Aurelia Butler

Like the holiday season itself, the nostalgia that Christmas music evokes can be emotionally charged.It’s been a little over one year since the Backstreet Boys released their Christmas album, “A Very Backstreet Christmas,” and Francine Biondo has had it on repeat ever since.To be fair, Ms. Biondo, 39, a child care provider in Ontario, Canada, is a fan of Nick Carter and maybe even a bigger fan of Christmas music. The Christmas season was in full swing for her by mid-November, with plans to decorate a tree. Although she typically begins listening to holiday music after Halloween, she is known to sprinkle in a little Christmas cheer during the summer.“It just puts me in a happy, feel-good mood,” she said by phone of songs like Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” adding that they invoked happy memories of her childhood.For Ms. Biondo, the songs do more than get her into the holiday spirit, they also boost her productivity. “To be honest, I need music to just get me through the day,” she said. “I need music when I’m cleaning the house and just doing the daily things, it kind of helps motivate me. Christmas music, especially around that time of year, it just’s more fun.”She might be on to something.Daniel Levitin, an author and musician in Los Angeles and a professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, said research has shown that most people in Western countries use music to self-soothe. “They know that there are certain kinds of music that will put them in a good mood,” he said. “Christmas music is a reliable one for a lot of people.”The healing effects of music have long been studied. Mr. Levitin participated in a 2013 study that concluded that music boosts the body’s immune system and reduces stress.Mr. Levitin said that listening to a song that has not been heard in a long time can transport a person back in time. “That’s the power of music to evoke a memory,” he said. “With those memories come emotions and possibly nostalgia, or anger, or frustration, depending on your childhood.”For the people who find joy in Christmas music, the brain may increase serotonin levels and may release prolactin a soothing and tranquilizing hormone that is released between mothers and infants during nursing, Mr. Levitin said.Conversely, if negative memories and feelings are associated with Christmas, the same songs could cause the brain to release cortisol, the stress hormone that increases the heart rate, and trigger the amygdala, the brain’s fear center. “There are a lot of people who, when Christmas time comes around, they just want to run home and put their head under the covers and wait it all out,” Mr. Levitin said.Christmas music, like all forms of music, is powerful. But this genre is perhaps more potent than other forms of music because the holiday season itself is emotionally charged. It represents the ideals that most humans strive for like equality, tolerance, love and tranquillity. “For some of us, that’s an inspiring message,” Mr. Levitin said. “For others of us, it just draws in stark relief how far we are from achieving that.”Yuletide music sung to celebrate the winter solstice has been around for thousands of years, some even predating Christianity, according to Alisa Clapp-Itnyre, an English professor at Indiana University East. These songs were sung in communal, secular settings and as early as the third century, Christianity adapted Yuletide festivals for celebrations of Jesus’ birth. Then, stories of Jesus were woven into carols, which were still sung in communal settings, even across class divides.“During the dark months of winter, it brought people together for celebration and generosity,” Professor Clapp-Itnyre said, adding that she thinks this still happens today in various forms, like the Salvation Army holding donation drives and carols being sung in nursing homes.By the 20th century, secular Christmas songs like “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “White Christmas” began reflecting the grief people were facing and brought solace, particularly to World War II soldiers who could not be home for Christmas. “These songs are becoming popular during the war because people are seeking something traditional, something that they used to know of family and peace and those good traditions, even as their whole world is being blown to smithereens,” Professor Clapp-Itnyre said.The positive feelings associated with Christmas music are something Vanessa Parvin, the owner of Manhattan Holiday Carolers, a holiday entertainment company, knows well. Ms. Parvin, 45, has been singing Christmas music professionally since 1999.Part of the joy, she said, is “adding to other people’s holiday magic experience and nostalgia,” which can mean honoring song requests that remind guests of their childhoods or relatives who have died.While she has a memorized repertoire of about 90 Christmas songs, there is one that invokes memories of her own family. “‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ was my grandmother’s favorite, so that doesn’t make me think of caroling,” she said. “It makes me think of my grandmother and my mother.” More

Before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Monetochka was on her way to becoming a superstar in Russia.She had released two hit albums of lyrical pop, secured ad deals with brands including Nike and Spotify, and was set to appear and sing a new song in the opening scene of Netflix’s first original Russian drama, a lush adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina.”But President Vladimir V. Putin’s military action derailed everything.Netflix shelved the series. The big ad deals, which once comprised more than half of Monetochka’s income, disappeared. And, after making a raft of antiwar statements and fleeing Russia, she was branded a foreign agent in January.Yet the 25-year-old singer-songwriter — who now lives in Lithuania and is scheduled to perform at the Melrose Ballroom in New York on Sunday as part of a U.S. and European tour — said exile had removed the burden of worrying about what she says, and was worth the cost.“You can scream, yell, rant, write any songs or poems you want — and this, of course, means a lot to me,” said Monetochka, or “Little Coin,” whose real name is Liza Gyrdymova. “For me, this is such an important feeling, as an artist and a lyricist: freedom of expression.”Monetochka said she is still pursuing the same dreams, goals and plans in exile, but it is harder than before. Marvin Zilm for The New York TimesShe is just one of the many Russian music stars rebuilding their careers outside their homeland after taking a moral stand against the invasion of Ukraine. Now forced to operate at a distance from most of their fan bases and, in many cases, labeled traitors by their government, they are adopting touring schedules that hew to the new geography of the Russian diaspora as they try to keep their careers moving forward.Michael Idov, a Latvian-American writer and director who has worked with top Russian singers and has directed a music video for Monetochka (pronounced moh-NYET-och-ka), said that those musicians faced several dilemmas abroad, even though in most cases Russians can still stream their music on YouTube and Yandex Music, a Russian streaming platform.“The basic question is: Can you write new hits in this situation, or are you automatically a nostalgia act, even if the nostalgia is for the year 2021?” he said.There was also the question of how to create a sustainable future. “After you have played every new Russian enclave five times, what do you do after that?” Mr. Idov added. The musicians could break into new markets through collaboration with non-Russian artists, Mr. Idov noted, but few had tried that approach, or put out much new music.So far, the millions of Russian speakers outside Russia have been sustaining the performers. Last Saturday, at a Monetochka concert in Zurich, the hall was packed with nearly 700 fans, including middle-aged couples bopping along and screaming young women taking selfies — some of them with their hair done up in the singer’s trademark double buns. Everyone was speaking Russian.Fans at Monetochka’s show in Zurich.Marvin Zilm for The New York TimesOnstage, Monetochka acknowledged that things had changed. “For all these songs and these views and beliefs, folks, they gifted me the rank of foreign agent,” she said. The crowd erupted in cheers, and the singer launched into a song criticizing Russian internet censorship.Her tour, which kicked off in Barcelona last month, has faced logistical challenges. This week, Monetochka had to postpone a concert in London and cancel one in Miami because she didn’t get visas in time. And figuring out the right size and type of venues has involved some guesswork.To widen their appeal, some exiled artists, including Face, a Russian rapper, have considered switching to English. Yet only a couple of Russian acts, such as the girl group t.A.T.u., have ever landed a hit on the American charts.Monetochka, who rocketed to fame in part because of the poetry of her subversive lyrics, said she couldn’t imagine achieving a similar depth of expression in a language other than Russian. She plans to release a new album in the spring, which she said would reflect her rage and alarm about the war, but also the hopeful feelings she had felt since becoming a mother in 2022. She said she felt she needed to leave listeners with something positive, too.Other exiled Russian stars have soured on living abroad. Morgenshtern, a popular Russian rapper who moved to Dubai in 2022 and was also labeled a foreign agent, recently told a Russian interviewer that he misses home and wants to return to Russia, but is too scared for his safety, including the possibility of being sent to the front as retribution. The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, later said no one would give Morgenshtern “guarantees that everything will be fine.”While Russian musicians who backed the war and embraced the accompanying nationalist fervor have found themselves rewarded with growing popularity and riches, the acts who left have felt financial impacts, even if they already had large followings outside the country.Sonya Tayurskaya, a member of a rave band called Little Big, who moved to Los Angeles from Russia just days after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, said that the group had to go “back to the beginning.”Clockwise from top left: Little Big, Morgenshtern, IC3PEAK and Face, all exiled Russian musicians.Artur Widak/NurPhoto, via Getty Images; Naumova Ekaterina/Shutterstock; Anton Basanayev/Associated Press; Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated PressRebooting their career had been a test of character, said Ilya Prusikin, Little Big’s main songwriter. “What we’ve learned is that money is not important,” he said.Monetochka said she knew her finances would suffer when she left Russia. She is now touring more and playing smaller venues than in Russia. She said she was also considering moving beyond music, to stage theatrical performances that would be subtitled for non-Russian speakers, to try to reach new audiences.But for now, she said, she was still making enough from concerts and streaming to produce new music — and that was what matters.“If you’re still dreaming of some kind of big concert in Moscow, some sort of solo performance at the Olympic stadium, then it’s going to be hard for you,” she said. “You have to make the decision to go down a few notches and start building it up again.”“It doesn’t take much time to get on your feet and understand how you can earn money,” she added. “Everyone I know after this move feels a surge of inspiration. And again, this is the most important thing — not money, but songs.”Russia branded Monetochka as a foreign agent in January, after she made dozens of antiwar statements.Marvin Zilm for The New York TimesWith young, tech-savvy music listeners in Russia always a step ahead of government censorship, she said she never expected to fully lose access to her fans in Russia. Her antiwar stance had also gained new fans in Ukraine, including among her nearly two million TikTok followers.But even before the war, Monetochka had faced political pressure. After she released a video in support of L.G.B.T.Q. rights, Russian state television went after her, she said, and the authorities called music festivals to get her removed from lineups. She said she had come to shrug off Russia’s branding her as a traitor with humor and “accept that people love to hate someone, they really need it — and when the state encourages this, they reach untold heights.”Toward the end of her concert in Zurich, Monetochka tried to impart some of that resilient spirit as she prepared to play her 2020 song, “Will Survive,” an anthem many of her fans have adopted amid the war.“All of this nonsense, all of this nastiness and filth,” she told the audience. “We will survive.” More

Under Dima Slobodeniouk, the orchestra played works by Holst and Ligeti and, for the first time, Julia Perry’s somber “Stabat Mater.”Holst’s “The Planets” is one of the Thanksgiving feasts of classical music. It seduces with variety of color and texture — just as tangy cranberry compote refreshes after buttery mashed potatoes — but tends to leave you overstuffed.I’ve never heard it when it wasn’t at least a little too much. But, played with vigor by the New York Philharmonic under Dima Slobodeniouk on Wednesday evening at David Geffen Hall, it didn’t have me moaning with overindulgence, as some “Planets” performances do. It felt like an ideal way to ring in a holiday that’s all about bounty.There was punchiness in “Mars” and genuine playfulness in “Mercury,” and Slobodeniouk was agile in guiding the orchestra through the hairpin transitions of “Jupiter.” That section’s noble hymn theme was less strings-heavy than usual, flowing with ease.That Ligeti’s “Atmosphères” is, like “The Planets,” indelibly associated with the extraterrestrial is due less to its title than to its inclusion (without its composer’s permission) in the soundtrack of “2001: A Space Odyssey.”Written in 1961, not quite half a century after Holst’s tone poem, the sumptuously eerie “Atmosphères” on Wednesday felt a bit like the son or grandson of “The Planets.” Ligeti’s queasily unsettled sound world seemed a direct descendant of the stunned stillness at the start of “Saturn,” the uneasy simmering after the march drops out in “Uranus” and the gaseous, hovering mystery of “Neptune.” Neither of these works was played with super-polish at Geffen, but under Slobodeniouk both had vibrant drama.Those tried and true “Planets” aside, this wasn’t a concert of chestnuts. The orchestra revived “Atmosphères” to cap its commemorations this fall of Ligeti’s centennial; it hasn’t presented the piece (except as it’s excerpted in the “2001” score) since 1978. And it is performing Julia Perry’s 1951 “Stabat Mater” this week for the first time ever.Perry’s brief “Study for Orchestra” was, in 1965, the first music by a Black woman to be played on a Philharmonic subscription program. It was brought back last year, but the “Stabat Mater,” scored for strings and a vocalist, is a far more powerful work. Heated yet subtle and restrained, the piece’s 10 sections on a Latin text, lasting about 20 minutes in all, chart an intimate drama whose moments of grandeur are all the more effective given the overall modesty.In the short prelude, light yet pungent pizzicato plucks — amid brooding low strings and an elegiac solo violin — movingly evoke Jesus’s mother’s tears without feeling too obvious. Throughout, Perry gives both voice and orchestra an appealing combination of Neo-Baroque angularity and post-Romantic warmth. The quivering, high-pitched flames of “the fire of love” near the end are reminders that this piece and “Atmosphères” date from the same era.The mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges sang with oracular authority in the somber vocal lines, rising to flashes of intensity. There were passages in which a more encompassing, contralto-style richness in the low register would have filled out this music. But Bridges’s focused tone was just right for Perry’s poignant austerity.The violinist Sheryl Staples, in the concertmaster chair, played with sweetness and eloquence in both the “Stabat Mater” and Holst’s “Venus.” That section of “The Planets” also featured a beautifully mellow flute solo by Alison Fierst, leading into rhapsodic lines from the orchestra’s longtime principal cello, Carter Brey.Oh, and for at least one night, the “fireflies” — the lights over the Geffen stage that do a flickering up-and-down dance before concerts, in corny imitation of the chandeliers that rise before curtain at the Metropolitan Opera next door — were stilled.Might they stay that way forevermore? That would be something to be thankful for.New York PhilharmonicThis program repeats through Saturday at David Geffen Hall, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More