"Classical music is relaxing." "I listen to classical music because it's soothing." "I turn on classical music when I want to concentrate."

These are all things we're guessing very few people have said about the composer you're going to learn about in this episode. Elliott Carter's music is about something much more vast and complex than chillaxing: it's about the full range of human experience. If you've been alive for long enough to read this, you know that being a person is not always easy - that, in fact, ease can't exist without difficulty. It's a thing that we expect other art forms to reflect. And in this episode, Austin Wulliman and Christopher Otto of the JACK Quartet teach all about a composer who used this music to convey It All, too.

PS, You can go see the JACK Quartet perform the music of Elliott Carter, or go check them out at the Ojai Festival this summer. Find out more here.

Music in this episode:

Special thanks to Todd Reynolds for his music, Taskforce: Farmlab from Outerbourough.