Aurelia Butler

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    Does the Conductor Klaus Mäkelä Deserve His Meteoric Rise?

    The 28-year-old maestro, entrusted with two storied ensembles, visited Carnegie Hall with the superb Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam.A raucously received performance of Mahler’s First Symphony at Carnegie Hall on Saturday was the latest exclamation point in the conductor Klaus Mäkelä’s meteoric rise. Mäkelä is just 28 and made his Carnegie debut a mere eight months ago with the Orchestre de Paris — one of the two very good ensembles he currently leads.He returned to the hall this week for a two-night stand with the storied Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam — one of the two much-better-than-very-good ensembles he is set to take over in the coming years. (The news came in April that he would also be the next music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.)Chicago and the Concertgebouw are more than excellent groups; they are cultural treasures, whose futures have been placed in the hands of a maestro who was widely unknown six years ago. It is safe to say that no conductor in modern history has been entrusted with so much at such a young age.Does he deserve it? With the physically extroverted Mäkelä bobbing, digging, punching and thwacking them on, the Concertgebouw’s musicians played superbly. By coincidence, the Berlin Philharmonic, another world-class ensemble, had visited Carnegie a few days before, and provided a useful comparison: Berlin’s kaleidoscopically colored, richly muscular force was distinct from the Concertgebouw’s blended and refined (though still sumptuous) elegance.It’s a luxurious sound, with full, liquid winds, discreetly burnished brasses and, best of all, sustained, velvety strings. Those strings had a beautifully restrained showcase joining Lisa Batiashvili in a hushed arrangement of a Bach chorale after her performance of Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 on Friday. And they were fevered yet lucid in Schoenberg’s “Verklärte Nacht” on Saturday.Yet in some passages of the Schoenberg that were overstated, almost halting, you got a sense of Mäkelä’s shortcomings. He can be so deliberate, so obviously intent on creating precise rhythms and textures bar by bar, that some of the air can come out of the music. It all seems like it should be intense — he certainly looks intense — but you don’t always feel building energy or distinctive character over long spans. It’s a matter of moments over momentum.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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    Alice Brock, Restaurant Owner Made Famous by a Song, Dies at 83

    Arlo Guthrie’s antiwar staple “Alice’s Restaurant” was inspired by a Thanksgiving Day visit to her diner in western Massachusetts.Alice Brock, whose eatery in western Massachusetts was immortalized as the place where “you can get anything you want” in Arlo Guthrie’s 1967 antiwar song “Alice’s Restaurant,” died on Thursday in Wellfleet, Mass. — just a week before Thanksgiving, the holiday during which the rambling story at the center of the song takes place. She was 83.Viki Merrick, her caregiver, said she died in a hospice from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.Ever since Mr. Guthrie released the song, officially called “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” in 1967, it has been a staple of classic-rock stations every late November, not to mention car trip singalongs on the way to visit family for Thanksgiving dinner.Ms. Brock’s restaurant, the Back Room, does not feature much in the song itself. Over the course of a little more than 18 minutes, Mr. Guthrie — doing more talking than singing — recounts a visit that he and a friend, Rick Robbins, paid to Ms. Brock and her husband, Ray Brock, for Thanksgiving dinner.Ms. Brock with Mr. Guthrie in 1977. They met when she was a school librarian and he was a student.Peter Simon Collection, Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center, UMass Amherst LibrariesA shaggy-dog story ensues: Mr. Guthrie and Mr. Robbins take some trash to the city dump, but, finding it closed, leave it in a ravine instead. The next morning the police arrest them for littering, and Ms. Brock has to bail them out.That night she cooks them all a big meal, and the following day they appear in court, where the judge fines them $50. Later, Mr. Guthrie is ordered to an Army induction center, where he is able to avoid the draft because of his criminal record.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 Interview’: K-Pop Trained Rosé to Be ‘a Perfect Girl.’ Now She’s Trying to Be Herself.

    South Korean pop, known as K-pop, is not just a type of music — it’s a culture, where bold style, perfectly choreographed dance moves and ebullient earworms that draw from pop, hip-hop and traditional Korean music attract a huge and particularly devoted global fan base. The genre’s stars, known as idols, are trained, often for years, by entertainment companies that then place the most promising trainees in groups, write and produce their music and obsessively manage their public images. It’s a system that works for the idols who make it big, but it has also drawn criticism for its grueling methods, which some call exploitative.One of the biggest stars to come out of that system is Rosé. Born Roseanne Park, she trained for four years with one of K-pop’s largest agencies, YG Entertainment, eventually breaking through as part of the girl group Blackpink. Now at age 27, she is striking out on her own with her first full-length solo album, “Rosie,” which comes out on Dec. 6 from Atlantic Records. (The album’s first single, “APT.” a collaboration with Bruno Mars, is a true bop and has made history as the first track by a female K-pop artist to break into the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.) She is still a member of Blackpink, and the group re-signed with YG in 2023. But after years of singing other people’s songs and performing as Rosé, which she described to me as “a character that I really worked hard on as a trainee,” writing her own songs for this solo album has made her think about where she came from and who she is, separate from the system that turned her into a global phenomenon.Listen to the Conversation With RoséThe Blackpink star talks about striking out on her own, away from the system that turned her into a global phenomenon.Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio AppYou’re about to release your first full-length solo album. Can you tell me what you’re feeling? Like I’ve been waiting to release this album for my whole life. I grew up listening to a lot of female artists. I used to relate to them, and they used to really get me through a lot of tough times. And so I would always dream of one day having an album myself. But I never really thought it would be realistic. I remember last year when I first began the whole process of it, I doubted myself a lot.It probably would be surprising to anyone who would look at Rosé, with all your success, with the enormous fan base that you have, to know that you doubted yourself so much. I don’t think I ever learned or trained myself to be vulnerable and open and honest. So that was the part I feared, because it was the opposite of what I was trained to do.You were born in New Zealand to South Korean immigrant parents and then you moved to Australia when you were 8. In 2012, when you were 15, you auditioned for a slot in YG Entertainment’s trainee program, which is basically a boarding school for becoming a K-pop star. It was your dad’s idea, right? Yes. More

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    Lucy Liu Thinks It’s Important to Make a Mess Sometimes

    “That’s how creative things happen,” said the actress, one of the stars of the holiday film “Red One.”Lucy Liu’s 9-year-old son, Rockwell, hasn’t seen his mother draw blood in “Charlie’s Angels” or “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” and certainly not in “Kill Bill, Vol. 1.”But the only splash of crimson in her latest film, “Red One,” is the suit of Santa Claus, who has been kidnapped from the North Pole. Liu is one of the Christmas movie’s stars, alongside Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans, and plays the head of security for the world’s mythological creatures.“This is the only live-action movie that my son has been able to watch, and he wanted to see it again right afterward,” Liu said on a video call. “I think he forgot that I was actually in it at one point.”When she isn’t shooting or producing (she will next appear in “Presence,” a Steven Soderbergh thriller slated for release in January), Liu can most often be found in her art studio. She tends to lose track of time there — “the whole point of art,” she said. “You just get lost in that world.”Liu, who lives in Manhattan, elaborated on why her library card, spur-of-the-moment theatergoing and riding her bicycle are essential to her well-being. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Transcendental MeditationI put together an art book years ago, and I asked Deepak Chopra if he would write a forward. He did, but he also asked me to come into his office. He wanted to teach me about meditation. And so he gave me a mantra, and it was an important moment for me because I didn’t know that it would make such a big difference.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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    ‘Glicked’ Fans Rejoice in Bloodshed and Broadway Songs

    Swords clashing and blood curdling screams of gladiators emanate from one room. Across the hallway, witches belt out show tunes.That’s the sound of “Glicked.”Last year, moviegoers swarmed to see “Barbenheimer” — the combined name for “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — when the films opened on the same day. Now, there is a push from the casts and fans of “Gladiator II” and “Wicked” — which both opened across the country on Friday — to recreate that energy for another double feature with a blended name.Isabelle Deveaux and Emma Rabuano skipped out of theater six at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Brooklyn at 2:38 p.m. on Friday, after watching “Gladiator II.”At 6:15 p.m., the pair, both 25, planned to return to the Alamo Drafthouse to see “Wicked.” The crossover, Ms. Deveaux said, “felt so specifically catered to our interests.”Diego Gasca of Los Angeles went with friends to the opening day of “Wicked” at AMC Lincoln Square 13 in Manhattan, but he said that he was not interested in seeing “Gladiator II.”Colin Clark for The New York TimesOn the surface, the two films, which have a combined running time of over five hours, appear vastly different. One is a family friendly musical prequel to “The Wizard of Oz,” while the other is an R-rated epic sequel about murder, war and the Roman Empire. But Ms. Deveaux and Ms. Rabuano see some common ground in the films.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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    Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Will Remain Jailed Until Judge Rules on Third Bail Request

    A federal judge is still weighing the music mogul’s arguments that he should be freed while awaiting trial on sex trafficking and racketeering charges.Sean Combs, the embattled music mogul who has been charged with sex trafficking and racketeering, will remain in jail after a federal judge on Friday said he would continue to weigh arguments about Mr. Combs’s release.Judge Arun Subramanian said at a hearing that he would decide next week on Mr. Combs’s third and latest request to be released on bail.That means that Mr. Combs will, at least for now, stay at the Metropolitan Detention Center, a hulking federal facility on the Brooklyn waterfront; his trial is scheduled for May. Mr. Combs, 55, has been detained since his arrest two months ago after a nearly 10-month federal investigation. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.Mr. Combs, in tan jail clothes, entered the courtroom smiling, and mouthed “love you” to his mother and six of his children.The central question of the hearing was whether he could be trusted to follow his lawyers’ commands and follow the specifications of his release if granted bail. Prosecutors have accused Mr. Combs of contacting grand jury witnesses, paying a potential witness to make a statement in his favor and attempting to use three-way phone calls from jail to contact associates whom prosecutors consider part of his “criminal enterprise.”The judge queried both sides closely, noting some evidence that Mr. Combs had not fully obeyed his lawyers, while also indicating some skepticism of the government’s argument that he was trying to obstruct the case from jail. (That included an allegation that Mr. Combs had orchestrated a social media post on his birthday that prosecutors said was intended to influence potential jurors.)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 Playlist That’s as Cool as Kim Deal

    Hear tracks from her first solo album, the Breeders, Pixies and more.Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesDear listeners,Today marks an occasion four decades in the making: the indie-rock icon Kim Deal, at age 63, is releasing her first ever solo album, a collection of woozy pop ballads and distorted rockers titled “Nobody Loves You More.”Deal is best known as the bassist of Pixies (and an indelible backing vocalist: “Where Is My Mind?” just wouldn’t be the same without her high, haunting “oohs”) and the frontwoman of the Breeders (the ’90s themselves just wouldn’t have been the same without the inventive and infectious sound of “Last Splash”). Her voice is inimitable; in her recently published profile of Deal, my editor Caryn Ganz describes it quite vividly as sounding “like cotton candy cut with paint thinner.”A lot of people in rock bands want to seem cool, and they will spend much of their energy (and wardrobe budgets) attempting to telegraph their coolness to the audience: think tattoos, tight leather and lots of posturing. Kim Deal has always been the other kind of cool. She’s not in-your-face about it. She smiles more often than she sneers. She seems to have an innate sort of self-acceptance of who she is and does not care what you think at all.Tanya Donelly, who started the Breeders with Deal, once recalled catching some early Pixies shows, when Deal would often come straight from work and play bass in “skirt-suits and office pumps.” Everyone else in the scene was trying to dress as outrageously as possible, she said, “and meanwhile the coolest person there is dressed like a secretary. I have to say, in a day it changed my perception of what was cool.”*In honor of her debut solo album, today’s playlist is a tribute to Kim Deal’s particular kind of cool. In addition to a few tracks from the new album, it places some of her best-known songs alongside deeper cuts from bands like the Amps, Sonic Youth and This Mortal Coil. I hope it inspires you to check out “Nobody Loves You More” in its entirety; it’s truly worth the wait.Let’s have a ball,Lindsay*In one of my favorite moments from Ganz’s profile, a dissenting opinion comes from Kim’s twin and fellow Breeder Kelley Deal: “She’s not that [expletive] cool to me.” Leave it to a sister to keep your ego in check!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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    Jack Harlow Expands His Romantic Options, and 7 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by Horsegirl, Tyla, Amber Mark and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Jack Harlow, ‘Hello Miss Johnson’The Kentucky rapper Jack Harlow sounds positively smitten on his first solo single of the year, the smooth-talking “Hello Miss Johnson.” Over a bossanova-style beat produced by his younger brother, Clay Harlow, and Aksel Arvid, Harlow chronicles a whirlwind courtship — “Let’s go to Nice and give your sister a niece” — punctuated by several chivalrous phone calls to his girl’s mother, which function as the song’s chorus. “Hello Miss Johnson, you know why I’m calling,” he raps, an obvious musical nod to Outkast. But, ever the charmer, Harlow can’t stop himself from a little maternal flirtation while he’s still on the line: “Correct me if I’m wrong, but was it you that gave to her the eyes I be lost in?” If things don’t work out with the daughter, perhaps he knows who to call. LINDSAY ZOLADZ​​Amber Mark, ‘Wait So Yeah’Pillowy, bountifully layered oohs and ahs surround Amber Mark’s invitation to spend the night in “Wait So Yeah” from a new EP, “Loosies.” The ticking, programmed beat and the profusion of looped, multitracked vocal harmonies make her recording expertise sound like romantic anticipation. JON PARELESTyla, ‘Tears’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