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      Review: A Conductor Surprises by Embracing the Ordinary

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      Esa-Pekka Salonen is known for unusual, ambitious projects. But at the New York Philharmonic this week, he succeeded with standard repertory works.The conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen tends to get noticed for his ambitious, even outlandish projects.Perfume cannons puffing out scent alongside the music. A rare performance of one of the piano’s most gargantuan concertos. Contemporary opera in the concert hall. A roboticist being included among his artistic collaborators. Ample helpings of his own works. (Salonen is the rare maestro who is also a successful composer.)But once all the perfume has dissipated, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Salonen, who led the New York Philharmonic on Wednesday at David Geffen Hall, is, at core, simply an excellent conductor.The Philharmonic program was unusual for him in that it was so, well, uncreative. No premieres, no stagings, no intriguing juxtapositions. Just two classic pieces — Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 and Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique” — that, in the style of old-fashioned orchestra programming, seemed to have been thrown together arbitrarily. And yet it was a terrific concert, overseen by Salonen with his characteristic fiery clarity.Fiery clarity is a good way of describing his most recent career move, too. Classical music is, outwardly at least, meticulously polite. Few musicians leave positions amid publicly verbalized anger.But in March, when Salonen announced he wouldn’t renew his contract as the music director of the San Francisco Symphony, he told the truth — or at least his truth. He had made his decision, he said, “because I do not share the same goals for the future of the institution as the Board of Governors does.”By the industry’s standards, this was an expletive-ridden rant. It quickly became clear that the problem was money. The San Francisco Symphony has hobbled out of the pandemic even more deficit-laden than it was before; its expensive promises to Salonen — like that team of artistic collaborators, roboticist and all — were going to need to be curtailed.The funny thing about Wednesday’s concert in New York is that it was exactly the kind of program that would be his future had Salonen chosen to remain in San Francisco: meat and potatoes repertoire, without the fancy trimmings.But even without them, the Philharmonic played beautifully for him on Wednesday. The Shostakovich concerto was dotted with eerily mellow rips of brass near the start, a hushed dusk in the strings at the start of the second movement and characterful pierces from the winds in the final Allegro. Sheku Kanneh-Mason, the soloist, played with a rich yet focused tone, and he didn’t indulge in excessive emotion. This resulted in a performance that was modest, straight-faced and fundamentally serene — but also a little cool, a little efficient. The piece seemed to sail by briskly.It was hard to remember the concerto at all after the monster that is Berlioz’s “Symphonie.” Last year, I wrote that the Philharmonic’s rendition of this score under Herbert Blomstedt was “leisurely, mellow, thoroughly pastoral.” That could hardly have been further from Salonen’s neurotically unsettled, icy-hot take, which grabbed every opportunity to emphasize off-kilter rhythms and changeable textures.The opening “Reveries, Passions” section had a dewy freshness to the sound that could shift, in a moment, to intense fullness, and then back again. Salonen couldn’t keep the long central “Scene in the Fields” section from feeling like it lingers. But it had quietly been building tension, with an undercurrent of anxiety — an anticipation of the trembling violas a little later on — even in Ryan Roberts’s quiet, plangent English horn shepherd calls.Salonen embraced the sudden swerves and floodlit brashness of the “March to the Scaffold,” which was, as it is too rarely, genuinely scary. And the finale, “Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath,” was raucous but never messy — a ferocious, fantastic party.New York PhilharmonicThis program continues through Saturday at David Geffen Hall, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More

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      Palestinian Flags Fly at Protests Worldwide. They Won’t Be at Eurovision.

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      The organizers of the glitzy singing contest said that attendees would be allowed to wave only the flags of participating nations — including Israel’s.Protesters are waving Palestinian flags on American college campuses and in cities around the world to put pressure on Israel to end the war in the Gaza Strip. But there is one place where that symbol will be absent next week: inside the Eurovision Song Contest.Attendees at this year’s event in Malmo, Sweden, which starts on Tuesday, will not be allowed to bring Palestinian flags or wave banners with slogans about the war between Israel and Hamas, a spokesperson for the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the contest, said on Thursday.Ticket buyers at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest are allowed to bring and display only flags representing the 37 participating countries, the spokesperson said in an email. That includes Israel. The only exceptions are rainbow and pride flags representing L.G.B.T.Q. people, the spokesperson added.Eurovision has long billed itself as an apolitical contest. The spokesperson said although the flags policy was reviewed every year, it had not changed since the last edition, held in Liverpool, England. But the rule has upset some Eurovision fans who for months have been calling for the event’s organizers to ban Israel from taking part because of its military campaign in Gaza.Inga Straumland, an Icelandic fan, called the decision to disallow Palestinian flags “appalling” and said in an interview that the move was “a strong limit on freedom of expression,” especially given that the flag of Israel, a Eurovision contestant, would be present.Although Israel is not in Europe, the country is eligible to compete because its broadcaster is a member of the European Broadcasting Union. The country has won Eurovision four times since first entering in 1973.This year, the 20-year-old singer Eden Golan will represent Israel with the song “Hurricane.” Until European Broadcasting Officials intervened, its original title was “October Rain,” and Eurovision fans have widely interpreted it as a statement about Israeli grief after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks that Israeli officials say killed about 1,200 people.The Eurovision Song Contest is the world’s most watched cultural event. Last year, over 56 million viewers tuned into the competition final live on television, with some 7.6 million more watching on YouTube.Since Eurovision began in 1956, the European Broadcasting Union has banned political statements from the stage, insisting the contest should unify countries rather than dividing them. But this year it has struggled to stop the war in Gaza from making its presence felt.In the months after Israel began its military campaign in Gaza, thousands of musicians and fans from countries including Iceland, Ireland and Sweden signed petitions urging Eurovision’s organizers to ban Israel from the event over the high rate of civilian deaths and the widespread destruction in the occupied territory, where the United Nations says the population is now on the brink of famine.The campaigners say that Eurovision’s ban on Russia participating after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine set a precedent. But Eurovision’s organizers reject the comparison. “We understand the concerns and deeply held views around the current conflict in the Middle East,” the broadcasting union said in a statement in January. Still, it added, Eurovision is “not a contest between governments.”In a more recent statement on its website, the broadcasting union said it would not clamp down on pro-Palestinian demonstrations outside the arena during this year’s finals. The union “is a firm advocate for freedom of speech,” the statement said, adding: “We understand that people may wish to make their voices heard and support the right of those who wish to demonstrate peacefully.”Dean Vuletic, an author of a book on Eurovision’s political history, said in a telephone interview that its organizers had clamped down on flags in 2016, in part to prevent the display of the symbols of terrorist groups like the Islamic State. They also banned flags from disputed territories and those promoting separatist causes — much to the annoyance of fans from Kosovo and Catalonia. Even the European Union’s flag, which was previously allowed, is now not permitted, Vuletic added.Some fans said they accepted the policy. Sophia Ahlin, the chair of a Swedish Eurovision fan club, said in a text message that “it’s nothing unusual” to allow only flags from participating nations.But others said the contest’s decision had turned them off. Straumland, the Icelandic fan, said she would not be watching this year’s event because of Israel’s involvement, even though Eurovision was “the biggest source of happiness in my life along with my son.” Instead, she said, she would be going to an alternative party, where drag and burlesque acts would cover old Eurovision hits.And, she added, she would be taking a Palestinian flag. More

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      Universal Music Artists Will Return to TikTok

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      The two companies reached a new licensing deal, ending a three-month stalemate that kept some of pop’s biggest stars off the platform.TikTok and Universal Music Group have reached a new licensing deal, ending a three-month stalemate that had blocked songs from some of pop’s biggest stars from the influential social media platform.In a joint announcement early Thursday, the two companies said that they had agreed to a “multi-dimensional” new deal that included “improved remuneration” for Universal’s roster of artists and songwriters, and would address the label’s concerns over the growth of A.I.-generated content on the app.In statements that accompanied the announcement, Shou Chew, the chief executive of TikTok, called music “an integral part of the TikTok ecosystem.” Lucian Grainge, the chief executive of Universal — the world’s biggest music company, with a roster of artists including Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Drake and U2 — called the deal a “new chapter in our relationship with TikTok” that “focuses on the value of music, the primacy of human artistry and the welfare of the creative community.”In an internal email to Universal employees, a copy of which was seen by The New York Times, Grainge said that under the new agreement, “artist and songwriter compensation will be greater than under our prior TikTok deal.”The agreement ends the music industry’s biggest and most contentious dispute with a tech platform in years. Both companies hurled public accusations at each other, and artists from across the spectrum worried about whether their careers would be hurt by the absence of their music from TikTok, which has become a vital promotional platform and boasts more than 170 million users in the United States alone.But the deal also comes amid wider uncertainty for TikTok as the app faces a possible ban or sale in the United States because of national security concerns over the app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance. Last month, President Biden signed a bill that would allow TikTok to continue to operate in the United States if it was sold in nine months, though the company is expected to challenge the law in court.Universal began to withdraw permission for its music from TikTok on Feb. 1, after an impasse in negotiations to renew its previous licensing agreement. At the time, Universal said that TikTok “attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth.”Millions of videos that included Universal music — including many artists’ own official music videos — were muted on the platform. TikTok said that by withdrawing its songs, Universal had “put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters.”TikTok and Universal have not commented on their negotiations since then. But the dispute seemed to shift three weeks ago, when Swift — the biggest and most influential artist on Universal’s roster — broke ranks with the label and returned her music to TikTok, ahead of the release of her most recent album.Her move may have weakened Universal’s leverage. But since the ban took effect, fans noticed that songs from many other Universal artists, including Grande and Camila Cabello, had returned, often in sped-up or slowed-down versions that may have been uploaded to the platform by fans.In their announcement, TikTok and Universal did not offer any specifics about the financial terms of their deal. The companies’ statement says they will work together to “realize new monetization opportunities” through e-commerce, and that TikTok will “invest significant resources” in building tools like data analytics and ticketing.The companies added that they were “working expeditiously” to return Universal’s music to the platform. That could take a matter of days or weeks. More

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      Vanessa Williams Releases ‘Legs’ Music Video Featuring Edgy Ensembles

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      Vanessa Williams’s many ensembles in a music video for her new song, “Legs (Keep Dancing),” evoke her knack for portraying a diva with style.It might not come as a surprise that Vanessa Williams, in the music video for her new single, “Legs (Keep Dancing),” can be seen showing off her legs.Some may remember her showing off a lot more in a 1984 issue of Penthouse, that, after being published, led Ms. Williams to become the first Miss America forced to give up her crown, a decision that the pageant’s leaders have since apologized for.Her legs in the “Legs” music video, unlike in the Penthouse photos, are for the most part clothed. Moschino shorts and fishnets, a spangly gold bodysuit and a pink feathered outfit are among the many items Ms. Williams, 61, wears while moving — mostly dancing — between locations that include a white-walled studio, a dimly lit limousine and a nightclub.For certain viewers, Ms. Williams’s colorful wardrobe in the video might evoke other aspects of her career as an actress and singer, say, her past role as fashion editor Wilhelmina Slater in the TV show “Ugly Betty,” or her upcoming role as Miranda Priestly, the Anna-Wintour-inspired fashion editor, in the musical adaptation of “The Devil Wears Prada,” arriving in London’s West End later this year.Ms. Williams, speaking on a phone call on Tuesday after flying from Japan to New York, said that certain attire worn in the “Legs” video had connections to some of her past roles. For instance: A silky chartreuse corset and matching cargo pants by Adrienne Landau, a label she has worn since her days on “Ugly Betty.”Another ensemble of sheer black top and zipper-covered red pants came from Trash and Vaudeville, the punk emporium in Manhattan’s East Village.An ensemble of sheer black top and red zipper-covered pants came from the store Trash and Vaudeville in New York.WMGA spangly gold bodysuit worn beneath a sparkly fringed belt brought to mind Ms. Williams’s reputation as a diva who embraces fashion.WMGMs. Williams, who developed her wardrobe for the video with the stylist Alison Hernon, said the clothes they chose were pieces she feels comfortable in and “that feel comfortable on my body.”She added that her outfits in the video for “Legs,” her first non-holiday-related single in 15 years, were meant to not only highlight the song’s titular anatomy, but also what she described as its underlying message: That her decades-long career is ongoing and ever-expanding.“I’m still here, still standing, still kicking,” Ms. Williams sings on the dance-pop single. “In fact, I’m the best I’ve ever been.”“I’ve got a lot of stuff going on,” Ms. Williams said on the phone. Her to-do list includes plans to release a full-length album on a newly announced record label. She is also a producer of a new musical about the trumpeter Louis Armstrong, which is coming to Broadway around the same she starts performances of “The Devil Wears Prada” in London.Ms. Williams has followed a career path blazed by Black performers like Diana Ross and Diahann Carroll, both of whom also served as inspiration for “Legs” and its music video, which opens with Ms. Williams dropping a cream-colored Michael Kors coat and a Worth & Worth hat — attire nodding to clothes Ms. Ross wore in the 1975 film “Mahogany,” Ms. Hernon said.A line in the song’s chorus, “They say the legs are the last to go,” echoes the title of Ms. Carroll’s memoir, “The Legs Are the Last to Go,” released in 2008. Its cover featured a leggy portrait of Ms. Carroll, who died in 2019.Ms. Williams, who starred in the film “The Courage to Love” alongside Ms. Carroll, said that the title and cover of her memoir reflect how, “with age, comes wisdom.”“She’s realizing and accepting her body shape and all that comes with it,” Ms. Williams said. “And that’s what I think is reflected in what I wanted to say with this phase of my life and also in the music.” More

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      Richard Tandy, Keyboardist for Electric Light Orchestra, Dies at 76

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      He helped shape the band’s futuristic sound, which blended Beatles-esque pop with orchestral arrangements.Richard Tandy, the keyboardist for the British rock band Electric Light Orchestra, whose riffs helped define the futuristic blend of Beatles-esque pop and orchestral arrangements that catapulted the group to global fame in the 1970s, has died. He was 76.His death was announced by Jeff Lynne, the band’s frontman and leader, in a social media post. Mr. Lynne, who called Mr. Tandy his “longtime collaborator,” did not specify when Mr. Tandy had died or the cause of death.Born on March 26, 1948, in Birmingham, England, Mr. Tandy first entered the orbit of E.L.O. by playing the harpsichord in a band with Bev Bevan, who would later become E.L.O.’s drummer.He joined E.L.O. after the release of its first album in 1972, initially playing bass guitar but later becoming the group’s keyboardist after another founding member left.Through ever-changing lineups, Mr. Tandy remained a core band member alongside Mr. Lynne and Mr. Bevan, until it disbanded in 1986. The band went on to sell over 50 million albums, with five reaching Billboard’s top 10.Playing a range of keyboard instruments including the clavinet — an electric clavichord — and the Minimoog synthesizer, Mr. Tandy’s riffs provided the foundations for some of E.L.O.’s most famous songs.On “Evil Woman,” one of the group’s best known songs, it was Mr. Tandy’s “funky clavinet riff that duels with the group’s vocals during the chorus,” in addition to gospel-styled female backing vocals, that made the song “a multi-textured feast of pop hooks,” Donald A. Guarisco wrote for the All Music Guide. Another of the band’s biggest hits, “Mr. Blue Sky,” featured Mr. Tandy’s riff and synthesized vocals.While Mr. Lynne, the frontman, was the driving force behind E.L.O., Mr. Tandy was his key collaborator, co-arranging many of the string parts of the group’s songs.“Tandy was crucial in ELO’s creation of a realm where rock and classical music could exist together,” the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, into which E.L.O. was inducted in 2017, said on social media on Tuesday.Mr. Tandy’s surviving family include his wife Sheila, Mr. Lynne said. More

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      2 Players Sue Philharmonic, Saying They Were Wrongfully Suspended

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      Matthew Muckey and Liang Wang said they were sidelined without cause by the New York Philharmonic after a recent magazine article detailed allegations of misconduct against them.Two New York Philharmonic players sued the orchestra on Wednesday, saying they had been wrongfully suspended after a recent magazine article revived allegations of misconduct against them.The players, Matthew Muckey and Liang Wang, filed separate lawsuits in Federal District Court in Manhattan. The men claimed that the Philharmonic had removed them without cause and in violation of an arbitrator’s ruling, which had ordered the orchestra to reinstate them in 2020 after an earlier attempt to fire them. The players also sued their union, Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, accusing the organization of failing to provide them fair representation.The Philharmonic, which recently said it would commission an outside investigation into the orchestra’s culture in response to the uproar over the article, said that it could not comment on active litigation. Local 802 declined to comment.The lawsuits came after a report last month in New York magazine detailed accusations of misconduct made in 2010 against Mr. Muckey, the associate principal trumpet, and Mr. Wang, the principal oboist. After the story’s publication the Philharmonic moved quickly to remove Mr. Muckey and Mr. Wang from rehearsals and performances and suspend the players with pay for an indefinite period.In the article Cara Kizer, a former Philharmonic horn player, came forward for the first time to publicly discuss an encounter that she said occurred while she was on tour with the Philharmonic in Vail, Colo., in 2010. She told the Vail Police Department at the time that she had been sexually assaulted after spending the evening with the two players and was given a drink she came to believe was drugged, according to police records. No charges were filed against the men, and both have denied wrongdoing. In 2018 the Philharmonic, under new leadership, commissioned an investigation and moved to dismiss Mr. Muckey and Mr. Wang. But the players’ union challenged their dismissals, and an independent arbitrator forced the orchestra to reinstate them in 2020.Mr. Muckey’s lawsuit accused the Philharmonic of backtracking on that agreement. The suit said that the orchestra had “violated an indisputably final and binding award which has determined that Mr. Muckey could not be removed based upon such allegations and specifically ordered his reinstatement with back pay and seniority.”Mr. Wang accused the Philharmonic of suspending him “without cause or explanation, and in clear violation of the terms of his employment, which expressly require that he be given opportunities to perform and excel as a musician.” His suit claims that a lawyer for the Philharmonic said in 2019 that the ensemble had not accused Mr. Wang of misconduct related to the incident in Colorado.Both men claimed that Local 802, which fought for their reinstatement in 2018, had failed to respond to their requests for assistance in contesting their new suspensions. The union has struck a different tone on the case since the publication of the article. Sara Cutler, Local 802’s new president and executive director, said last month that the decision to keep Mr. Wang and Mr. Muckey offstage “are good first steps, but they can’t be the last.” She also said that she was “horrified” by the accusations, “as a woman, a musician and a new union president.”Mr. Wang’s suit accused Ms. Cutler of making “duplicitous and injurious statements.” Mr. Muckey’s suit said that Local 802 had “failed and refused to perform its duty of fair representation.” Mr. Muckey and Mr. Wang, who are seeking an unspecified amount in damages, said that the Philharmonic’s decision to suspend them had harmed their careers. Mr. Muckey lost engagements with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and other ensembles. Mr. Wang was placed on leave from the Manhattan School of Music, where he teaches, and he lost work with the Taipei Music Academy and Festival and other groups. More

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      Duane Eddy, Whose Twang Changed Rock ’n’ Roll, Dies at 86

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      A self-taught electric guitar virtuoso, he influenced a generation of musicians. One of them, John Fogerty, called him rock’s first guitar god.Duane Eddy, who broke new ground in pop music in the 1950s with a reverberant, staccato style of guitar playing that became known as twang, died on Tuesday in Franklin, Tenn. He was 86. The cause of his death, in a hospital, was complications of cancer, said his wife, Deed (Abbate) Eddy.Mr. Eddy had tremendous success as a strictly instrumental recording artist in the late 1950s and ’60s, selling millions of records worldwide with growling, echo-laden hits like “Rebel Rouser” and “Forty Miles of Bad Road.” In the process, he played a major role in establishing electric guitar as the predominant musical instrument in rock ’n’ roll.Mr. Eddy influenced a multitude of rock guitarists, including George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Springsteen, whose plunging guitar lines on “Born to Run” pay homage to Mr. Eddy’s muscular fretwork.“Duane Eddy was the front guy, the first rock and roll guitar god,” John Fogerty, the founding lead singer and guitarist of Creedence Clearwater Revival, is quoted as saying on the Rhino Records website.Mr. Eddy, who was self-taught, devised his rhythmic melodicism by playing the lead lines on his recordings on his guitar’s bass strings and by liberally using the vibrato bar. He never learned to read or score music, but he had a strong ear for pop idioms, including country, jazz, and rhythm and blues.Mr. Eddy in a publicity photo from 1958, the year his rollicking “Cannonball” charted in both the United States and Britain.PoPsie Randolph/Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty ImagesHe also had a knack for studio experimentation; at one point he brought a 2,000-gallon water tank to a session and placed a speaker inside to simulate the effects of an echo chamber.“I like exploring different textures on tracks in the studio, and different arrangement ideas,” Mr. Eddy said in a 2013 interview with Guitar Player magazine, which had honored him in 2004 with its Legend Award.“For me,” Mr. Eddy went on, “it’s not just playing the instrument, it’s also making the record. I guess a better way of explaining it is that I don’t write or arrange songs as such. Instead, I think of it as writing or arranging records. My sound is the common denominator that pulls all the threads and knits them together.”Easily recognizable, Mr. Eddy’s signature approach to the guitar accounted for 15 Top 40 pop hits from 1958 to 1963. “Because They’re Young,” a string-sweetened record, appeared on the soundtrack of the 1960 movie of the same name that starred Dick Clark and Tuesday Weld. More characteristic of Mr. Eddy’s gritty playing was “Cannonball,” a rollicking instrumental that reached the pop Top 20 in the U.S. and the Top 10 in Britain in 1958, and “(Dance With the) Guitar Man,” a 1962 hit that featured a female vocal group on the chorus. “The Ballad of Paladin,” a loping instrumental, was used as the theme for the CBS television series “Have Gun — Will Travel.”Most of Mr. Eddy’s albums from the late 1950s and early ’60s incorporated a variation on the word “twang” in their titles. This one, released in 1960, was co-produced by his frequent collaborator Lee Hazlewood.Jamie RecordsMost of Mr. Eddy’s early recordings were made with the producer and songwriter Lee Hazlewood and released on the Philadelphia-based label Jamie Records. The Rebels, his backing band, boasted several members of the celebrated West Coast studio collective known as the Wrecking Crew including the guitarist Al Casey, the saxophonists Jim Horn and Plas Johnson, and the keyboard and bass player Larry Knechtel.Most of Mr. Eddy’s albums from the late 1950s and early ’60s incorporated a version of the word “twang” in their titles.Mr. Eddy was born on April 26, 1938, in Corning, N.Y., a small town in the south central part of the state, and started playing the guitar at the age of 5. His father, Lloyd, drove a bread truck and later managed a Safeway grocery store, and his mother, Alberta Evelyn (Granger) Eddy, managed the home. The family moved to Tucson, Ariz., when Duane was 13, and then to Phoenix, where he met Mr. Hazlewood and they began their musical partnership.He acquired his first custom-made Chet Atkins-model Gretsch guitar when he was 16. He made his first recordings — as half of the duo Jimmy and Duane, with the pianist Jimmy Delbridge (who later recorded under the name Jimmy Dell) — the next year.Mr. Eddy on “American Bandstand” in 1958. A year earlier, he had begun touring with Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars.ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content, via Getty ImagesIn 1957, Mr. Eddy began touring as a guitarist with Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars, and he began releasing recordings under his own name shortly afterward.Mr. Eddy and Mr. Hazlewood parted ways over a contract dispute in late 1960, though they later reunited to work on projects. Mr. Eddy signed with RCA shortly after.The hit singles had stopped coming by the mid-1960s, but Mr. Eddy continued to release instrumental albums, including “Duane Does Dylan,” a collection of covers of songs written by Bob Dylan.The rockabilly revival of the next decade gave rise to renewed interested in Mr. Eddy’s work. The 1970s also saw Mr. Eddy producing albums by Phil Everly and Waylon Jennings, whose widow, Jessi Colter, was married to Mr. Eddy from 1962 to 1968.Mr. Eddy’s music was introduced to yet another generation of fans in the 1980s, when the British synth-pop group Art of Noise released an avant-disco reworking of his 1960 hit version of Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn,” with Mr. Eddy on lead guitar. It won a Grammy Award for best rock instrumental performance in 1987.Mr. Eddy plays guitar at the 2009 Country Music Hall of Fame Medallion Ceremony in Nashville. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.Ed Rode/Getty ImagesMr. Eddy was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, the same year that his original hit recording of “Rebel Rouser” appeared in the movie “Forrest Gump.” “The Trembler,” a track he wrote with Ravi Shankar, was featured in Oliver Stone’s 1994 film, “Natural Born Killers.” He was also inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in Nashville in 2008.In addition to his wife, Mr. Eddy is survived by three children, Linda Jones and Chris Eddy, from his first marriage, to Carol Puckett, and Jennifer Eddy Davis, from his marriage to Ms. Colter; a sister, Elaine Scarborough; five grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.Unlike many instrumentalists, Mr. Eddy said, he never seriously considered expanding his musical résumé to include vocals.Elaborating on the subject to Guitar Player in 2013, he recalled an interview with Conan O’Brien at which he was asked, “Duane, you’ve been in this business for many years now; what do you consider your greatest contribution to music?” He answered, “Not singing.”“I never felt that I had a good voice for singing,” he went on. “When I was young, this frustrated me a lot, so I took it out on the guitar.” More

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      Kim Noltemy, Orchestra Veteran, Is Tapped to Lead L.A. Philharmonic

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      Noltemy, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s chief executive, will take the helm of the Philharmonic as it searches for its next music director.The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s history of inventive programming and strong finances have made it the envy of orchestras around the United States.But recently, the ensemble has been going through a period of abrupt change. Chad Smith, the ensemble’s former president and chief executive, left last year to run the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Gustavo Dudamel, its celebrated music and artistic director, will depart for the New York Philharmonic in 2026.On Wednesday, though, the orchestra said it had found a leader who can help put it back on track. Kim Noltemy, a veteran administrator, will become the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s next president and chief executive, starting in July.Noltemy, 55, who has led the Dallas Symphony Orchestra since 2018, said that she hoped to build on the Philharmonic’s legacy of innovation.“The potential for the Los Angeles Philharmonic to grow, thrive and make a huge impact in changing how people think about music and how music affects their lives is enormous,” she said in an interview.Thomas L. Beckmen, the chairman of the Philharmonic’s board of directors, said that Noltemy rose to the top of the list of candidates because of her experience. Before Dallas, she held leadership posts at the Boston Symphony Orchestra.“Of all the people we interviewed, she was the most prepared,” Beckmen said in an interview. “Sometimes, I thought she knew more about us than I knew about us.”Noltemy will face several immediate challenges, including helping to find a successor to Dudamel, one of the world’s most in-demand maestros, who has led the ensemble since 2009 and has been a key force behind its box-office success and expansive music education programs.Beckmen said the search could take “a couple years more, or maybe longer,” but that he was confident the orchestra could find someone who would be a draw like Dudamel.“Dudamel is great, and so is the orchestra here in L.A., which is, if not the best, certainly at the top of the field,” he said. “That’s not going away.”Asked whether the ensemble was interested in appointing a woman, Beckmen declined to comment. (Across the United States, women remain considerably underrepresented among music directors at top orchestras.)Noltemy said that “all talented conductors” would be considered, regardless of gender or race. “This orchestra,” she added, “is really so focused on the idea that the L.A. Phil has to represent its community, and its community is incredibly diverse.”Dudamel said in a statement on Wednesday that he looked forward to “welcoming Kim into our L.A. Phil family.”“Our extraordinary musicians and organization have shown the world a powerful new vision for what an orchestra can be, and how it can impact the community around it,” he said. “I am confident we will continue to push ourselves to even greater heights in the years to come.”In Dallas, Noltemy has built a reputation as a community-focused leader. She has expanded music education programs and worked to increase civic pride in the ensemble, including by staging more small-scale performances outside the concert hall.During her tenure, the orchestra has hired more women and people of color as conductors, composers and guest performers. The administrative staff has also grown more diverse; women make up a majority of the senior leadership team.In Los Angeles, Noltemy said, she would work to expand the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, known as YOLA, which Dudamel helped start, and which is modeled on El Sistema, the Venezuelan social and artistic movement. She is also eager for the Philharmonic to play a prominent role when Los Angeles hosts the Summer Olympics in 2028.The Philharmonic in a relatively strong position compared with other American orchestras. As of March, it was averaging about 89 percent attendance, back to where it was before the pandemic, even as the number of subscribers has fallen to 6,409, from 8,791.Noltemy follows in a line of pathbreaking chief executives. Ernest Fleischmann, who led the orchestra from 1969 to 1998, revitalized its lucrative summer programming at the Hollywood Bowl, fought to build Disney Hall and hired a young Esa-Pekka Salonen to be its music director. Deborah Borda, who led the orchestra from 2000 to 2017, built on those successes, opening the hall, hiring Dudamel, fostering ties with the city and championing new music. Smith, a protégé of Borda’s, helped drive the orchestra’s unconventional approach to programming.Beckmen said that he hoped Noltemy would serve for a decade or longer. She would like to stay until she retires.“The Los Angeles Philharmonic has long been the most amazing and interesting place,” she said. “I see this as the culmination of my career.” More