Aurelia Butler

THERE ARE, STRANGELY, a lot of other women in Whitney Houston’s 1993 video for the song “I’m Every Woman,” that can-do anthem powered by Houston’s unparalleled midrange pipes. “It’s all in me,” she sings of a spellbinding force that would seem to make others unnecessary. Yet there alongside her we find the funk powerhouse Chaka Khan, who first recorded the song in 1978; the song’s co-composer Valerie Simpson; Houston’s mother and mentor, Cissy Houston; a dance team of young Black girls; and the trio TLC. Houston recorded “I’m Every Woman” for the soundtrack of “The Bodyguard” (1992), which she co-executive produced, and which secured her megastardom such that “the wonderment of her talent and her career impacted everyone,” as her sister-in-law and estate executor, Pat Houston, puts it. The open secret of this video is that Houston had a hand in that influence: She deliberately used her status as an icon to light up a whole network of Black female forebears and creative descendants.Now, 11 years after her death, Houston has a new MAC cosmetics line and a Scent Beauty fragrance; her original recordings are featured in the recent biopic starring Naomi Ackie. The coming months and years will bring, among other initiatives, a compilation of her unreleased gospel recordings and a Broadway musical. These ventures — the fruits of a 2019 partnership between the Whitney Houston estate and the music publishing company Primary Wave — invite us not only to look again at Houston herself but to realize that her own gaze was often turned toward other Black women. We now expect celebrities such as Beyoncé, Rihanna, Ava DuVernay and Lena Waithe to share their resources, establish record labels and production companies and engage in collaborations to demonstrate that they, in the words of Issa Rae at the 2017 Emmys, are “rooting for everybody Black” — especially other Black women. Yet it was Houston, who linked arms with gospel icons like CeCe Winans and Kim Burrell, and mentored pop stars such as Brandy and Monica, who pioneered this form of Black female boosterism on a grand scale.We haven’t been able to see this in part because of the scrim of myth that treats Houston’s Blackness only as a problem for her, not as a source of pride or opportunity. Too Black for the puritanical white pop mainstream, too white for the narrow-minded Black listeners who booed her at the 1989 Soul Train Awards, she married “bad boy” Bobby Brown, we are told, in an effort to regain her hometown Newark, N.J., street cred and to neutralize the whitening effects of her pop hits with Arista, the label founded by Clive Davis. The story of her life, thus staged as a battle between two charismatic men, admits Black women only as historical precedents (her musical mother, Cissy; her celebrity cousin Dionne Warwick), or as illicit lovers. (Her longtime best friend and creative director, Robyn Crawford, writes in her 2019 memoir, published in part to correct the record, that there was a sexual dimension to their relationship in the beginning — they met when Houston was 17 — a point on which the new biopic is refreshingly matter-of-fact.) Houston’s much-publicized addiction — she drowned in a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub, with drugs in her system, in 2012 at age 48 — seals her reputation as a woman who was scarcely in control of herself, let alone over the prospects of other Black women across the entertainment industry. It’s nearly impossible to see how intently and compassionately she wielded that power in the post-“Bodyguard” years, given that most accounts depict that period as a blank free fall toward her death.YET FOR ALL that, Houston’s boosterism has also escaped us because it was personal. She wasn’t really a race woman: A star of her stature and ambition could not have declared her racial commitments like, say, the actress Ruby Dee, or, later, Rae herself; and Houston bid a raucous farewell to the race woman’s politics of respectability, as well as to the position of role model, with the 2005 reality TV series “Being Bobby Brown.” Nor was Houston a mogul like some of her contemporaries, such as Oprah Winfrey or Spike Lee. (An artist-management company and record label were both short-lived.) But she was part of that same embattled, entitled post-civil rights generation who integrated previously white spaces before drawing other artists into them. And because she was intimately aware of how punishing the spotlight could be, she did not simply guide Black women to greater visibility but tried to ensure they survived it.McKinniss’s “The Star Spangled Banner” (2022).Courtesy of the artist, JTT and Almine Rech. Photo: Charles BentonIn a shift signaled by the “I’m Every Woman” video, she began trading in her America’s sweetheart card in the mid-90s for that of Black culture worker, emerging not only as the Voice but as a multimedia strategist with a discerning ear for new talent. In 1994, she performed a series of concerts in Nelson Mandela’s South Africa. In 1995, she co-executive produced and appeared on an all-Black-female soundtrack for the film adaptation of Terry McMillan’s 1992 novel, “Waiting to Exhale,” in which she co-starred; the album featured everyone from Aretha Franklin to the R&B vocalist Faith Evans to the wunderkind Brandy — who later starred in the 1997 multicultural version of “Cinderella” that Houston co-produced (she herself played the Fairy Godmother). She helped put contemporary gospel on the map with her 1996 soundtrack to “The Preacher’s Wife” and by collaborating with Winans and Kelly Price. In 1998, she worked with the musicians Missy Elliott and Lauryn Hill (whom she called “the new breed”) to help produce “My Love Is Your Love,” an album that initiated her turn toward a new bent-but-not-broken brand of hip-hop-inflected R&B. She had Price and Evans sing with her on the sultry track “Heartbreak Hotel.” The song doesn’t call out for a group arrangement, but Houston seemed to want to “shine some light on some other Black females from church,” Evans says. The Grammy-nominated song, as well as the video, brought Evans and Price even greater exposure to a pop audience (while also helping Houston reach the so-called urban music market these younger artists represented). Her last project was a 2012 remake of the 1976 Black film musical “Sparkle,” in which she portrayed the mother to a group of aspiring singers — fitting, given the supporting role she had been playing offscreen for nearly two decades.Having signed her own recording contract at age 19, Houston was, by her 30s, something of an industry elder. (Burrell, who was one of Houston’s closest friends, tells me that, following an unimpressive encounter with a rising female superstar, Houston wanted to make a documentary on dos and don’ts for women in the industry.) She encouraged Monica, a mentee 17 years her junior, to keep recording then-unorthodox songs about urban life such as “Street Symphony” (1998), and to stick to the thigh-high leather boots she preferred even when she was being told to wear gowns. Monica recalls that Houston also instructed her to keep her notes “pure” so as to distill a song’s feeling, instead of “mixing tones and textures,” the way the younger vocalist had learned to do in church. It was also crucial to find the “spaces and places to add inflections, but not too much,” she says: “Whitney was big on that.”The point of getting it right was less to impress than to properly perform one’s musical ministry. “It wasn’t about going onstage looking glamorous or wondering, ‘Did I sound good?’” Pat Houston says. “She came onstage to sing to you. She was looking to make sure you extracted what you needed from what she had to say.” The music mattered because it was the medium through which Houston enacted the best of what she aimed to be offstage: vibrantly available, sensitive to nuance and need. She encouraged Burrell’s dream of a church in Houston, where Burrell has served as the senior pastor. When Evans’s husband the Notorious B.I.G. was killed in 1997, Houston got her out of the house. When Monica suffered a tragic loss at 18, Houston flew to the singer’s home in Atlanta, staying for nearly a week.These gestures and generosities were things only her friends could tell you about. She had no desire to advertise them, not least since her private life had already been thoroughly consumed by the public. Yet she was nonetheless pleased when people found out. In 1998, the future journalist Quencie Thomas, then in her early 20s, interviewed Houston on MTV and thanked her for “employing so many of our people.” Houston sat up straight and said, “Do you know that?” Knowing has always depended on whom you asked, and where you looked. More

Dudamel, a charismatic 42-year-old conductor, will take up the Philharmonic’s podium in 2026, in a major coup for the orchestra.LOS ANGELES — Gustavo Dudamel, the charismatic conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, whose fiery baton and bouncy curls have made him one of classical music’s most recognizable figures, will leave his post in 2026 to become the music director of the New York Philharmonic, both orchestras announced on Tuesday.“What I see is an amazing orchestra in New York and a lot of potential for developing something important,” he said in an interview. “It’s like opening a new door and building a new house. It’s a beautiful time.”The appointment of Dudamel, 42, is a major coup for the New York Philharmonic, the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, which was once led by giants including Mahler, Toscanini and Bernstein. Just a decade ago, there were concerns about its future, given the languishing efforts to renovate its lackluster hall and questions about its artistic direction. Now its home, David Geffen Hall, has reopened after a $550 million renovation, and it has secured in Dudamel the rare maestro whose fame transcends classical music, even as he is sought by the world’s leading ensembles.His departure is a significant loss for Los Angeles, where since 2009 Dudamel has helped build a vast cultural empire and helped turn the orchestra into one of the most innovative and financially successful in the United States.He was lured east by Deborah Borda, the New York Philharmonic’s powerful president and chief executive, in an instance of classical music history repeating itself. She signed the 26-year-old Dudamel to the Los Angeles Philharmonic back when she led that ensemble, and helped make him a superstar in its relatively new Walt Disney Concert Hall. Now she hopes to repeat that success in New York.“It’s a wonderful match,” said Borda, who arranged the deal in one of her last big pieces of business before she steps down from her post at the end of June. “I’m joyous for our orchestra. I’m joyous for our city.”The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Dudamel, one of the highest-paid artists in the industry, earned $2.8 million during a recent season in Los Angeles. In New York, he will be given the expanded title of music and artistic director, to match his current role. He will succeed Jaap van Zweden — first as music director designate in the 2025-26 season, then as the orchestra’s 27th music director in the 2026-27 season — with an initial contract for five years.Dudamel, who was born in Venezuela, will be the orchestra’s first Hispanic leader, in a city where Latinos make up about 29 percent of the population. His appointment comes as the Philharmonic has worked to connect with new audiences, especially young people and Black and Latino residents.Classical music audiences typically skew older, but Dudamel is a rare figure who has been able to galvanize traditionalists and newcomers alike. He has made nurturing a younger generation of artists and music fans a priority, building a youth orchestra in Los Angeles modeled on El Sistema — the Venezuelan-based movement, in which he trained, that weds teaching and social work.Dudamel at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, where his contract with the Los Angeles Philharmonic will expire at the end of the 2025-26 season.Alex Welsh for The New York TimesAnd he is unique among modern conductors for his pop-culture celebrity. Dudamel has appeared in a Super Bowl halftime show and voiced Trollzart in the animated film “Trolls World Tour.” He inspired the wunderkind Latin American conductor played by Gael García Bernal on the Amazon series “Mozart in the Jungle” and made a cameo appearance on the show. (“Hear the Hair” was its parody of a classical music marketing campaign.) In addition to making recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic, he has conducted on soundtracks of a recent “Star Wars” film and Steven Spielberg’s version of “West Side Story.” In 2019, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.Dudamel now faces the difficult task of attempting to raise the New York Philharmonic’s standing in American cultural life while helping it navigate a series of challenges, including dwindling ticket revenues, shifting audience behavior since the pandemic and persistent questions about the relevance of classical music and live performance today.Dudamel said that as music and artistic director, he would champion new music and work to develop the orchestra’s sound, now that the musicians had a hall in which they could fully hear each other onstage.“There are no limits, especially in an orchestra with such a history,” he said. “I see an incredible infinite potential of building something unique for the world.”Dudamel, who has been the music director of the Paris Opera since 2021, and of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela since 1999, was a favorite for the podium in New York as soon as it became vacant. In the fall of 2021, van Zweden announced that he would step down at the end of the 2023-24 season after a six-year tenure.When Dudamel appeared at the Philharmonic last spring, for a two-program Schumann symphony cycle, some players, hoping to win him over, showed up to rehearsals bearing gifts and handwritten notes. Inside his dressing room, a group of musicians gave him a bottle of the Brooklyn-made Widow Jane bourbon, telling him the Philharmonic would welcome him if he could find a way to spend more time in New York.“Everything comes alive with him,” said Christopher Martin, the orchestra’s principal trumpet. “Everything is as natural as breathing.”Borda said that it was Dudamel’s long and fruitful relationship with the Philharmonic — he has led 26 concerts with the orchestra since his debut in 2007 — that had made him the choice of the musicians, board members and managers. She recounted meeting him secretly in various European cities over the past year, often flying in and out within 24 hours to avoid suspicion, as she tried to secure a deal. (Seeing him in Los Angeles, she said, “just didn’t feel kosher.”)In October, when Dudamel was in New York to perform at Carnegie Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, she took him on a tour of the renovated hall during a rehearsal, taking a circuitous route to sneak him onto the third tier so that even the orchestra’s musicians would not know. The attempt at secrecy was foiled when they bumped into Lin-Manuel Miranda, who was preparing for a gala performance.The secrecy was broken on Tuesday afternoon when the New York Philharmonic’s musicians were summoned for an announcement shortly after a rehearsal with the guest conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. Some worried that the news would be bad; only members of the orchestra committee knew what the meeting would be about.Judith LeClair, the New York Philharmonic’s principal bassoon, reacted to the news of Dudamel’s hiring on Tuesday.James Estrin/The New York TimesWith the players reunited onstage, Borda and her successor, Gary Ginstling, stepped onto the podium.“Our next music director will be,” Borda said, with a pause, “Gustavo Dudamel.”The musicians erupted into 20 seconds of applause, in a journey from wide-eyed surprise to whistles and cheers, genuine expressions of joy. Judith LeClair, the bassoonist, was the most animated of them, looking dumbfounded before holding a radiant smile through the rest of Borda’s speech.“The Philharmonic has had its ups and downs,” Borda told them. “And it had an amazing time in the ’60s, when we were golden,” she added, referring to Bernstein’s music directorship. “I really feel the promise of that again.”Afterward, members of the orchestra were visibly elated. The oboist Ryan Roberts, who grew up in Los Angeles, called his mother there: “Mom, guess who our new music director is.” She could be heard responding with Dudamel’s name, virtually screaming with excitement.The appointment of Dudamel is the latest chapter in a remarkable career. Born in the Barquisimeto, Venezuela, he grew up in a musical family: His mother was a voice teacher, and his father a trombonist who played in salsa bands. He enrolled in El Sistema as a child and studied violin and composition before pursuing conducting.He sometimes faced questions about his ties to Venezuelan leaders — he conducted at the funeral of President Hugo Chávez — but tried to remain above the political fray. But in 2017, after a young El Sistema-trained viola player was killed during a street protest, Dudamel issued a statement that said “enough is enough” and wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times accusing the government of flouting the Venezuelan constitution. President Nicolás Maduro canceled several overseas tours by Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra as punishment, and Dudamel did not return to Venezuela until a quiet trip late last year.Dudamel has been a champion of new music, collaborating in Los Angeles with composers including John Adams and Gabriela Ortiz. He has also joined forces with pop and jazz stars, such as Billie Eilish and Herbie Hancock. The New York Times critic Zachary Woolfe wrote in 2017 that the Los Angeles Philharmonic was “the most important orchestra in America. Period.”At the New York Philharmonic, Dudamel will lead an organization that is smaller than his Los Angeles empire, and one that has struggled in recent decades with financial troubles. The Los Angeles Philharmonic, with its Frank Gehry-designed Disney Hall as well as the Hollywood Bowl, garnered about $187 million in yearly revenue before the pandemic. The New York Philharmonic earned $86 million.Chad Smith, the chief executive of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, congratulated Dudamel on the move, praised his tenure there for leaving “indelible marks on classical music” and hinted at the orchestra’s next steps.“From our earliest days, the L.A. Phil has been a trailblazer, boldly embracing the new, welcoming the world’s greatest artists to our stages and redefining the role of an orchestra in our community,” he said in a statement. “The search for our next music director will be conducted with this same spirit as we define the future of our organization.”Dudamel broke the news on Tuesday to Los Angeles players after a rehearsal, telling them that he would always be an Angeleno.Dale Breidenthal, a violinist in the orchestra, said Dudamel’s departure was stunning for the ensemble. “We haven’t processed it,” she said on her way out from the rehearsal. Still, she added, New York needed his talents. “We are really excited for him,” she said.Dudamel said he did not expect to build a replica of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in New York. “It’s impossible,” he said. “They are completely different cultures.”Still, he said, he would like to explore the idea of creating a youth education program similar to his efforts in Los Angeles. “It will be very important that we really develop social action through music,” he said. “For artistic institutions in the world, it’s important to embrace and to build. It will be very beautiful.”Borda, who returned to New York in 2017 after 17 years at the helm of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, balanced the New York Philharmonic’s budget and built up its once-depleted endowment. She also helped bring to fruition the long-delayed renovation of Geffen Hall, working with Henry Timms, the president and chief executive of Lincoln Center, to push it through ahead of schedule during the pandemic shutdown.That renovation has helped to revitalize the orchestra; speaking with the players on Tuesday, Borda told them, “It’s really because of you that he’s coming” but added, “And I have to say, it doesn’t hurt to have a nicer hall.”Paid attendance so far this season has hovered around 88 percent, compared with 74 percent before the pandemic, though the revamped hall is somewhat smaller. But the ensemble is still grappling with a host of questions about its identity and vision.Borda offered Dudamel two gifts while wooing him. One, given early in the search, was a program book from a Philharmonic tour of Venezuela in 1958, with a cover designed by the artist Carlos Cruz-Diez.The other, which he received as the deal was being finalized, was a pencil that was used to compose music by an artist who will now be his predecessor: Leonard Bernstein.Dudamel said in the interview that he would always maintain a connection to Los Angeles.“I don’t feel that I’m leaving this place or that it will be goodbye forever,” he said. “All the time I have spent here and all the experience that I have built here, I will bring to New York to build something new. This is life. I don’t feel that it’s an end.”Joshua Barone contributed reporting from New York. More

Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThe major awards at this year’s Grammys were split: Harry Styles won album of the year, Lizzo took record of the year and Bonnie Raitt received song of the year. Beyoncé, nominated in each of those categories, won none of them.Which is to say another year, another set of Grammy shrugs for Beyoncé, who despite the ongoing snubs in major categories, is now the most awarded artist in Grammy history, with a total of 32 wins.Whether Grammy respect has meaning was an ongoing theme Sunday night, underscoring Beyoncé’s wins and losses, as well as the elaborate hip-hop history segment that ran through 50 years of the genre in 15 minutes, bringing many rap legends to the Grammy stage for the first time ever.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the Grammys finally reckoning with hip-hop’s long legacy and impact, the show’s ongoing tug of war with Beyoncé and the ways it might remain relevant in the future.Guests:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterJon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music criticLindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic for The New York TimesConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at [email protected]. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

Dudamel, the New York Philharmonic’s next music director, has a varied catalog of classics and contemporary works, as well as film scores.If Gustavo Dudamel, the 42-year-old superstar maestro who on Tuesday was announced as the next music director of the New York Philharmonic, is known for anything, it’s the sheer energy of his performances. His body moves with dancerly charisma as his baton conjures extremities of orchestral sound; the music feels alive, and so do you.The same could often be said for his recordings, even without the spectacle of a live concert. Still, the quality of Dudamel’s catalog is as varied as his repertoire: beloved symphonies, Latin American music and premiere recordings of contemporary works, even film soundtracks. If his Beethoven Nine is overblown, his Mahler Nine is heartbreakingly understated. Almost no album is without something to love, and something to scratch your head at.Over the years, Dudamel’s recordings have revealed gifts for Tchaikovskyan Romanticism, dancing rhythms and, above all, American music. Here is a sampling of those, as well as some possible red flags for his future in New York.John Williams: ‘The Imperial March’Dudamel is a fixture in Los Angeles — not only as the music and artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, a post he will hold through the 2025-26 season, but also as a celebrity conductor who moves easily between the worlds of Hollywood and classical music. Sometimes, he occupies both at once. He is a friend of the film composing legend John Williams, celebrating him on the stage of Walt Disney Concert Hall and recording hits including recognizable themes from the “Star Wars” movies.John Adams: ‘Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?’Dudamel has enthusiastically led the works of living composers, many in world or American premieres. John Adams is a particular specialty; Dudamel was the first to record his oratorio “The Gospel According to the Other Mary” and has led older pieces including “Grand Pianola Music.” (This spring, he will be in the pit for “Nixon in China” at the Paris Opera, where he is the music director.) At Disney Hall in 2019, Dudamel also conducted the premiere of Adams’s piano concerto written for Yuja Wang, “Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?”Ginastera: ‘Estancia’Another of Dudamel’s ensembles is the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela, where he was born. With those players, he has released a lot of music, for the most part in the realm of familiar classics. On the album “Fiesta,” though, they explore Latin American (or Latin-influenced) works including Ginastera’s short but teeming 1941 ballet “Estancia.” The finale, driven by malambo rhythms, is a foot-tapping, smile-inducing explosion of energy, and of life.Ives: Symphony No. 4Among Dudamel’s finest recordings with the Los Angeles Philharmonic is a cycle of Ives’s four symphonies, works of pioneering American sound that freely dabble in the melodies of popular and traditional songs. From movement to movement, Dudamel demonstrates a mastery of the music’s mystery, delicacy and deeply felt nostalgia. All those come together in the finale of the enormous Fourth, a layered collage of tunes and textures that, under Dudamel’s baton, feels as unsettled and tenuously harmonious as America itself.Tchaikovsky: ‘Romeo and Juliet’Dudamel’s interpretations of Tchaikovsky are not uniformly the best; his “Nutcracker” with the Los Angeles Philharmonic can be missed. (Try instead Simon Rattle’s in Berlin or Valery Gergiev’s in St. Petersburg.) But his penchant for extremity makes for gripping drama and fervent passion in his account of the “Romeo and Juliet” fantasy overture with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra.Beethoven: Symphony No. 6The extremity often employed in Tchaikovsky doesn’t, however, serve Beethoven’s symphonies. Dudamel’s recordings of those works with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra often lack the breadth of Beethoven’s sound — the wit and joy alongside the darkness of, say, the Fifth. Particularly confounding is an unrelaxed and excitable Sixth that hardly lives up to the symphony’s nickname as the “Pastoral.”Mahler: Symphony No. 9When Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic visited Carnegie Hall for two concerts last fall, they ended their first program with an uneven reading of Mahler’s First Symphony. On disc, though, Dudamel proves himself to be a more trustworthy guide elsewhere in Mahler: through the varied moods of the Fifth, with the Berlin Philharmonic, and through the Indiana Jones-like adventure of the Seventh’s Scherzo. He is at his wisest in the Ninth, recorded — touchingly, patiently, unpretentiously — with the Angelenos.Andrew Norman: ‘Sustain’Dudamel’s support of new music in Los Angeles peaked with the Philharmonic’s 2019-20 centennial season, which inspired a series of commissions including Andrew Norman’s symphony-length “Sustain.” This cosmic score reveals itself slowly and, at times, unexpectedly. Yet for all its complexity, the music unfurls with lived-in inevitability in this standard-setting account.Bernstein: ‘West Side Story’Bits of “West Side Story” have appeared in Dudamel’s concerts before, but he took up the entire score — with propulsive intensity, playfulness and beauty — for Steven Spielberg’s 2021 film adaptation. Here, Bernstein proves a master of different musical idioms; and Dudamel does the same in the recording sessions for the soundtrack, which was made, fittingly, with both the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics.Thomas Adès: ‘Dante’While in Los Angeles, Dudamel unveiled a modern masterpiece: Thomas Adès’s evening-length “Dante,” which Dudamel conducted in its concert premiere last spring after the “Divine Comedy”-inspired work had debuted as a ballet score in London. A recording of it, made at Disney Hall, is set for release in April on the Nonesuch label, but for now, there is a taste in “The Thieves — devoured by reptiles,” the Lisztian 12th section of “Inferno.” More