Modern monodramas: deconstructing Pierrot Lunaire and unravelling The Big Idea

Laura Bowler is often described as a "composer, performer, and prevocatrice". That may be the perfect combination for "deconstructing" Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, which she's done and is getting its Australian premiere for Ensemble Offspring's 30th birthday concert. She joins Andy to talk about her relationship to Schoenberg's original work, the "extractive" process of wrapping your identity up in your art, and what live electronics bring to her music.

The Big Idea is a monodrama - a sort of micro-opera for one voice - and it's the work of composer Matthew Shlomowitz and philosopher/librettist Vid Simoniti, and it's being performed by Rubiks Collective with singer Lotte Betts-Dean for Rubiks' 10th birthday. It's a story about a character on the brink: "a new idea blossoms, a life unravels, and we witness the tantalising chaos in between". The chaos is rendered in a shapeshifting ensemble that switches from samba, to Scandi-jazz, to Romanticism, to old school Broadway. Matthew and Vid join Andy to talk about how philosophy and composition meet in their collaboration. 

And Neko Case makes the case for her top book of the 21st Century. Vote for yours in Radio National's Top 100 Books now.