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      Review: Robert Ashley’s ‘Foreign Experiences’ Returns

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      Robert Ashley’s 1994 opera “Foreign Experiences,” a portrait of a paranoid mind in free fall, is part of a wave of revivals following his death.The makings of opera are quite simple. Strip away the clichés of an opulent art form populated by Viking helmets and powdered wigs (and more than 400 years of history), and you end up with DNA shared by Claudio Monteverdi, Richard Wagner and Meredith Monk across centuries: an artificial, elevated form of speech that reaches for the sublime.Few composers have tested the fundamental qualities of opera as much as Robert Ashley, who died a decade ago at 83. He stretched language and banality to operatic extremes, exalting discarded bits of life as if they were cosmic, in stylized declamation that is every bit as musical as Mozart.Hardly mainstream, Ashley’s works were often performed as he wrote them, then talked about more than staged. Since his death, though, there has been a wave of fresh recordings and revivals, the latest of which is “Foreign Experiences” (1994), now running at Roulette in Brooklyn. A portrait of a mind in free fall, red-pilled before we were talking about red-pilling, it is essential viewing for those interested in the possibilities of opera.Picture an opera made entirely of a mad scene, and you have “Foreign Experiences,” an installment in “Now Eleanor’s Idea,” Ashley’s tetralogy whose construction recalls another four-work saga, Wagner’s “Ring.” In “Experiences,” the protagonist, Don Jr., spirals in isolation after a move to California, and from his apartment he imagines paranoid adventures in esoterica, in search of truths about power and wealth. He comes to conclusions like, “‘If you have to ask, you can’t afford one,’ I always thought we ought to have that carved into that stupid mountain with the four guys’ heads.”Don Jr.’s thoughts come quickly; “Foreign Experiences,” alone in “Now Eleanor’s Idea,” is set to 90 beats per minute instead of Ashley’s usual 72. And those beats matter to each line of the opera’s 50-page libretto. This is a work of extreme mathematical precision that, in performance, shows no signs of being precise at all, with manic speech unfurling over ambient synth chords that reflect both the mood and sound world of “The X-Files.”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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      Bill Holman, Whose Arrangements Shaped West Coast Jazz, Dies at 96

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      His economical, linear writing helped define the sound of Stan Kenton’s band. He also led his own 16-piece ensemble for many decades.Bill Holman, an arranger and composer whose work with Stan Kenton, Gerry Mulligan and other jazz greats established him as a transformative figure in the cool jazz sound associated with 1950s California, died on Monday at his home in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles. He was 96.Kathryn King, his stepdaughter, announced the death.Mr. Holman’s longtime collaboration with Mr. Kenton, first as a saxophonist in his band and later as an arranger, provided the foundation of his reputation, but he also went on to arrange for Maynard Ferguson, Count Basie, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett, Michael Bublé and many others, and to lead his own 16-piece ensemble.He won three Grammy Awards — for his arrangements of “Take the A Train” (1988) for Doc Severinsen’s band and “Straight, No Chaser” (1998) for his own, and for his original composition “A View From the Side” (1996) — and contributed compositions and arrangements to seven other Grammy-winning records, including Natalie Cole’s “Unforgettable” (1991). He received a total of 16 Grammy nominations.Mr. Holman was known for his economical, linear arrangements, which used elegant counterpoint and dissonance to enliven both old standards and his own works. Reared on the big bands of the 1930s and ’40s, he helped Mr. Kenton and others from that era make the transition to a more energetic sound in the postwar years.He was already an innovative arranger when he was in his 20s, creating new avenues that jazz would pursue over the following decades. And yet, while he was often imitated, his unique style remained easily recognizable, even on pieces that he ghostwrote for other arrangers.Mr. Holman in 1999. He won three Grammy Awards, two for arrangements and one for his original composition “A View From The Side.”Lawrence K. Ho/Los Angeles 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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      Who Are the Favorites to Win Eurovision?

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      Some of the buzziest acts taking part in Saturday’s final hail from Croatia, Israel and the Netherlands.On Saturday, acts representing 26 countries will compete at the Eurovision Song Contest, the high-camp competition that is also world’s most watched cultural event. The winner is chosen by a combination of votes from music industry juries in participating countries and viewers watching at home. Sometimes, they reflect the strength of individual performances; other times, politics comes into play.Who is most likely to triumph at this year’s event in Malmo, Sweden? Here are the five acts who may have the best chance, based on European bookmakers’ odds and online chatter.The NetherlandsJoost KleinJoost Klein, representing the Netherlands with “Europapa,” has emerged as one of this year’s most-talked about acts.Klein is a star in his home country who mixes pop with hyperfast beats. In “Europapa,” he raps about a transcontinental journey that is also tribute to his parents, who both died when Klein was young.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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      Post Malone Goes Country With Morgan Wallen, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Raveena, Willow, John Cale 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.Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen, ‘I Had Some Help’The ever-adaptable Post Malone moves into country with this duet with Morgan Wallen. It’s jovial on the surface, with cheerful steel-guitar hooks. But it’s deeply surly at heart, as Malone and Wallen take turns lashing out at an ex who blames them after a relationship crumbles. “It ain’t like I can make this kind of mess all by myself,” they insist. “Don’t act like you ain’t helped me pull that bottle off the shelf.” Personal responsibility? Nah.Willow, ‘Big Feelings’Willow embraces her outsize emotions in the full-tilt finale of her new album, “Empathogen,” which veers from her old pop-punk into jazz and prog-rock. Her voice sails over choppy piano chords as she announces her “big feelings,” and when she sings, “Yes, I have problems, problems,” she turns “problems” into a six-syllable arpeggio. In the bridge she tells herself, “Acceptance is the key,” and eventually it sounds like she’ll make peace with those problems, or even flaunt them.Raveena, ‘Pluto’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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      On Andra Day’s ‘Cassandra (Cherith),’ a Soaring Voice Reaches Inward

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      After playing Billie Holiday onscreen, the singer brings jazz virtuosity to songs of her own.The tart, bluesy quaver in Andra Day’s voice has a long heritage. It bends the well-tempered notes of the European scale into idiosyncratic microtones and mocks any inflexible rhythm. It reaches back through Jazmine Sullivan, Amy Winehouse, Erykah Badu, Esther Phillips, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, Bessie Smith and of course Billie Holiday. Day won a Golden Globe portraying Holiday in the 2021 film “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” and recorded a full album of Holiday’s repertoire. She also learned deeply from her bittersweet amalgam of vulnerability and flintiness.Throughout the history of American music, blues, jazz and soul singers have used the jazzy quaver for the subtlest nuances of emotion: for tension, playfulness, defiance, flirtatiousness, ache or just blithe ornamentation. Day deploys it all those ways, and more, on “Cassandra (Cherith),” her second album of her own songs.Her first, “Cheers to the Fall,” was released back in 2015. It displayed her agility and power in dramatic, retro-flavored tracks, and it featured a resolute ballad, “Rise Up,” that became an anthem of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.Day followed “Cheers to the Fall” with a Christmas EP in 2016 that included a duet with Stevie Wonder. Since then, she has released soundtrack songs and singles and recorded some guest appearances. But “Cassandra (Cherith)” makes clear that Day has been stockpiling material; she is a writer and producer, alongside many collaborators, on all of its 16 songs.Day’s 2015 debut album had a reverberant, widescreen, retro sound. By contrast, “Cassandra (Cherith)” favors focused close-ups; it heightens details, making Day’s voice more exposed and even more daring. Throughout the album, her delivery feels questing and improvisatory. She’s so sure of her melodies that she can embellish them at any moment, stretching or rushing or wriggling them as the impulse strikes.She breezes across styles and eras. From a base in neo-soul, with hip-hop beats underpinning sinuous R&B melodies, Day also touches on jazz, Motown, jazz, bossa nova, piano rock and vintage-sounding orchestral pop. But the most important sound on Day’s album is her voice. It’s precise but uninhibited, sometimes carefree and sometimes fiercely intimate.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 a Novelist Became a Pop Star

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      “I hope you fall in love, I hope it breaks your heart” is the refrain (in English translation) of “Pasoori,” Ali Sethi’s 2022 global hit. Is this a curse or a blessing? The song, performed as a duet with the Pakistani singer Shae Gill, defies such simple classifications — it’s a pop banger sung in Urdu and Punjabi, punctuated with flamenco handclaps and driven by a reggaeton beat. Sethi, a Pakistani-born artist who lives in Manhattan’s East Village, composed it in the wake of a thwarted collaboration with an Indian organization that feared reprisal (because of a 2016 ban on hiring Pakistani creatives). Drawing on themes from ghazals — sly courtesan poems about desire and betrayal that have doubled as political critiques, a genre that dates to seventh-century Arabia — “Pasoori” is at once “a love song, a bit of a flower bomb thrown at nationalism, a queer anthem, a protest song, a power ballad [and] a song of togetherness,” Sethi says. It’s now been viewed some 850 million times on YouTube, including by countless Indian fans.Sethi, 39, is a master of microtonal singing, gliding between the notes of the Western tempered scale. He’s been lauded for sounding like a vestige of another age — his supple, keening tenor the result of years of apprenticeship to the Pakistani artists Ustad Saami and Farida Khanum. Growing up in Lahore, where he was recognized at school for his academic and artistic abilities but also, he says, “taunted by both students and teachers for being part of a queer cohort,” he found in traditional music a way to be good but also fabulous, rooted without being fixed.Back then, he didn’t see the arts as offering a viable career path. As an undergraduate at Harvard in the early aughts, he was expected to study economics. He instead took courses on South Asian history and world fiction, and first read Jane Austen at the behest of his teacher Zadie Smith. In 2009, he published “The Wish Maker,” a semiautobiographical coming-of-age novel set in his home city. The narrator navigates the wounds and thrills of adolescence, as well as a factionalized, globalizing country, alongside his female cousin: They watch an “Indiana Jones” film (“about an American man of the same name who wore hats and enjoyed the company of blonde women”) and are puzzled by its Indian villain; they fuel their crushes with love songs by Mariah Carey and the Pakistani artist Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.According to Sethi, his hit single “Pasoori” is at once “a love song, a bit of a flower bomb thrown at nationalism, a queer anthem, a protest song, a power ballad [and] a song of togetherness.”Philip CheungThe book was well received, though Sethi now thinks its realist form couldn’t fully accommodate Pakistan, a society in flux. As he was finishing the novel in Lahore in 2007, the country was besieged by sectarian violence. His father, Jugnu Mohsin — both he and Sethi’s mother, Najam Sethi, are prominent journalists and publishers — received death threats, and Sethi spent over a year in hiding, staying in the basements of friends. In 2011, he traveled to India to work as an adviser on Mira Nair’s 2012 film, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist,” adapted from Mohsin Hamid’s 2007 novel. One evening, when everyone was eating and singing, Nair was so moved by Sethi’s version of a ghazal famously sung by Khanum, “Dil Jalane Ki Baat,” that she urged him to record it. The song became part of the soundtrack and the first step toward Sethi’s recording career.Storytelling is still inherent to his work. Whether at concerts or on Instagram, Sethi often describes the inclusive nature of traditional South Asian music. Because it’s always been “anciently multiple” and cosmopolitan, it contains the “antibodies,” he says, to heal a divisive culture from within. But there are moments when he wishes to not represent but present for a while. He plans to write another novel, in the more experimental form of lyrical autofiction. Today, the burden of being an ambassador is lightened by the presence of other queer South Asian artists, including the writers Bushra Rehman and Sarah Thankam Mathews, and Sethi’s own partner, the painter Salman Toor. Last year, Sethi appeared at Coachella along with several other South Asian musicians, whose multilingual sets slotted right in alongside the Spanish artist Rosalía and Nigeria’s Burna Boy, who performed in English and their native languages.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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      Dennis Thompson, Drummer and Last Remaining Member of MC5, Dies at 75

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      The musician brought his hard-hitting style to the band, which helped lay the foundation of American punk rock and is set to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.Dennis Thompson, the drummer whose thunderous, hard-hitting style powered the proto-punk sound of the loud, outspoken and highly influential Detroit rock band MC5, died on Thursday in Taylor, Mich. He was 75.He died in a rehabilitation facility while recovering from a recent heart attack, his son, Chris McNulty, said.Mr. Thompson was the last surviving member of MC5, a band that was politically outspoken and aligned with the countercultural left, supporting the anti-Vietnam War movement and protests against racism. The band will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in October.Musically, MC5 was known as one of the forefathers of punk rock, starting with the breakout 1969 live album, “Kick Out the Jams.” The group’s song of the same name was its best-known, covered by Henry Rollins and Bad Brains, The Presidents of the United States of America and Rage Against the Machine.When Mr. Thompson joined MC5, short for Motor City Five, in 1966 at 17 years old, his intense playing style earned him his nickname “Machine Gun” from his bandmates for how ferociously he played the drums. He played that way because the group could not afford to connect a microphone to his drums in its early days.“The amps were turned up to 10, so he basically just had to hit the drums as hard as he possibly could to be heard,” Mr. McNulty said.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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      Review: An Absent Player in the Spotlight at the Philharmonic

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      This week’s program was supposed to feature the orchestra’s principal oboe, but he and another player have been suspended amid misconduct allegations.It’s rare that the most significant music in a concert is a piece that isn’t played. But this week’s program at the New York Philharmonic may end up being remembered for what was omitted.The performance on Wednesday, conducted by Jane Glover, was supposed to include Mozart’s Oboe Concerto, with the solo part taken by the orchestra’s principal oboe, Liang Wang. But he and the associate principal trumpet, Matthew Muckey, have been benched by the Philharmonic since allegations of misconduct and assault against them resurfaced last month.In 2018, those accusations prompted the orchestra to fire the two men; the players’ union then appealed to an arbitrator, who reinstated them in 2020. Now, as another investigation has begun and Wang and Muckey have sued the orchestra, saying they’ve been wrongfully suspended, it is unclear when — and whether — either will play on the stage of David Geffen Hall again.Rather than replace Wang, the Philharmonic swapped out Mozart’s Oboe Concerto with his Symphony No. 13 in F (K. 112). Written in 1771, when its composer was 15 and on a tour of Italy with his father, the symphony — just 13 minutes long — has that easygoing, tossed-off eloquence that’s evident even in Mozart’s teenage works. The first movement is sprightly; the second, gentle, scored for strings alone; the third, graceful. Best of all is the lively triple-time finale, which evokes the long history of courtly hunting music, with an alluring short section in minor key.The Philharmonic had never performed the symphony before Wednesday, and under Glover’s baton it flowed with the same nimble, unaffected naturalness as the rest of the program: four pieces, including three Mozart symphonies, from the final three decades of the 18th century. Glover’s tempos throughout the concert were sensible and unexaggerated, with ample room to breathe but no dragging, and the playing was lovely — though the violins sometimes took on a slightly thin, wiry edge, highlighted by the cool clarity of Geffen Hall’s acoustics.In the work not by Mozart — Beethoven’s “Ah! perfido,” a concert scene from five years after Mozart’s death but still very much within the world of his opera arias — the orchestra provided sensitive accompaniment for the soprano Karen Slack. Making her Philharmonic debut, she inhabited the piece’s shifting moods, from anger at a treacherous lover to vulnerability to proud resolution, with strikingly clear high notes by the end.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