Aurelia Butler

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    The Violinist María Dueñas Makes a Carnegie Hall Debut

    The stage of the Felsenreitschule, a theater carved from the side of a mountain in Salzburg, Austria, is about 130 feet wide. During concerts, artists come out from catacombs at the side, beginning a walk to the center that, depending on nerves, can feel punishingly long.The 21-year-old violinist María Dueñas made that journey under the spotlights for her debut at the prestigious Salzburg Festival one night this summer. But, instead of nerves, she felt comfort the moment she saw the seated orchestra.“I could tell, that I was in a safe space,” she said the next morning over coffee.She looked beyond the lights to the full house, taking in the audience’s energy. Once she found her place, nestled in the semicircle of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, she raised her bow and let out a steady, then soulful open G at the start of Bruch’s First Violin Concerto. During the slow second movement, she listened to the hall as she played and noticed that she couldn’t hear people breathing.Dueñas with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival.Marco Borrelli/Salzburg Festival“That, for me,” she said, “is a very good concert.” Stunned silence is common at performances by Dueñas, who, in an industry always eager for the next prodigy, has emerged as something particularly special: a strong-willed young artist with something to say, and the skill to say it brilliantly.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Tim Berne, a D.I.Y. Jazz Institution

    The saxophonist and composer has spent 50 years in the New York scene. As he turns 70, he’s commanding gigs at a Brooklyn bar and continuing to inspire.For the saxophonist and composer Tim Berne, the Brooklyn bar Lowlands is a favorite neighborhood hangout. Lately, it has also become his musical laboratory.During the past two years, Berne has regularly walked the block and a half from his Gowanus home to the cozy establishment on a sleepy stretch of Third Avenue. Tall, with a moseying gait and a mop of gray hair, he blends in easily. There is no stage, so he and his bandmates, a rotating cast of newer and longtime associates, set up on the floor, amid purple Christmas lights and an illuminated Miller High Life sign.Passers-by might expect a classic-rock covers gig, but that changes when Berne begins warming up. His alto sound, chiseled and neon-bright, cuts through the space like a laser beam. It’s an instant reminder that one of the true thought leaders in progressive jazz — an unassuming yet undeniable force in the music for more than four decades — is still operating at peak strength as he approaches his 70th birthday on Wednesday. (He returns to Lowlands on Oct. 22.)“That Lowlands gig, he takes it as seriously as if he was going to be playing at Carnegie Hall,” the guitarist Bill Frisell, a frequent Berne collaborator in the ’80s who has re-entered his orbit, said in a video interview. “It’s like his life is on the line.”Frisell said that after their early work together, he didn’t keep close tabs on Berne’s music. “I heard him again, and it was like, ‘Man alive,’” he said, going on to describe “how these germs of ideas that were there at the beginning had blossomed and expanded, and his sense of all the parts — the melody, the rhythm, the harmony, the counterpoint — all of that had just kept on getting richer and richer.”“I’m not an artist; I’m just playing music,” Berne said.Malike Sidibe for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    3 Day Trips From Nashville

    Fall is the perfect time to take excursions from bustling Music City into the surrounding countryside, where a variety of natural and cultural adventures await.Little more than a decade ago, Nashville, a.k.a. Music City, wasn’t so much a tourist town as it was a destination for musicians — a place where performers like Taylor Swift could still play the Bluebird Cafe without creating a scene.These days, visitors come in droves. And with more to do both in the heart of the city and in newly popular outlying neighborhoods, many people are staying longer. They might even want to work in a brief escape from what has become a lively, even raucous, city, and explore the lush, surrounding countryside.Here are three day trips from Nashville, all within a two-hour drive. Tennessee is a beautiful state, especially in the fall, when tulip poplars, sugar maples and hickory trees turn bright red, gold and copper, making the drive as joyful as the destination. Why not see more of it while you’re visiting?Fall Creek Falls State ParkThe 30,638-acre Fall Creek Falls State Park, situated on the rugged Cumberland Plateau, is just a few hours from Nashville.Sarah ReidKnown for its bluff-top vistas and stunning waterfalls, Fall Creek Falls State Park (free), about 100 miles east-southeast of Nashville, is one of Tennessee’s most popular — not to mention beautiful — state parks. The 30,638-acre natural area is situated on the rugged Cumberland Plateau, which traverses Tennessee diagonally. Here, you’ll find waterfalls, an extensive cave system, gorges, crystal clear streams and stands of virgin hardwood. In the fall, the park is lit with the bright yellow of towering green ash trees and the russet of red oaks.A good first stop is the Betty Dunn Nature Center at the north entrance, where you can learn about the park’s flora and fauna and history, stock up on snacks and have a park ranger plan the day’s journey with a curated map.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Ka, Lone Soldier of New York’s Underground Rap Scene, Dies at 52

    The rapper, whose name was Kaseem Ryan, was known for self-producing 11 albums while also a maintaining a career with the New York Fire Department.Kaseem Ryan, who built a small but fervent following as an underground Brooklyn rapper known as Ka while maintaining a career as a New York City firefighter, died in the city on Saturday. He was 52.His death was announced by his wife, Mimi Valdés, on Instagram, as well as in a statement posted on his Instagram page. No cause was given, though the statement said that he had “died unexpectedly.”First with the mid-1990s underground group Natural Elements, and then on 11 solo albums he produced himself and released over nearly two decades, Ka gripped hard-core hip-hop listeners with gloomy beats and vivid descriptions of street life and struggle.In a 2012 review of his second album “Grief Pedigree”, The New York Times pop music critic Jon Caramanica described Ka as “a striking rapper largely for what he forgoes: flash, filigree, any sense that the hard work is already done.”Kaseem Ryan was born in 1972 and raised in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York. During his teen years, he dealt crack and sold firearms.He spent much of the 1990s trying to make a name for himself as a rapper, but then quit music altogether, only to come back a decade later.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    How the Dance Scenes in ‘Once Again (for the Very First Time)’ Came to Life

    Jeroboam Bozeman and Rennie Harris’s careers have wound through street and concert dance. The two shaped the movement in “Once Again (for the Very First Time).”A man is falling from the sky. Even as he plummets, you can tell he’s a dancer: There is grace in the twisting of his wind-buffeted limbs. He lands not with a thud but a whisper, on the tips of his toes.That’s how the hip-hop fantasy “Once Again (for the Very First Time)” begins. (The movie opens in theaters on Oct. 18.) The film’s dream logic follows an unresolved love affair between a dancer, DeRay, played by Jeroboam Bozeman — the falling man of the opening sequence — and a spoken-word artist, Naima (Mecca Verdell).Neither Bozeman, a former member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, nor the film’s choreographer, the street dance poet Rennie Harris, had made a movie before. Plunged into the world of film, both landed softly, feet first. The dance scenes in “Once Again” — blistering battles, a solo of muffled rage, a duet that weaves through a club — reveal Bozeman and Harris discovering their natural affinity for the camera.Mecca Verdell with Bozeman in a scene from Boaz Yakin’s “Once Again (for the Very First Time).”Indican PicturesBoaz Yakin, the film’s writer and director, is a dance devotee. His parents are pantomimes who have taught movement for actors at Juilliard; his 2020 movie “Aviva” featured choreography by the gutsy contemporary dancer Bobbi Jene Smith. “Using movement to convey things that other modes can’t, that has always been part of my life,” he said in an interview.In “Once Again,” Yakin wanted hip-hop battles to be “a metaphor for this idea of both life and art as a struggle,” he said. A colleague recommended Harris, 61, a guiding light in hip-hop, renowned for translating street dance styles to the stage. And Harris suggested Bozeman for DeRay.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    A Guide to “Saturday Night” and the Real Players at the Start of ‘S.N.L.’

    With so many players involved in Jason Reitman’s new movie about “S.N.L.,” here’s a guide to the real-life personalities.It’s easy to get lost watching “Saturday Night”: Jason Reitman’s new film drops us backstage at a moment of maximum confusion — 90 minutes before the 1975 debut of a new NBC show called “Saturday Night.” At the center of all the hubbub is creator-producer Lorne Michaels (played by Gabriel LaBelle), who’s been the one constant at “S.N.L.” over most of the show’s 50 seasons. But what about all the other characters rushing about, wringing their hands over whether this show will actually make it to air? Here’s a guide:The Original CastCHEVY CHASE AND GARRETT MORRIS These members of the original cast, known as the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, were hired as writers, not actors. Chase (played by Cory Michael Smith) had written for Alan King and the Smothers Brothers. As the anchor for “Weekend Update,” Chase, a master of mugging and pratfalls, became the show’s first breakout star and left in 1976 to embark on a film career. (He would return to guest host in 1978, when he reportedly got into fisticuffs with Bill Murray, the cast member who replaced him.)Morris (Lamorne Morris, no relation) was a Broadway performer and a playwright with no improv or sketch comedy background. He was underused but became known for his impersonations of Sammy Davis Jr. and Tina Turner, as well as for yelling on “Weekend Update” (as the News for the Hard of Hearing interpreter). After the show, he stuck with TV comedy, appearing on sitcoms like “Martin,” “The Jamie Foxx Show” and “2 Broke Girls.”Garrett Morris (played by Lamorne Morris, no relation, right) didn’t have a sketch comedy background when he started on “Saturday Night Live.”GILDA RADNER, JANE CURTAIN AND LARAINE NEWMAN The movie doesn’t try very hard to differentiate among the show’s female cast members — Gilda Radner, who died in 1989, Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman. But the three women had very distinct styles. Radner (Ella Hunt), a former member of Second City in Toronto, was the first performer Michaels signed and soon became a star beloved for her fragile, goofy style and characters like Roseanne Roseannadanna. It was her advocacy for fellow Second City veteran and ex-boyfriend Dan Aykroyd that persuaded Michaels to hire him.Newman (Emily Fairn), a founding member of the Los Angeles improv troupe the Groundlings, knew Michaels from working together on a Lily Tomlin special. Her character Sherry the Valley Girl helped kick off a national fad mocking Southern California mall-speak. Newman’s expertise with accents and dialects paved the way for a post-“S.N.L.” career as a voice artist.Curtin (Kim Matula), a member of the Boston improv group the Proposition, was one of the last cast members hired. She was often presented as the foil to more outrageous characters and helped ground many a sketch. As the first female anchor of “Weekend Update,” she was called upon to weather Aykroyd’s contemptuous catchphrase, “Jane, you ignorant slut.” After “S.N.L.,” Curtin became a sitcom star (“Kate & Allie,” “3rd Rock From the Sun”).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Wildly Subversive Music of Soviet Ukraine

    An archival label in the United States was going to release a huge compilation of records from the U.S.S.R. Then Russia invaded Ukraine.Eugene Hutz still owns his copy of “Slayed?,” a 1972 album released the year he was born by the British bad boys Slade that his father purchased on the Ukrainian black market. Its spine is now lined with tape, its cover deeply ringed by the record inside. But for Hutz, 52, it remains a powerful talisman of rock ’n’ roll’s transformative potential, even amid oppressive regimes.“Enthusiasts knew their way to the black market, and my dad was an extreme enthusiast — a translator of Western culture, a spiritual seeker,” Hutz said of his father, the musician Sasha Nikolaev, during a recent phone interview. “My dad played it endlessly. I was born and raised to the sound.”Hutz emigrated to the United States in 1990, and played in various groups before the raucous band Gogol Bordello made him a rare stateside emissary of Ukrainian rock. The scene in his homeland is getting a bigger spotlight on Friday with “Even the Forest Hums,” an 18-track compendium of wildly diverse Ukrainian sounds (including Hutz’s minimalist teenage band, Uksusnik) that pulls back the curtain on a quarter-century of pop, post-punk, disco and experimental music largely made under Soviet control.The set is part of an ongoing rediscovery of Ukraine’s musical heritage, catalyzed in part by Russia’s 2022 invasion of its western neighbor.“When the war started, I had phone calls from international journalists: ‘Who are you, Ukrainians? What is your music?’ Nobody was interested before,” the journalist, filmmaker and record store owner Vitalii Bardetskyi said in a video interview from Kyiv. “Ukrainians were asking themselves the same questions. In the past two and a half years, Ukrainians found out more about ourselves than in the previous 30.”Cukor Bila Smert sounds like the band David Lynch might have tapped for an especially sinister “Twin Peaks.”via Cukor Bila Smert’We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Painter Titus Kaphar Wanted a Bigger Canvas, So He Made a Film

    We often scrutinize an artist’s work, searching for autobiographical clues. But in Titus Kaphar’s recent paintings, and in his new film, “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” such close reading is unnecessary. His life experience is laid bare, in all its poignant and — sometimes agonizing — pain.The paintings, now on view at Gagosian in Beverly Hills, Calif., through Nov. 2, figure prominently in the film, which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and will have its theatrical release nationally on Oct. 18. The movie, Kaphar’s first feature, tells the story of a young painter reuniting with his estranged father — a recovering addict — even as he also deals with the final days of his ailing mother.This foray into Hollywood — Oprah Winfrey and Serena Williams were among those who attended the Sept. 12 Los Angeles premiere — only cements celebrity status for Kaphar, 48, who, in the last decade, has won a MacArthur “genius award,” helped found the New Haven art incubator and fellowship program NXTHVN, created Time magazine covers about Ferguson protesters and the killing of George Floyd and seen his work collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney. His paintings of sorrowful mothers evoke classical pietas.Kaphar’s painting, “Analogous Colors,” 2020, on the cover of Time Magazine in June 2020. Kaphar cut a shape out of the canvas.Painting by Titus Kaphar for TIMEThe two-hour film — which Kaphar wrote and directed — gave him a way to experiment with another art form, one that can reach well beyond the number of people likely to see his paintings. It also represents a significant filmmaking step from Kaphar’s documentary shorts “Shut Up and Paint” (2022), which was shortlisted for an Oscar and addressed the art market’s stifling of social activism, and “The Jerome Project” (2016), which began to explore the artist’s relationship with his father.But perhaps most importantly, the movie is Kaphar’s message to his two teenage boys. “I was trying to figure out how to help my sons understand how different my life is from their lives and why I’m so protective of them — why I adore them the way that I do, why I insist that I give them a hug and a kiss in the morning,” said Kaphar, wearing a cap and sweatshirt in a recent interview at his New Haven studio. “I still put them into bed, kiss them on their foreheads.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More