In the last newly released music show of 2025, “Overlooked” host Rob Saffer will play music emphasizing stringed instruments, vocalizing, and percussion. The string section will vary from Rwandan vocals backed by strings to hillbilly ragas, and from Bach arranged for mandolin to a host of new string quartets. Vocal music will include spoken word, a snippet of a Richard Foreman play, and haunting dirges and folk songs. The percussion component consists of bands led by vibraphonists and drummers along with something less categorizable from Slovenia. 

Playlist: 

Prelude: Sorcery 1 - Gateway Trio (DeJohnette, Holland, Abercrombie)

"Overlooked" Theme: Vitus Labrusca  - Ben LaMar Gay

One Red Sunday You Lied & Tried to Steal My Land - Rwanda Sings with Strings

Dik Halay - Diyarbekir - Dinkjian, Lumanovski, Pinarbasi

Pass the Juggernaut - Sir Richard Bishop

Partita No. 3 in E major, VI (“Bouree”) 

Fani (Squirrel) - Dover Quartet/Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate

String Quartet No. 6, Op 35, presto agitato-attacca - Telegraph Quartet/Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1946)

Northern Line - Angel Station (String Quartet No. 2) II. Rhythmico, Con spirito - Quartour Bozzini/Owen Underhill

Quartet for Strings: Allegro molto serioso - Signum Quartett

String Quartet II, p. 1 - Jack Quartet/Travis Laplante

2,1 - Clarice Jensen

Movement 1, Anonymous - Mark Turner

Mirror 1 - Object Collection/Richard Foreman

Helynt Ryfeddol - Cerys Hafana

aguita con sal - Lucrecia Dalt

Llebleida - Noura Mint Seymali

Cicada - AnAkA

Fettleau - Sara Serpa & Matt Mitchell

Cell Trio 1 - Meredith Monk

Elle n’a pas de mot - Joane Hetu

When You Stare into the Abyss - Patricia Brennan

Recollection of a Dance - Tomas Fujiwara

Wooden Wire Trap - Max Jaffe

Etceteral - Zlatko - Etceteral

spiral dance (up or down, i’m not sure) - Okkyung Lee

TV Sometimes - Scree

New Was It Now - Brian Eno & Beatie Wolfe 

XYZ (Jordan Nobles) - Dory Hayley

“Overlooked” is a show focusing on overlooked and underplayed music of all varieties: jazz, improvisational, international, and other fringe music, ancient to future, familiar to rare, classic to weird. Broadcast live from Overlook Mountain in Ulster County, “Overlooked” offers programs focused solely on newly released music along with others that focus on specific musical themes or history.

Host Rob Saffer is the former Executive Director and Producer of the Creative Music Foundation and Creative Music Studio. While living in Brooklyn for 25 years, he served on advisory boards for Celebrate Brooklyn! and Symphony Space. He also co-curated the Brooklyn Museum’s summer jazz series and helped found The Mingus Big Band with Mingus’s widow, Sue. Rob is also a judge for the annual Downbeat Magazine Critics Poll.