The Open Ears Project

Janna Levin is a theoretical cosmologist and professor of astronomy and physics at Barnard College in New York City, specializing in the study of black holes. A Guggenheim Fellow, she’s authored several books on the topics of space, mathematics, and the impassioned people that study them; her latest book, “Black Hole Survival Guide,” allows readers to imagine an encounter with a black hole.  In the final episode of this season of The Open Ears Project, Janna Levin uses the music of Mozart to venture into the world of perfect circles, spacetime, and the drive to reach a platonic ideal. She muses on the benefits of limitations and rules, and how they have led to some of the most revolutionary scientific discoveries and works of art, from Einstein’s theory of relativity to Mozart’s unfinished Requiem Mass.  This recording of Mozart’s Requiem was provided courtesy of the New York Philharmonic.

Hanna Arie-Gaifman served as the director of the Tisch Center for the Arts at the 92nd Street Y for over 20 years, where she produced countless multidisciplinary projects, cementing 92NY’s place as a leading literary and performance art venue in New York City. Before then, Aire-Gaifman worked around the world as an arts administrator, linguist, and professor.  In this episode, Gaifman shares why Bach’s Sarabande from the English Suite No. 5 reminds her of her late cousin, Zuzana Růžičková, who survived the Terezin concentration camp during World War II and went on to become an acclaimed harpsichordist. In this episode, you'll hear a performance of the Sarabande on the piano by András Schiff from his 1988 Decca recording of the Bach English Suites, as well as performance on the harpsichord by Zuzana Růžičková, courtesy of Arie-Gaifman.

Caroline Shaw is a tireless musician, active as a violinist, vocalist, producer, and composer. She’s won multiple Grammy awards and, along with Kendrick Lamar, is one of the youngest recipients of the Pulitzer Prize in Music. Throughout her career, she has continuously experimented across genres, her collaborations spanning from the likes of Nas and Rosalía to So Percussion and Roomful of Teeth.     With all her acclaim today, it is hard to imagine that Shaw was once just a kid at band camp. In this episode of the Open Ears Project, Shaw recalls performing Felix Mendelssohn’s “Octet for Strings” as a teenager at summer camp, an experience which sparked her lifelong love of chamber music.     This recording of Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-Flat Major was performed by the Gringolts Quartet and Meta4 from the 2020 Bis record, “Octets.”

By day, Nick Ferrone is a Brooklyn real estate agent, but on most Saturday nights, he can be found playing the harmonica at Sunny’s Bar in Red Hook. As the seventh of eight kids, Ferrone reaped the benefits of being exposed to records that most kids his age weren’t listening to, including the one that inspired him to start playing the harmonica: “Giant Step” by Taj Mahal. He also serves as a board member for the Hillside Dog Park and is a passionate fine pencil artist.  In this episode, Ferrone shares his love for Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” and explains why he thinks it gets a bad rap for being too funereal. He describes the beauty he hears in the music and reflects on how it accompanied him through his child’s heart surgery.

You might know actress Lucy Boynton from the television mini-series “The Ipcress File” and films like “Chevalier” and “Murder on the Orient Express.” She grew up with a music-loving family who always had something playing in the background. Here, Boynton shares a favorite piano piece by Chopin and reflects on the power of music to establish tone in filmmaking and to help her get into character.  This episode features Chopin’s Nocturne in B flat minor, Op. 9, No. 1: “Larghetto”, as performed by Maria João Pires from her 1996 Deutsche Grammophon recording “Chopin — The Nocturnes.”