"There are approximately six thousand languages on Earth today, each a descendant of the tongue first spoken by Homo sapiens some 150,000 years ago.”—John McWhorter

This installment of “Relevant Tones Live”—the award-winning live podcast series produced by the Esopus Foundation and Access Contemporary Music (ACM)—focused on linguist John McWhorter’s groundbreaking 2003 book The Power of Babel, considered to be the first volume written for the layperson about the history of language. For the event, ACM founder Seth Boustead and I engaged in a fascinating conversation with McWhorter about the development of language, interspersed with live performances of several new pieces of music inspired by McWhorter’s book by composers Noah and Rosie K, Will Rowe, David Crowell, Iva Cassian-Lakos and Seth Boustead.