 “I find it lifts me out of wherever I am... I just love it.” For this bonus festive episode, actor Tom Hiddleston fondly reminisces about one of his earliest childhood memories, dancing along to a VHS of The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky. He reveals that the energetic Russian Dance is still a piece he listens to when he needs a shot of vitality in his day. Tom Hiddleston is a British actor who has won multiple awards for his work on stage and screen. A performer of vast range, from Shakespeare to John Le Carré to comic book characters, he is best known for playing Loki in the Marvel Universe and recently made his Broadway debut in an acclaimed production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to catch up on previous episodes or delve deeper into our companion playlist. The Open Ears Project will be back in 2020 for season two, so stay tuned...

The Open Ears Project

BONUS: Tom Hiddleston on The Nutcracker

 “The language of music brings out different parts of us. It's universal. It's probably the most important thing with which [we] can make peace.” For the final episode in our opening season of The Open Ears Project, relationship therapist Esther Perel talks about the first time she heard Fauré’s Requiem as a young woman and how it seemed to “understand” an inexpressible sadness she was carrying inside her. She describes with great tenderness the way music connects her to her mother, a survivor of the Holocaust, and how this piece transports her to something akin to a religious experience. Esther Perel is a psychotherapist, relationships expert, author, and creator and host of the podcast Where Should We Begin? Season 3 of Where Should We Begin? Comes out Thursday October 10th on Spotify. Later this fall she will launch a new podcast on Spotify focused on workplace dynamics. Learn more at Estherperel.com/podcast Did you like the track Esther chose? Listen to the music in full: In Paradisum by Gabriel Fauré 

30. Esther Perel on Peace

 “For me on a chaotic day, where maybe things are out of control or I don't have a lot of control over what's happening... I listen to this on repeat. And it smooths out some of the angular parts of the day.” Producer Krystal Hawes talks about how as a jazz student she had held classical music at a distance, thinking it was something perfect and pristine. But hearing the unexpected, almost jazz-like soundworld of Maurice Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte helped open the door to a lifelong love of classical music. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to receive a new episode every day or delve deeper into our companion playlist. Krystal Hawes is a producer and project coordinator at WQXR.  Did you like the track Krystal chose? Listen to the music in full: Pavane pour une infante défunte by Maurice Ravel

29. Krystal Hawes on Imperfection

 “There’s a patience that it asks for, and a patience it imparts, and you sort of have to be tall enough to ride this ride.” In this episode, Dessa talks about how when her father played her the “Chaconne” from J.S. Bach’s Partita for Violin in D Minor as part of a classical music “starter kit”, the piece immediately spoke to her, not just because she finds an unexpected connection between rap and classical music, but in how its range of emotions, and its interplay between beauty and anger have given her something to lean on in challenging times. Dessa is a singer and rapper with the Doomtree crew of Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has two upcoming shows in New York at National Sawdust and The Greene Space.   Did you like the track Dessa chose? Listen to the music in full: Chaconne for Violin by J.S. Bach

28. Dessa on Patience

 “It changed my life… I had this revelation, juxtaposing my own privilege and the lucky life I had, compared to what she had gone through.” In this episode, Jesse Eisenberg talks about how a trip to visit family in Poland made him realize how removed he had been from the experience of the Holocaust, and how that sense of guilt inspired him to write The Revisionist, his play about a cousin who’d survived the the Holocaust. To create the right sense of place, Jesse used Polish expatriate composer Frédéric Chopin’s pyrotechnic Etude Opus 10, No. 1 as part of the production.  Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to receive a new episode every day or delve deeper into our companion playlist. Jesse Eisenberg is an actor and playwright.   Did you like the track Jesse chose? Listen to the music in full: Etude Opus 10, No. 1 by Frederic Chopin

27. Jesse Eisenberg on History

 “It just makes me feel so much, this piece. There’s something happening here that’s so incredibly sweet but also so mournful.”  In this episode, Christopher Wheeldon talks about how he discovered Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev after seeing his first ballet, Romeo and Juliet, at the Royal Opera House. He later fell in love with Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto, wearing out a cassette tape of it in the process of playing it over and over. The music stuck with him for years to come, and though he’d abandoned previous attempts to create a ballet for it, once Wheeldon started his own company, he finally felt able to choreograph for the music he’d connected with so strongly as a child. Christopher Wheeldon is a Tony-Award winning choreographer. His work includes An American in Paris, the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games and the minimalist ballet After The Rain, which inspired the Open Ears episode by Megan Reid.   Did you like the track Christopher chose? Listen to the music in full: Violin Concerto No. 2, second movement by Sergei Prokofiev

26. Christopher Wheeldon on A Journey

 “If the lights were on in the audience, listening to this music I would just be flayed open...” Children’s author and television producer Megan Reid talks about how a performance of choreographer Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain sparked her lifelong obsession with ballet. Watching the ballet’s second half, a stark dance duet set to Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel, Reid found that great dance — like great writing — created a world she wanted to live in forever.Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to receive a new episode every day or delve deeper into our companion playlist. Megan Reid is a children’s book author and the director of literary scouting and development at FX Networks.  Did you like the track Megan chose? Listen to the music in full: Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Pärt

25. Megan Reid on What Changed My Life

 “Beethoven, the guy who created art to speak to justice and equality. The guy who loved family, you know, so close to his mother — like I am.” WQXR evening host Terrance McKnight talks about a late Beethoven bagatelle and how the composer’s perseverance in the face of adversity draws a connection between, family, art, and the Langston Hughes poem “Life is Fine.” Terrance McKnight is the evening host at WQXR.   Did you like the track Terrance chose? Listen to the music in full:  Bagatelles, Op. 126, No. 1 by Ludwig van Beethoven, performed by Terrance McKnight

24. Terrance McKnight on Overcoming Adversity

 “When I was younger, classical music was only played in, like, bookstores... But nowadays you can expose children to the music in a way that allows them just to appreciate [it] without any stereotypes.” In this episode, New York City preschool teacher Justin Jackson tells us how Edvard Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King inspired him as a child to march around the living room, and how he shares that excitement with his young students as he passes on his love of creativity, imagination, and the arts. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to receive a new episode every day or delve deeper into our companion playlist. Justin Jackson is a New York City preschool art teacher. Did you like the track Justin chose? Listen to the music in full: In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg

23. Justin Jackson on Imagination

“When I hear that piece playing, my back relaxes, actually. That's where I carry all my stress.” In this episode, Alison talks about how she gave up learning the piano when she was young after the sudden death of her piano teacher, and how the rocking ebbs and flows of Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1 helped her come back to the instrument as an adult — and learn to let go. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to receive a new episode every day or delve deeper into our companion playlist. Alison Stewart is a Peabody Award–winning journalist and the host of WNYC’s show All Of It.  Did you like the track Alison chose? Listen to the music in full: Gymnopédie No. 1 by Erik Satie

22. Alison Stewart on Just Letting Go

  "I think that’s the beauty of music, there’s eternity in it. And I think that’s true also of architecture even in ruined architecture, you can see an [eternal] sense of a spirit.” Architect Daniel Libeskind talks about listening to the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by J. S. Bach, and how music, like architecture, creates a shared space — rooted in memory but looking ahead to eternity — that connects us all. Daniel Libeskind is an Polish-American architect best known for designing the Jewish Museum Berlin and his master plan for the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan.  Did you like the track Daniel chose? Listen to the music in full: Toccata and Fugue in D minor by J.S. Bach (arranged for orchestra by Leopold Stokowski)

21. Daniel Libeskind on Perspective

 “It’s a sad peacefulness that sometimes we all need. When we need to take a breath — just before starting something new.” WQXR’s Jacqui Cheng talks about her journey in finding the Adagio movement from J.S. Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 1. Her interest in Bach started with the soundtrack to the Atari 2600 game “Gyruss” (which included 8-bit snippets of Bach's Fugue in D Minor), and led her to the public library, where she found emotional comfort in Bach’s resolution of dissonances. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to receive a new episode every day or delve deeper into our companion playlist. Jacqui Cheng is a musician, technologist, and WQXR’s Editor-in-Chief.  Did you like the track Jacqui chose? Listen to the music in full: Violin Sonata No.1, Adagio by J.S. Bach

20. Jacqui Cheng on Resolution

 “There [are] so many emotions in the piece, and so many states of consciousness — there's not one thing. There's an intensity of relationships that unfold over time.” Trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis talks about how Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 16 helped him understand the role of music — and the musician — in connecting the past and the future. Beyond his technical achievements, Marsalis relates with Beethoven’s ability to unflinchingly investigate and combine conflicting emotions and states of consciousness to create art that unfolds in time. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to receive a new episode every day or delve deeper into our companion playlist. Trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis is the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center.  Did you like the track Wynton chose? Listen to the music in full: String Quartet No. 16, second movement by L.V. Beethoven

19. Wynton Marsalis on Time and Consciousness

 “The best children's books have this moment of ‘Why am I here? What am I doing?’ ... And I feel that in this music.” In this episode, Eva talks about how, each evening after finishing her day job at Instagram and spending time with her two young children, she resets by putting on the first movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 17. The piece’s emotional transitions help put her into the mindset of Juno Valentine, the heroine of her children’s book series.   Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to receive a new episode every day or delve deeper into our companion playlist. Eva Chen is a children’s book author and director of fashion partnerships at Instagram. Her latest book in the Juno Valentine series will be out October 29th. Did you like the track Eva chose? Listen to the music in full: Piano Concert No. 17, first movement by W.A. Mozart

18. Eva Chen on Nourishing The Soul

 “It actually takes you off the ground. You are floating in the clouds, which doesn't make logical sense, but that's what it feels like.” Comedian and actor Eddie Izzard talks about Claude Debussy’s Clair de Lune, and how its emotional pulse takes her outside the flow of metronomic time and into the deep connections she feels with her family and audience. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to receive a new episode every day or delve deeper into our companion playlist. Eddie Izzard is a stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and activist. Did you like the track Eddie chose? Listen to the music in full: Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy

17. Eddie Izzard on Elevation

Part mix tape, part sonic love-letter, the Open Ears Project is a daily podcast where people share the classical track that means the most to them. Each episode offers a soulful glimpse into other human lives, helping us to hear this music—and each other—differently. The Open Ears Project is produced by WQXR and WNYC Studios, home of great podcasts including Radiolab, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media, Nancy, and Here’s the Thing with Alec Baldwin.

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The Open Ears Project

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