'Some nuts sound better than others'

– Margaret Leng Tan, as she places nuts and bolts in a piano for John Cage's prepared-piano music

That's from "The MTT Files," Michael Tilson Thomas' new series on (mostly modern) music, from American Public Media and MTT's San Francisco Symphony. In Richmond, WCVE (88.9 FM) plans to air the series at 2 p.m. Sept. 10-19.

Meanwhile, you can hear the first episode, "You Call That Music?!" on music's relationship (and debt) to noise, at:
http://americanpublicmedia.publicradio.org/programs/mtt_files/mtt_01.shtml