s titled “Pitch City Breakdown” for amplified piano and “Simple Songs About Sex and War “for mezzo-soprano and synthesizer. Both works are played and sung by members of The Relache Ensemble, with whom he often collaborated.
Episode 11
Episode 11 is the third of three episodes of music and commentary from the New Music America Festival 1987 in Philadelphia, produced and presented by the Relache organization. Sound installations and outdoor performances in some unlikely locations have been part of New Music America festivals throughout the eleven-year history of the festivals. For this episode we have selected three outdoor events and one example of computer influenced works by composer-installations artists Alvin Curran, Bob Goldberg, Joel Chadabe and the collaborative team of Christopher Janney and Joan Bingham. From the bowels of Philadelphia’s Broad Street Subway station to the Delaware River waterway, these works celebrate the diversity of musical events that were part of New Music America 1987 – Philadelphia.
Episode 10 is the second of three episodes of music and commentary from the New Music America Festival 1987 in Philadelphia, produced and presented by the Relache organization. This episode is one of our favorites. It features the premiere performance of accordionist-composer Guy Klucevsek’s “Polka from the Fringe,” a terrific investigation of Polkas in all their glory. Virtuosic, whimsical, outrageous, Guy’s performance at a funky bar in Olde City Philadelphia is a must-hear for all “new music” fans. In some ways these polkas deconstruct the genre. They keep alive the inventiveness inherent in the music of a variety of contemporary composers, with a keen sense of humor. As you will hear, Guy dedicated the performance of “Polka from the Fringe” to Charles Mingus’s remark, “Let the white man develop the polka.” In that spirit, Guy turns the table on this much beloved genre of dance music.
Episode Nine
In 1979, a group of composers, performers, video artists, producers, presenters, and other experimental artists met at The Kitchen, a renowned Downtown NY performance space to present a festival named New Music New York. The following year in Minneapolis, The Walker Art Center produced and presented a festival based on New Music New York that they called the New Music America Festival. For the following 9 years New Music America Festivals were held in a different city each year, produced, and presented by a local arts organization. In 1987, the festival was produced and presented by the Relache organization in collaboration with the City of Philadelphia. Over a 10-day period, concerts, installations, videos, parties, and a seminar called “Talking Music” was presented at venues throughout the city. The Relache Chronicles will reflect upon these events, beginning with Episode 9, New Music America Festival 1987 – Philadelphia.
Romulus Franceschini was a composer, arranger, music editor and assistant curator at the Edwin L. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral music in Philadelphia, his hometown. Raised in the vibrant Italian American community in South Philly, Romulus absorbed the rich classical music that was ever present in Philadelphia, while absorbing the equally rich jazz inflected music of the mid-twentieth century. He studied cello and French Horn; served in a U.S. Army Band in occupied Japan; studied composition and theory with Vincent Persichetti after returning from the service; studied with with Stephan Wolpe and Morton Feldman in New York City; made numerous arrangements for jazz musicians in Philadelphia, including Calvin Massey and John Coltrane, and wrote music for chamber ensembles, voices, and soloists. As an editor at the Fleisher Collection, he was prominent in analyzing the draft and extracting the instrumental parts of Charles Ives’ Fourth Symphony, working in collaboration with conductor Leopold Stokowski, who premiered it in 1964. As Romulus said of himself, “I’m an eclectic composer.” His “eclecticism” was immensely valuable to the growth and maturity of the Relache Ensemble, for whom he served as a guiding force for all things musical. Romulus passed away in 1994. This episode of the Relache Chronicles celebrates the life and music of Romulus Franceschini.
As the founding director of the Experimental Intermedia foundation, Phill Niblock has presented hundreds, if not thousands of concerts at his space in downtown New York City. As a composer, he has created numerous musical works for performing ensembles worldwide. As a film maker, he has made films that have been shown at festivals throughout the world, often accompanied by his music. Recently, we interviewed Phill to discuss a work of his titled "Not Untitled, Knot Untied, Old" that was created for the Relache Ensemble, and performed by Relache in 1984 in Philadelphia.
Baritone saxophonist, composer, band leader, recording artist, writer, and social activist, Fred Ho was a prodigious artist who created a large body of works for the concert hall and theater. By integrating Chinese folk songs and music from an African American diaspora, Fred created a unique and dynamic artistic legacy. Among the music in his legacy is titled “Contradiction Please! The Revenge of Charlie Chan,” composed for The Relache Ensemble. It was the first work that Fred composed for an ensemble other than for one of his own groups, The Afro-Asian Music Ensemble and The Monkey Orchestra. His passing at 57 in 2014 has left a void in American Music. We hope this episode will rekindle an interest in Fred Ho’s music. Duration is 45:06.
Episode No. 2 Joe Kasinskas. One of the more dynamic works in the Relache Ensemble’s extensive catalogue of site-specific performances is titled “Echoes in Palindromes” by composer Joe Kasinskas. Following a carefully scripted graphic score, four performers move throughout a performance space playing notated musical palindromes amidst reverberant echoes, the result of audio-playback procedures while two “microphonists” follow their movements in search of the resonant frequency of the room. Part dance, part ritual, part dream, this work is an intuitive leap toward sonic truth. Duration is 33’10.”