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      Denny Laine, Founding Member of the Moody Blues and Wings, Dies at 79

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      He wrote “Mull of Kintyre” with Paul McCartney and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the Moody Blues.Denny Laine, a singer, songwriter and guitarist who co-founded two of the biggest British rock bands of the 1960s and ’70s, the Moody Blues and Wings, before embarking on a long solo career, died in Naples, Fla., on Tuesday — 50 years to the day after Wings released its most successful album, “Band on the Run,” in the U.S. He was 79.His wife, Elizabeth Mele-Hines, said the cause of death, at a hospital, was interstitial lung disease.Mr. Laine was part of the efflorescence of British rock music in the early 1960s, when many young musicians were still soaking up the influence of American blues. Performers like Eric Clapton, Spencer Davis and the Beatles became not just friends with Mr. Laine but also frequent collaborators with him.A native of Birmingham, England, he moved to London after his first band, Denny Laine and the Diplomats, broke up. In 1964, he joined four other Birmingham-area transplants, Graeme Edge, Mike Pinder, Ray Thomas and Clint Warwick, to form the M&B 5, a rhythm-and-blues band named after a Birmingham brewery. They soon changed their name to the Moody Blues.Mr. Laine was with the band for only two albums, but in 1964 he sang lead on its first No. 1 hit, “Go Now!” The success of that song, a cover of an R&B song recorded that same year by Bessie Banks, won the Moody Blues slots on a series of high-profile tours, opening for acts like Chuck Berry and the Beatles.Mr. Laine, right, with his fellow members of the Moody Blues in an undated photo. From left were Ray Thomas, Clint Warwick, Graeme Edge and Mike Pinder.Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesMr. Laine left the Moody Blues in 1966 over artistic differences and spent the next five years working on solo projects and with, among other bands, the short-lived jazz-rock ensemble Ginger Baker’s Air Force. It was while singing and playing guitar with that band that he caught the attention of Paul McCartney.By 1971, Mr. McCartney was more than a year out of the Beatles and looking to form a new band. One day, from his rural home west of Glasgow, he cold-called Mr. Laine.“He said, ‘Do you want to do something? Get on a plane, we’re in Scotland,’” Mr. Laine recalled in an interview with The Boston Globe in 2019. The two added Mr. McCartney’s wife, Linda McCartney, and the three — with a rotating cast of other bandmates — became Wings.Though Wings is often remembered as a McCartney vehicle — at times it went by the name Paul McCartney and Wings — Mr. Laine was an equal member.He appeared on all seven of the group’s studio albums, sang lead and played lead guitar on several prominent tracks and wrote or co-wrote a number of the band’s songs, including “Mull of Kintyre,” which reached No. 1 on the British charts and sold more than two million copies. (He also claimed to have had a hand in writing another No. 1 Wings hit, “Band on the Run,” although Paul and Linda McCartney are the only credited writers.)Mr. Laine received four Grammy nominations with Wings and won two: best pop vocal performance by a duo, group or chorus in 1975, for “Band on the Run,” and best rock instrumental performance in 1980, for “Rockestra Theme.”“Me and him had this kind of feel together musically,” Mr. Laine said about working with Mr. McCartney in an interview with Guitar World this year. “We slotted in well together. We could read each other, and that came from growing up on the same musical influences. Paul’s got a good sense of rhythm, and he doesn’t overplay, which I like.”Mr. Laine was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018 as a founding member of the Moody Blues. In what many critics and fans consider one of the bigger snubs in the Hall of Fame’s history, Wings has yet to follow.Mr. Laine in 1972, a year after Paul McCartney cold-called him asking him to join a new band, Wings.Michael Putland/Getty ImagesBrian Frederick Hines was born on Oct. 29, 1944, in Birmingham. His parents, Herbert and Eva (Basset) Hines, worked in factories.Denny was a childhood nickname, and he later added the surname Laine as a nod to one of his sister’s favorite singers, Frankie Laine.He grew up listening to the so-called Gypsy jazz of musicians like Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli, as well as to Spanish guitar — a love he explored in between his time with the Moody Blues and Wings, when he lived in Spain and studied flamenco.After returning to Britain, he formed two bands, the Electric String Band and Balls, both of which fizzled — though the first, which featured a string section and lush orchestration, would greatly influence a similarly named band, the Electric Light Orchestra.He counted the McCartneys among his closest friends, but he left Wings in 1981 after Mr. McCartney was arrested in Japan for marijuana possession. Mr. Laine’s departure ended the band and put a strain on their relationship, though he later played on several of Mr. McCartney’s solo projects.Mr. Laine performing this March at the City Winery in Manhattan. He continued to record and tour regularly in the four decades after Wings split up.Al Pereira/Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty ImagesMr. Laine married Joanne Patrie in 1978; they divorced in 1981. He married Rosha Kasravi in 2003; they later separated and divorced in 2021. He married Elizabeth Mele this year. Along with her, his survivors include two children from his first marriage, Heidi and Laine Hines; three other children, Damian James, Ainsley Adams and Lucy Grant; his sister, Doreen; and several grandchildren.Even while he was with Wings, Mr. Laine kept up a spirited solo career, releasing two albums in the 1970s: “Ahh … Laine” (1973) and “Holly Days” (1977), a tribute to Buddy Holly.He continued to work and tour regularly in the four decades after the band split up, playing a mix of his own compositions and material from the Moody Blues and Wings. Often he would perform what he called “Songs and Stories,” a combination of music and tales from his rock life.“I can’t live without live work,” he told Guitar World. “There’s no substitute for playing live and getting the feeling of connecting with an audience.” More

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      Sean Combs Accused of Raping 17-Year-Old Girl in 2003 in Lawsuit

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      In the complaint, an unnamed woman says she was flown from the Detroit area to New York on a private plane and gang-raped in a recording studio. Mr. Combs denied the allegations.Sean Combs, the hip-hop mogul who has been named in three recent lawsuits accusing him of rape, now faces a fourth complaint, by a woman who says that Mr. Combs and two other men gang-raped her in a New York recording studio 20 years ago, when she was 17 years old.In the latest lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, the woman, who is not named in the court papers, described a nightmarish scene on a night in 2003, when she was in the 11th grade. The woman says in the complaint that she met two associates of Mr. Combs at a lounge in the Detroit area, and they took her on a private plane to New York. There, the suit says, the three men gave the woman copious amounts of drugs and alcohol, and took turns raping her in the studio’s bathroom as she drifted in and out of consciousness.When they were done, the suit says, the woman fell into a fetal position in a bathroom, lying on the floor in pain, and she was soon driven to an airport and put on a plane back to Michigan.In a statement, Mr. Combs said: “Enough is enough. For the last couple of weeks, I have sat silently and watched people try to assassinate my character, destroy my reputation and my legacy. Sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”Through his lawyers, Mr. Combs has denied the allegations in the three earlier suits.Douglas H. Wigdor, a lawyer for the unidentified woman, released his own statement that said: “As alleged in the complaint, defendants preyed on a vulnerable high school teenager as part of a sex trafficking scheme that involved plying her with alcohol and transporting her by private jet to New York City where she was gang-raped by the three individual defendants at Mr. Combs’s studio.”“The depravity of these abhorrent acts,” he added, “scarred” the woman “for life.”The first of the recent lawsuits against Mr. Combs, who has been known as Puff Daddy or Diddy, was filed on Nov. 16 by Casandra Ventura, a singer once signed to Mr. Combs’s label, Bad Boy, who was also his longtime girlfriend. In a graphic 35-page complaint, Ms. Ventura, who performs as Cassie, accused him of rape and forcing her to have sex with a series of male prostitutes, as well as subjecting her to violent beatings that took place over nearly a decade. The case was settled in just one day. Mr. Combs denied the accusations and Ms. Ventura said in a statement that the case had been resolved “amicably.”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?  More

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      Former Grammys Head Michael Greene Accused of Sexual Assault in Lawsuit

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      In a complaint, Terri McIntyre, who worked at the Recording Academy in the mid-1990s, says the organization’s then leader, Michael Greene, subjected her to ongoing misconduct.A woman who worked at the Grammys organization in the 1990s has accused its former chief executive, Michael Greene, of drugging and sexually abusing her nearly 30 years ago and of making sex a condition of her employment, according to a lawsuit filed in California on Wednesday.Terri McIntyre, a former executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Recording Academy, the nonprofit group behind the Grammy Awards, sued Mr. Greene in Los Angeles Superior Court, in the latest of a wave of lawsuits accusing powerful men in the music industry of past misconduct.In her suit, which also names the Recording Academy as a defendant, Ms. McIntyre says that from 1994 to 1996, Mr. Greene caught her in a “trap” in which he regularly pressured her into sexual contact, and forced sex on her against her will.Mr. Greene could not be immediately reached for comment but has previously denied allegations that he sexually harassed employees while an executive with the Grammys.In a statement, the Recording Academy said: “In light of pending litigation, the academy declines to comment on these allegations, which occurred nearly 30 years ago. Today’s Recording Academy has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to sexual misconduct and we will remain steadfast in that commitment.”In her lawsuit, Ms McIntyre says that while attending a Grammy board meeting in Hawaii in May 1994, soon after she got the job, Mr. Greene gave her Champagne in his hotel room. She “quickly began to feel unwell and began to lose control of her physical movements,” she says in the court papers. She later woke up nude in Mr. Greene’s bed and realized she had been “violated,” according to the suit.On another occasion, she says in the complaint, she was driving with Mr. Greene to a business meeting when he unexpectedly took her to his home near Malibu, Calif., and forced her to perform oral sex in his kitchen.Throughout her time at the Recording Academy, Ms. McIntyre says, Mr. Greene made it clear that enduring his harassment was part of a “quid pro quo proposition” in which she could succeed at the organization, and in the music industry, only if she had a sexual relationship with him. In her complaint, the woman said she was a single mother and needed the job to care for her young daughter.The suit was filed a month after another case in New York against Neil Portnow, Mr. Greene’s successor as the Grammys’ chief. In that suit, an unnamed woman accused Mr. Portnow of drugging and raping her in a New York hotel room in 2018. Mr. Portnow denied the accusations.Ms. McIntyre’s suit offers a new perspective on a tumultuous period in Grammys history. In 2002, Mr. Greene was forced out of the academy after 14 years at its helm, during which he was widely credited with expanding the organization and transforming its annual ceremony into a lucrative, must-see television event. At the same time, Mr. Greene was dogged by a series of scandals, including multiple accusations of sexual harassment and discrimination, and allegations that MusiCares, a Grammy charity founded under his watch, had spent less than 10 percent of its donations on its stated purpose of helping suffering and indigent musicians.The tipping point for Mr. Greene’s ouster was an accusation by the academy’s human resources officer that he had sexually abused her in a parking lot; he denied the accusation, and the academy said that an investigation had cleared Mr. Greene of wrongdoing. According to news accounts at the time, that woman was paid $650,000 to settle her allegation, a reported payment that Ms. McIntyre cited in her suit.According to reports in The Los Angeles Times in 2001 and 2002, the academy’s human resources department was created because of an earlier accusation against Mr. Greene. A spokesman for the Recording Academy did not answer a question about when the human resources department was created.In 1996, Ms. McIntyre says in her complaint, she left the academy and the music business overall because Mr. Greene had blackballed her in the industry. Ms. McIntyre’s lawyers gave The New York Times a copy of her resignation letter, which reads: “I am compelled to leave due to what I perceive to be serious problems in my work environment.”In her suit, Ms. McIntyre also says that years later, she became an anonymous source for Chuck Philips, then a reporter at The Los Angeles Times, whose articles investigating Mr. Greene’s conduct precipitated the executive’s ouster. In 1999, Mr. Philips and another Los Angeles Times journalist, Michael A. Hiltzik, shared a Pulitzer Prize in beat reporting for a series of articles about the music industry. The articles included discussions of Mr. Greene’s power and compensation at the Grammys; the problems at MusiCares; and complaints from Grammy insiders about the organization’s accounting practices.Mr. Philips could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.After leaving the Grammys, Mr. Greene — who began his career as a saxophonist — founded a company called Artist Tribe, which he has described as a “creative production, technology, education, database and philanthropic enterprise” that serves “creative and cultural communities.”A call on Wednesday to a number associated with Mr. Greene was answered by a man who said that Mr. Greene was on a plane and was not available to comment on the lawsuit.In her suit, Ms. McIntyre says that after her resignation, Mr. Greene and the Recording Academy offered to pay her severance money in exchange for signing a nondisclosure agreement, but she refused.Ms. McIntyre’s suit is the latest in a series that have accused powerful men in the music industry of sexual harassment and abuse. In addition to Mr. Portnow, those men have included the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith and the producer L.A. Reid; Mr. Combs and Mr. Rose denied the allegations, while Mr. Tyler denied one accusation and did not respond to a second, and Mr. Reid did not respond.Many of the suits were filed under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law that gave a one-year window for people who say they were the victims of sexual abuse to bring a civil suit even if the original statute of limitations for their case had expired. That window expired last month. But a similar law in California, under which Ms. McIntyre brought her case, allows cases to be brought until the end of the year.Julia Jacobs contributed reporting. More

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      The Killers’ ‘Mr. Brightside’ at 20: A Generation’s Anthem

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      Overlooked at its release, the Killers’ signature hit has become one of the most inescapable rock songs of its time.The Killers released “Mr. Brightside” 20 years ago and hardly anybody cared.The dominant hits of the day were hip-shakers and party bangers whose titles doubled as bodily imperatives: “Shake Ya Tailfeather,” “Get Low,” “Stand Up” — odes to the delirious, thrilling movements that keep the party going. “Mr. Brightside” is … not that.It’s an intense, dramatic song about the shattering experience of getting cheated on by someone you love. The lead single off the Las Vegas band’s debut studio album, “Hot Fuss,” consists of exactly one verse, pre-chorus and chorus, which simply repeat; the singer Brandon Flowers’s voice is the sardonic wail of a jilted lover who is physically ill at the thought of his girlfriend being with someone else (“Now they’re going to bed, and my stomach is sick”), and pretends that he is totally OK (“Comin’ out of my cage, and I’ve been doing just fine”) when he is obviously an absolute wreck (“I just can’t look, it’s killing meeeee”).Yet in the intervening decades, “Mr. Brightside” — which eventually reached the Billboard Hot 100 over a year after its initial release, peaking at No. 10 in June 2005 — has become something more than a hit. It has grown into an all-purpose, inescapable rallying cry: a karaoke staple, a football tradition, a party playlist must-have, a meme. It’s a straight shot of nostalgia that, having survived that awkward interval when a song feels dated and falls out of favor, now belongs to a pantheon of modern classics that are both extremely of their time and transcend it.If boomers gave the masses “Don’t Stop Believin’,” millennials can claim “Mr. Brightside” as the generation’s official entry into that canon: a song that gets everybody at the bar shout-singing along.The track is the centerpiece of the Killers’ oeuvre and the star of their new greatest hits album, “Rebel Diamonds,” which is full of hits with lyrics that are basically tattooed onto the hippocampuses of even the most casual fans — “All These Things That I’ve Done” (“I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier”), the synthy-sad “Smile Like You Mean It” and gender-bendy “Somebody Told Me” (“you had a boyfriend who looked like a girlfriend that I had…”). But none of those singles comes close to matching the ongoing ubiquity of “Mr. Brightside.”“We’ve never not played that song live, because it’s stood the test of time and I’m proud of it,” Flowers told Spin in 2015. “I never get bored of singing it.” (A representative for Flowers said he was unable to speak for this article because he was in the studio.)“You drop this on a Friday night at midnight and the whole club just goes bananas,” said William Reed, a D.J. and founder of Club Decades, a dance party at Boardner’s in Hollywood. “Literally everybody in there is dancing and singing and dancing on top of the platforms and shouting with their eyes closed and screaming. It’s beautiful.”Though it was first released in 2003, “Mr. Brightside” didn’t reach the Billboard Hot 100 until June 2005.Frank Mullen/WireImage, via Getty ImagesTony Twillie, entertainment director of the New Orleans Bourbon Street karaoke hot spot the Cat’s Meow, called it “one of our most popular songs.” He can cite its code for the D.J. — R203 — off the top of his head. “Everyone knows that code.”Unlike “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Mr. Brightside” is almost comically easy to sing — or at least, it is a song that can withstand being sung very badly.Josh Fontenot, a bartender and former karaoke host at Louie’s Pub in Chicago, always pitches “Mr. Brightside” when rookies need a recommendation. “You can put the song on and not sing it and people will be excited that the song is on,” he said. “The room will sing it for you.”If you have been to Nashville recently and felt like you heard this song everywhere, you’re probably right: Jer Gregg who oversees entertainment for TC Restaurant Group venues that cater to country music purists and bachelorette parties alike, estimates that “Mr. Brightside” is getting played “somewhere around 300 times a week” at the company’s various locations.Why does the track slip so seamlessly into so many different settings? Genre-wise, it’s fluid: The Killers are a rock band, but their energy is a little bit glam, a little bit dance pop, a little bit emo. “Mr. Brightside” covers a cornucopia of emotional bases, too. You can sing it when you’re ecstatic, on a celebratory night out; you can sing it when you’re miserable, on a “forget about that ex” night out. There’s even a football angle.At a 2017 University of Michigan game against its rival Michigan State, in the midst of a torrential downpour, the song came over the loudspeakers at the end of the third quarter and everybody in the sold-out stands (capacity: 109,901) kept singing a cappella after the D.J. cut the music. Belting “Mr. Brightside” has been a third-quarter ritual ever since. You can even buy “Mr. Brightside” Michigan-themed merch.“It’s a weird song to have be a college football anthem,” acknowledged Alejandro Zúñiga, a Michigan alum who covers his alma mater for 24/7 Sports. “The subject of the song is not related to sports, and it’s not a fight song,” he added. “But it just had so much momentum that it became what it is.”“MR. BRIGHTSIDE” IS what the chart analyst and “Hit Parade” podcast host Chris Molanphy calls “a second-chance hit”: a song that fizzled and nearly flopped until something in the culture jolted it back to life. (Like Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts” from 2017, which didn’t really catch on until 2019, when it was released as a radio single after getting a bump from TikTok and Netflix.) “Sometimes certain songs need to marinate before they find their moment,” Molanphy said in an interview.If artists hoping for a smash in 2020 are praying their song blows up on TikTok, in the early 2000s, the ultimate signal-boost for an indie band was getting on the soundtrack for the soapy teen drama “The O.C.” The Killers did one better: They appeared on a second-season episode of the show, performing a three-song set at the Bait Shop which included, of course, “Mr. Brightside.” Two months later, “Mr. Brightside” debuted on the Billboard charts.The following year, when Nancy Meyers needed a specific song for her house-swap rom-com “The Holiday,” she felt like “Mr. Brightside” had been written with her movie in mind. In the scene, Cameron Diaz’s Amanda, drunk and alone — having fled to England after catching her boyfriend in bed with someone else — pops “Hot Fuss” into a CD player. With a glass of red wine in one hand and her other fist pumping the air, she drunkenly shouts along to the chorus.“I knew I liked the song,” Meyers said in an interview. “The lyrics worked for the scene. What’s that line about? ‘Choking on your alibis.’ I don’t know if they wrote it from a woman’s point of view, but it fit what I needed.”“It’s strangely upbeat, for an angry song,” she added, noting that the track has aged well: “Cheating on people, that’s not going out of style.”CHANCES ARE YOU’VE heard “Mr. Brightside” at a wedding — maybe you played it at your wedding. According to DJ Intelligence, one of the top software platforms D.J.s use to let their clients build event playlists, “Mr. Brightside” is the third most-requested song, behind only Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and Abba’s “Dancing Queen.”Evan Reitmeyer, owner of the D.C.-area D.J. company MyDeejay, said “Mr. Brightside” is on more than half the playlists of his upcoming weddings — and its numbers have only been growing: “I would say in the last five to seven years especially, it’s just become a perennial hit that’s getting requested at every wedding.”Despite its not-very-matrimonial theme, “Nobody seems to care about the lyrics,” he said. “They just care about how it feels. And I don’t mind; it kills on the dance floor so I’m going to keep playing it.”For brides and grooms in their 30s, “Mr. Brightside” would have been a bop of their formative years — a time when late nights were spent chugging Four Loko, sweating through skintight American Apparel disco pants and making out with the wrong person (or knowing that, actually, you were the wrong person).“I think it’s one of those songs, like ‘Don’t Stop Believin’,’ that people belatedly realize: ‘It’s an anthem. Why don’t we play this at every party we’ll ever have?’” Molanphy said. “And now you can’t escape it.”But does Journey, a band that also got a boost when its song featured prominently on TV, think that “Mr. Brightside” is the new “Don’t Stop Believin’”?“Sure, it is!” said Jonathan Cain, the band’s keyboardist and rhythm guitarist. He remembered liking it right away. “It was quirky and catchy. It bounced. When I heard it, it was kind of like the first time you heard Talking Heads. Very similar to David Byrne,” he said in an interview. “And what an opening line!” he added. “That immediately captures everybody’s imagination. It’s original. It’s got teeth. It’s got all that poignant sarcasm to it.”While the two songs have very different emotional trajectories — “Don’t Stop Believin’” begins in loneliness and ends in a call for faith, while “Mr. Brightside” tracks the narrator’s spiral from coupledom into exile — both, Cain said, are about “the idea that stuff is going to come at you in life and you’re going to have to be able to walk through it, no matter what.”For Kyle Tekiela, whose band Starry Eyes does some Killers cover gigs, “Mr. Brightside” is always the closer. “When it finally happens, everyone goes out of control and screams it. It’s like a religious experience,” he said. “‘Mr. Brightside’ comes on and it’s like: OK, all our energy is spent, and now it’s time to go. Call the Uber.” More

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      Popcast (Deluxe): Beyoncé’s ‘Renaissance’ Movie Shows All the Work

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:“Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé,” the new concert film that intersperses footage from the whole of Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour with behind-the-scenes documentation of how it came to be. Sprinkled throughout the scenes of Beyoncé, the performer, and Beyoncé, the manager, are a few moments of vulnerability and visibility into the making of Beyoncé, the person.The new album from country superstar Garth Brooks, “Time Traveler,” which is available only as part of a boxed set sold at Bass Pro Shops, and what it means for a legacy artist to have minimal meaningful presence on streaming platforms.The finale of “The Golden Bachelor”New songs: XXL’s All-Women Cypher Featuring Latto, Flo Milli, Monaleo, Maiya The Don and Mello Buckzz; plus Sexyy Red featuring Chief KeefSnack of the weekConnect 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 popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      Taylor Swift Is Time’s Person of the Year

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      The magazine chose the pop star over finalists that included the Hollywood strikers, Barbie and King Charles III. Time magazine on Wednesday named Taylor Swift as its person of the year. “Picking one person who represents the eight billion people on the planet is no easy task. We picked a choice that represents joy. Someone who’s bringing light to the world,” said Sam Jacobs, the magazine’s editor in chief, on NBC’s “Today” program on Wednesday morning. “She was like weather, she was everywhere.”Swift beat out eight other finalists who were announced on “Today” this week, including King Charles III and Barbie. “Swift’s accomplishments as an artist — culturally, critically, and commercially — are so legion that to recount them seems almost beside the point,” the magazine wrote.Swift grabbed many headlines in 2023, in part spurred by her immensely popular Eras Tour that proved too much for Ticketmaster to handle, the release of the rerecording of her 2014 album “1989” that broke sales records and her relationship with the Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. Swift has also become the subject of academic and (even more) journalistic interest: Harvard University will offer a “Taylor Swift and Her World” class, and Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the United States, appointed a special reporter to cover nothing but Swift.Time awards the title to “the individual, group, or concept that has had the most influence on the world throughout the previous 12 months.” Launched as a marketing gimmick in the 1920s, the award has continued to drive fanfare as weekly print magazines struggle to remain relevant.Swift beat out eight other finalists to receive the honor.Inez and Vinoodh for Time, via, via ReutersThe past few yearsLast year, when Russia invaded Ukraine, the magazine awarded the distinction to Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, and the “spirit of Ukraine.” The magazine named Elon Musk person of the year in 2021. “With a flick of his finger, the stock market soars or swoons,” the magazine wrote at the time. In 2020, Joseph R. Biden and Kamala Harris — then the president-elect and vice president-elect — were on the cover, and in 2019 it was the climate activist Greta Thunberg.In 2018, the title went to Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and other journalists. The previous year, the title went to “the silence breakers,” women who stepped forward to accuse powerful men of sexual harassment and assault. And in 2016 it was President-elect Donald J. Trump, whom the magazine called the “president of the divided states of America.”Historical choicesThe persons of the year have not always been without controversy. In 1938 Time chose Adolf Hitler, and the magazine gave the dubious honor to Josef Stalin twice, in 1939 and in 1942.In 1972, the magazine chose the “improbable partnership” of President Richard M. Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger.Other times, the magazine chose regular citizens. In 1969, Time gave the distinction to “The Middle Americans,” celebrating them for continuing to pray in public schools in defiance of the United States Supreme Court.Nearly 40 years later, the magazine plastered a mirror on the cover of the magazine and named “You” its person of the year for 2006. And in other instances, it wasn’t a person at all. In 1982, there was a “machine of the year”: the computer.Victor Mather More

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      Best Songs of 2023

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      Seventy-one tracks that asked big questions, found new kinship between genres and helped us see the good in Ken.Jon Pareles | Jon Caramanica | Lindsay ZoladzJon ParelesFumbling Toward EcstasyThe album may be imperiled; people have been saying so for decades, even though the form has resisted extinction. Meanwhile, songs flourish, whether or not they’re destined for albums, and are ever more flexible. Some maintain the pop conventions of verse-chorus-verse; others distill themselves down to TikTok-ready hooks or sprawl across digital time frames. Here are 30 of my favorite songs from 2023 — less a ranking than a playlist, a tribute to creative abundance.1. Allison Russell, ‘Eve Was Black’The tune could be a toe-tapping Appalachian hoedown. But the title’s blunt, irrefutable statement carries Allison Russell toward harsh thoughts about racism, slavery, exploitation, lynching and sin — and then to an unexpected coda.2. Peter Gabriel, ‘Road to Joy (Bright-Side Mix)’Like many Peter Gabriel songs, this one has a scenario. The narrator is waking from a coma into an overload of sensory experiences, getting “back in the world”; the music is a funk carnival that keeps adding euphoric layers.3. 100 gecs, ‘Dumbest Girl Alive’No band walks Spinal Tap’s “fine line between clever and stupid” like the duo 100 gecs. “Dumbest Girl Alive” has a primal stomp for a beat, an up-and-down guitar riff that whimsically hops around instruments, and filtered hyperpop vocals with 21st-century lines like “put emojis on my grave” — just the thing for an utterly knowing, utterly meta bash.4. Sampha, ‘Suspended’Sampha’s “Lahai” was brighter and more expansive than his previous LPs.Ayesha Kazim for The New York TimesSampha gathers ideas from R&B, classical Minimalism, twitchy hyperpop and more around the androgynous melancholy of his voice. He conjures a rapturous infatuation and the need it leaves behind in “Suspended,” three minutes of vertigo from his album “Lahai.”5. The Rolling Stones featuring Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder, ‘Sweet Sounds of Heaven’The peak of the Rolling Stones’ resurgent album “Hackney Diamonds” is an all-star concoction that sounds like a raw studio jam. Mick Jagger extols the glories of music and the song climbs to a big, gospelly finish, with Jagger and Lady Gaga goading each other to belt more. When it winds up, they catch their breath but they don’t want to quit — and the song builds even higher.6. Yahritza y Su Esencia and Grupo Frontera, ‘Frágil’Two Mexican American groups — from Washington state and Texas — unite for “Frágil,” a cumbia complaint about a heartless partner. While the men in Grupo Frontera sound mildly apologetic, Yahritza Martinez sings as if her heart might burst at any moment.7. Baby Rose, ‘Stop the Bleeding’With her low, tremulous, gripping voice, Baby Rose sings about love as self-sabotage, trying to break free while an orchestra underlines her despair.8. Shakira, ‘BZRP Music Sessions #53’In one of Shakira’s canny 2023 collaborations — others were with Karol G and the regional Mexican band Fuerza Regida — she enlisted the hitmaking Argentine electro producer Bizarrap to take revenge on her ex, with pointed wordplay and an airborne hook denouncing “guys like you.”9. Killer Mike featuring Future, André 3000 and Eryn Allen Kane, ‘Scientists & Engineers’In a track that roves from electro to guitar ballad to bursts of gospel, Killer Mike convenes fellow Atlanta rappers — the prolific Future and the elusive André 3000 — to address art, ambition, luxury, tenacity and paying dues, culminating in a marathon verse from Killer Mike himself.10. Brittany Howard, ‘What Now’Choppy, distorted, splintered hard funk pulses around Brittany Howard as she sorts through all the conflicting impulses of a breakup: taking blame and lashing out, feeling regret and relief, wanting to stay and knowing she needs to go.11. Jorja Smith, ‘Try Me’Jorja Smith used vocal nuance instead of volume to stir things up on her second studio album.Jose Sena Goulao/EPA, via ShutterstockA wounded, defensive Jorja Smith confronts someone who had put her down, in a track that evolves from pinging, percussive defiance to orchestral contemplation.12. Caroline Polachek, ‘Dang’One percussive syllable — “dang” — inspires an entire brittle production apparatus around Caroline Polachek’s deadpan voice. She sings about irreversible events, like shipwrecks and spilled milk, amid plinks, clangs, crashes, swooping strings and sampled screams, nonchalant amid the non sequiturs.13. aespa, ‘Better Things’Cowbells, handclaps and piano chords drive “Better Things,” a K-pop kiss-off with ingeniously cascading vocal harmonies and absolutely no regrets.14. Janelle Monáe featuring Doechii, ‘Phenomenal’Janelle Monáe’s 2023 album, “The Age of Pleasure,” exults in carnality while segueing through R&B, jazz and Caribbean styles. “Phenomenal” is a raunchy acclamation of lust and self-love, rapped and sung over springy, changeable Latin jazz grooves.15. Noname, ‘Namesake’Noname reels off brisk, matter-of-fact rhymes over a jazzy bass line as she strives to reconcile her personal comfort with all the world’s problems. She worries about complacency, complicity and hypocrisy; she doesn’t spare herself.16. Irreversible Entanglements, ‘Root Branch’Irreversible Entanglements is a fiercely riffing jazz band fronted by the low-voiced spoken-word poet Moor Mother. “We can be free — let’s fly,” she intones over the six-beat vamp of “Root Branch,” demanding something basic and essential.17. Jaimie Branch, ‘Take Over the World’The trumpeter and bandleader Jaimie Branch sets up a pummeling beat behind an environmental battle chant in “Take Over the World,” veers into a swirl of psychedelia, then whoops it up even harder.18. Dolly Parton, ‘World on Fire’Dolly Parton, of all people, delivers a full-fledged power ballad and stadium stomp to consider the dire state of the world. She counsels love, healing and kindness, but at the end she’s still wondering: “Whatcha gonna do when it all burns down?”19. Kylie Minogue, ‘Padam Padam’Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” had a moment — during Pride celebrations and beyond — in 2023.Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesFor Kylie Minogue, “Padam Padam” is the sound of a heartbeat during a mutual flirtation at a club. The beat — a TikTok favorite — is a cheerful club thump, and a hint of Bollywood perks up the melody for three minutes of computerized bliss20. L’Rain, ‘I Killed Your Dog’L’Rain — the songwriter and performer Taja Cheek — ponders vengeful, destructive impulses in a near-lullaby that wanders through a chromatic chord progression, building ambivalence into the harmonies.21. Jamila Woods featuring duendita, ‘Tiny Garden’Jamila Woods sings about love as an accumulation of small connections and growing trust, a work in progress: “It’s not butterflies or fireworks.” The arc of the music, from isolated percussion and keyboards to multilayered, gospel-tinged vocals, radiates optimism.22. Olivia Dean featuring Leon Bridges, ‘The Hardest Part’With vintage soul chords and modern electronic subtleties, the English songwriter Olivia Dean and her American duet partner, Leon Bridges, sing about growing apart and moving on, grappling with second thoughts.23. Nkosazana Daughter, Master KG and Lowsheen featuring Murumba, ‘Ring Ring Ring’In an amapiano track full of echoey, lonely spaces, the South African singer Nkosazana Daughter and guests lament the uncertainty and sorrow of an unanswered phone call.24. Margo Price, ‘Lydia’Margo Price turned her lens outward to characters other than herself on her album “Strays.”Sara Messinger for The New York TimesIn this unblinking character study, a woman named Lydia, with “an ex-husband and a midlife crisis,” smokes a cigarette outside a clinic, thinking back through a life of hard luck and rough decisions and trying to decide whether to end her pregnancy. Margo Price sets the story to simple guitar chords and an understated string arrangement, pondering the choices.25. Mitski, ‘Bug Like an Angel’A squashed bug on the bottom of a cocktail glass leads Mitski to fragmentary epiphanies about addiction, trust and sex, with a choir bursting in to affirm each cryptic insight.26. Margaret Glaspy, ‘Memories’Over a waltz of simple guitar chords, Margaret Glaspy blurts out unvarnished grief in a torn voice, bereft yet struggling to go on.27. The Smile, ‘Bending Hectic’A guitar meditation melts into an ecstatic death wish during the eight minutes of “Bending Hectic.” Thom Yorke sings about driving along a curvy Italian mountain road with a sheer drop, and “letting go of the wheel”; Jonny Greenwood’s string arrangement envisions the plunge, and then electric guitars careen to a finish.28. Lankum, ‘Go Dig My Grave’The Irish band Lankum connects the fatalistic, death-haunted side of Celtic tradition to something like black metal in this nine-minute dirge about dying for love. It’s an inexorable crescendo from a solo a cappella vocal to a tolling, clanging drone topped by a howling fiddle, haunted and bleak.29. Caroline Rose, ‘Love/Lover/Friend’In a flurry of plucked and orchestral strings, Caroline Rose affirms her love by ruling out other possibilities, then basks in wordless choral ecstasy.30. André 3000, ‘That Night in Hawaii When I Turned Into a Panther and Started Making These Low Register Purring Tones That I Couldn’t Control … Sh¥t Was Wild’In a 10-minute instrumental for muffled drums, percussion and prowling parallel flute lines, André 3000 maintains an aura of calm vigilance, contemplative but still on edge.Jon CaramanicaAnything GoesIt was a year in which the best pop music truly made it up as it went along. Off-the-cuff collaborations? Sure. Songs by fictional characters? Why not. A guy filmed singing in a field by a West Virginia public radio outlet? Absolutely. Microscene classics that clock in at 75 seconds and might be forgotten tomorrow? Always. (In the interest of avoiding redundancy, I’ve only included songs that aren’t on albums that made my best of the year list.)1. Central Cee & Dave, ‘Sprinter’This British rap tag team is about improbable wealth, bounteous opportunities, living so fast that what’s slipping by is almost as good as what you manage to grab hold of. As celebrations go, this is a controlled, pensive one — a relaxed ramble for the moments when the money’s so new, it sparkles.2. Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), ‘World Class Sinner/I’m a Freak’A paean to emotional vacancy sung with emotional vacancy from a television show rife with emotional vacancy ends up … positively glistening. A cause for surrender.3. Oliver Anthony Music, ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’A great song, sure. More than that, though, a sense of great exasperation. The quick and strong embrace of this song suggests an ocean of frustration that pop music leaves largely untapped and unvoiced, and a grass-roots resistance that it has almost no hope of replicating.4. Mustafa, ‘Name of God’Few artists conjure a richness of sorrow the way the Canadian folk singer Mustafa does. Here, his singing is beautiful and a little distant, as if flinching ever so slightly from a pain that will never be anything but raw.5. PinkPantheress featuring Ice Spice, ‘Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2’PinkPantheress took her songs from her bedroom to bigger stages after a viral hit.Adama Jalloh for The New York TimesA glimpse at how pop might — should? — sound in the coming few years. Two stars of the internet of 12 to 24 months ago who found themselves at the vanguards of their respective scenes come together for a collaboration in which neither has to concede an inch.6. Jelly Roll with Lainey Wilson, ‘Save Me’What makes Jelly Roll so effective is the way the intensity of his howl only amplifies the potency of his scars. It’s perhaps most pointed on this duet with Lainey Wilson, whose crisp and clear tone initially seems like an antidote, but is quickly revealed as equally bruised.7. That Mexican OT featuring Paul Wall and Drodi, ‘Johnny Dang’An effortless blend of Texas rap generations, fusing the tongue-twisting with the slow-rolling.8. Cody Johnson, ‘The Painter’When someone is effusive, it might not mean as much when they gush. But when a stoic drops his guard, it can feel seismic.9. Ken (Ryan Gosling), ‘I’m Just Ken’When this stridently sad song from the “Barbie” movie hits its apogee, it’s channeling Dashboard Confessional, Meat Loaf, the Phantom (of the Opera) and maybe even Scott Stapp. Slash plays guitar, salting the melodrama hard.10. Gunna, ‘Fukumean’The Atlanta rapper Gunna quickly returned to work after accepting a plea deal in a wide-sweeping ongoing case.Craig Barritt/Getty Images For GunnaA year ago, Gunna accepted a plea deal that untethered him from the RICO trial that has ensnared his mentor, Young Thug. Relatively quickly, he returned to his familiar slippery garble with a hit so ubiquitous it felt like a memory of how things once were.11. YoungBoy Never Broke Again, ‘Dirty Thug’The best of another slew of lonely anthems from the most important and least publicly visible hip-hop star of the past few years.12. Kylie Minogue, ‘Padam Padam’A cool blast of not-quite-exuberance, this club-pop anthem is a continuation of Kylie Minogue’s sometime-diva legacy, a relentless queer anthem, a cheeky flirtation and a thump that just won’t quit.13. Doja Cat, ‘Agora Hills’It has been 11 and a half years since Kitty Pryde released “Okay Cupid,” plenty of time for a re-embrace.14. Chino Pacas, ‘El Gordo Trae el Mando’A meaty, beatifically meandering boast by one of the rising stars of corridos tumbados.15. Lil Uzi Vert, ‘Just Wanna Rock’Grandfathered in from late 2022, this song broke TikTok, broke dancing, broke the Grammys and maybe even broke hip-hop.And 10 More:Corpse, “Disdain”Miley Cyrus, “Used to be Young”Emilia, “GTA.mp3”evvls, “Belikeme?”Jack Harlow, “Lovin on Me”Sam Hunt, “Walmart”Byron Messia, “Talibans”Militarie Gun, “Very High”Nettspend, “Shine N Peace”Odetari, “Good Loyal Thots”Lindsay ZoladzBeautiful DisastersSo many of my favorite tracks of the year flipped scripts, turned tables and reimagined weaknesses as strengths. By no means a complete list of the songs I enjoyed the past 12 months, these are 20 I couldn’t stop listening to — most of them reminders of music’s ability to turn mess into meaning, anxiety into energy and heartache into a great song.1. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Vampire’Olivia Rodrigo confronts a new class of villain on “Vampire,” the incisive first single that heralded her second album, “Guts,” but she also proves she has learned new ways to slay. “Vampire” is wrenching and formally restless, at first masquerading as a piano ballad, only to ramp up into a miniature rock opera complete with a showstopping high note worthy of a tragic heroine. But don’t cry for Rodrigo — she doesn’t need protection. Her words, her observations and her stylistic flair all have plenty of bite.2. PinkPantheress featuring Ice Spice, ‘Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2’In a previous millennium, two of pop’s main young girlies joined forces to each assert that “The Boy Is Mine,” but PinkPantheress (b. 2001) and Ice Spice (b. 2000) were not alive when that song was released. On their bubbly and utterly infectious collaboration, they sidestep any hint of rivalry and turn against the guy, deciding he’s not worth the drama. “What’s the point of crying?” they shrug blithely. “It was never even love.”3. Lana Del Rey, ‘A&W’The year’s best song about telling an ex-boyfriend’s mom that her son is a disaster (runner-up: Rodrigo’s “Get Him Back!”), the sprawling, portentous seven-minute “A&W” is an unfiltered look into Lana Del Rey’s stream of consciousness: misremembered movie titles, sexually frank admissions, inside jokes about Californian geography (“I say I live in Rosemead, really, I’m at the Ramada”) and all manner of other oddly juxtaposed American flotsam. “Maybe,” she reasons with a weary sigh, arriving at some self-knowledge, “I’m just kinda like this.”4. boygenius, ‘Not Strong Enough’Everyone’s favorite musical besties — Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus — riff on pop clichés and gender roles in this highlight from their breakout year, succinctly summing up their individual songwriting personalities and demonstrating the magic that happens when they combine their powers.5. Romy, ‘Enjoy Your Life’Romy Madley Croft was the final member of the xx to release a solo album.Charlotte Hadden for The New York TimesThe xx’s Romy Madley Croft finds a solution for anxiety and self-doubt on this thumping, compassionate club banger: What if she looked at her life through the eyes of a benevolent mother? A luminous sample from the synth pioneer Beverly Glenn-Copeland — “my mother says to me, enjoy your life” — guides the way.6. Mitski, ‘My Love Mine All Mine’TikTok’s reluctant darling Mitski has released her share of songs that sound destined for pop crossover — last year’s sleek, synthy “Laurel Hell” was full of them — but, unexpectedly, she became a fixture on this year’s Hot 100 for the first time ever with this slow, moony ballad that sounds unlike anything else on the charts. Oblique, poetic and sumptuously sung, it’s a welcome moment of Zen.7. Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves, ‘I Remember Everything’An old-fashioned he-said/she-said country duet cut through with a chill of bleak finality. Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves are both at their emotive best on this bruised-hearted crossover hit.8. Doja Cat, ‘Agora Hills’An arsenic-laced confection that shows off Doja Cat’s multiple personalities — a romantic and an ironist, an angel and a devil, a singer fluent in dreamy hooks and a rapper with razor-sharp teeth.9. Jess Williamson, ‘Hunter’The indie singer-songwriter Jess Williamson chronicles both the promise and fatigue of looking for love in this bittersweet, poetically rendered reflection, her twangy voice brimming with a weary hope.10. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Bad Idea, Right?’Olivia Rodrigo sings about mistakes in serious and humorous ways on her second album, “Guts.”Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesWith the possession of a driver’s license comes the ability to drive to an ex’s house in the middle of the night for an ill-advised hookup. That’s the trade-off. At least such circumstances gave us one of Rodrigo’s spunkiest, funniest and most irresistible singles yet.11. Palehound, ‘Independence Day’El Kempner has a keen eye for tragicomic detail on this ramshackle rocker about regret, denial and long-simmering incompatibility that results in a July 4 breakup. “I’m living life like writing my first draft,” they sing. Aren’t we all.12. Water From Your Eyes, ‘Barley’All year I have been describing this zany, looping song from the Brooklyn art-rockers Water From Your Eyes as “what it would sound like if Sonic Youth had made an appearance on ‘Sesame Street,’” and I’m not going to stop now.13. Noname, ‘Namesake’The Chicago rapper Noname says the quiet part loud — and oh so dexterously — on this refreshingly honest track, an incisive examination of pop-cultural ethics unafraid to name names, including (in addition to Beyoncé, Rihanna and Kendrick Lamar) her own.14. Wednesday, ‘Chosen to Deserve’In her cracked wail, the Southern rock band Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman — “the girl that you’ve chosen to deserve” — paints an achingly vivid portrait of suburban boredom and young adult malaise, finding just the right surface details to express something deep: “I was out late, sneaking into the neighborhood pool,” she sings. “Then I woke up early and taught at the Sunday school.”15. Mandy, Indiana, ‘Pinking Shears’Comment dit-on “hypnotic, endlessly loopable industrial banger”?16. Jenn Champion, ‘Jessica’There’s no right or wrong way to grieve, Jenn Champion reminds us on this icy, arresting piano ballad, as she rages against a friend’s overdose in lacerating detail.17. Jamila Woods featuring duendita, ‘Tiny Garden’Jamila Woods’s album “Water Made Us” achieves the musician’s greatest synthesis yet between her voices as a poet and as a songwriter.Bennett Raglin/Getty Images For Slow FactoryA warm, wise ode to incremental progress and tiny, beautiful things from R&B’s resident poet laureate.18. Yo La Tengo, ‘Fallout’Still knitting aural autumn sweaters, after all these years.19. Sufjan Stevens, ‘So You Are Tired’What state is he on now? Alaska? Disrepair? Grace? Regardless, this song is a quiet doozy that watches a long-term love unravel in slow motion like a spool of ribbon underwater.20. Drake featuring Sexyy Red and SZA, ‘Rich Baby Daddy’Exhibit Z that Drake is at his best not when he tsk-tsks grown women, but when he risks being outshone by inviting them on the track. More

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      Jay Schwartz’s Music Reflects a Past of Oceans and Deserts

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      The composer’s latest work, “Theta,” born of the pandemic, loss and long swims in open water, is premiering in Germany.In early March 2020, the composer Jay Schwartz traveled to San Diego from his home in Cologne, Germany, to attend the funeral for Don Bukovich — his stepfather and the only person in his extended family with an affinity for classical music.Bukovich was especially fond of music by Bach. And, when the pandemic hit and Schwartz got stuck in San Diego and stayed with his brother, he found himself playing Bach’s “Komm, süßer Tod” (“Come, Sweet Death”) over and over at the piano. He also went for long swims in the Pacific Ocean, far from the shoreline.“You reach a kind of euphoric state,” Schwartz said in an interview. “You’re in the ocean and you’re euphoric because of the natural beauty, but also because you’re on the cusp of extreme danger.”As Schwartz swam, he thought about musical ideas: an unusual chord progression in the Bach piece; glissandos, the sliding from one note to another; and an aural illusion known as the Shepard tone, the sonic equivalent of a barber’s pole.“I started to superimpose those things in an intuitive way, not thinking it was a concept,” Schwartz said. “It just happened while in the ocean.”By June 2020, Schwartz had finished a new piece for orchestra based on those ideas. He called it “Theta,” after the Greek letter once used as a symbol for death.No one had commissioned the work. But a week after it was completed, Schwartz received a call from the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra. Its music director, Teodor Currentzis, was planning a program built around Gustav Mahler’s final, incomplete Symphony No. 10, and wanted Schwartz to compose a piece.Schwartz considered writing something new. But, as he researched the end of Mahler’s life, Schwartz realized that the symphony and “Theta” had both been inspired by Bach works related to death. The pieces also shared an interest in mortality’s release: As he composed, Mahler wrote in a poem to his wife, Alma, that he hoped for “the bliss of death in the most painful hours.”On Thursday, Currentzis and the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra will premiere “Theta” and other responses to Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 in Stuttgart, followed by performances in Hamburg, Freiburg and Berlin. The concerts are a milestone for Schwartz, 58, an artist with no formal composition training who has forged a career largely parallel to the structures of contemporary classical music in Germany.Schwartz, behind at right, at a recent rehearsal led by the conductor Teodor Currentzis, at the podium.Felix Broede for The New York TimesDespite — or, as Schwartz sees it, because of — his lack of academic education, his music is unmistakable. All his pieces include glissandos, which he uses to create arresting parabolas of texture. “There is no glissando without dissonance,” Currentzis said in an interview. “Always he puts a note that keeps, and then the glissando creates the nirvana of the dissonance, of falling apart.” At key moments, these tendrils of sound alight on major and minor chords: familiar harmonies rendered new.Schwartz’s pieces have clearly audible forms and stark climaxes, taking obvious pleasure in sound. “Musical events happen that achieve a kind of breathing or wave-shaped forms,” Bernd Feuchtner, a writer and the artistic director of the Handel Festival in Halle, Germany, said in a phone interview. He added that when he hears a new Schwartz piece, “I’m always sitting on the edge of my seat.”The conductor Matthias Pintscher has said of Schwartz, “For me, he’s a Schubert of our time.”SCHWARTZ’S FATHER was a boxer turned pool maintenance worker; his mother, a homemaker who later worked as a schoolteacher. Schwartz, who was born in San Diego, showed musical talent early: At 4, he would pick out snatches of the easy listening music his parents liked on his plastic toy piano. At 7, he began formal lessons.His parents divorced in 1979, and his mother moved Schwartz and his two brothers to Deming, N.M., whose desert landscape he loved. He began practicing to become a classical pianist. Schwartz studied music at Arizona State University, where he won his first and only piano competition.“The best art, at least that I’ve done, I don’t feel like I’m inventing it,” Schwartz said. “I find it, in the sense of excavating, going into something, and digging something up.”Felix Broede for The New York Times “I was taught that that was the thing I should be doing: playing Rachmaninoff concerti, and not making them up myself,” Schwartz said. “I actually did play a Rachmaninoff concerto with the college orchestra. And at the end it was like, ‘Did that, got the T-shirt. I’m out of here.’”In 1989, Schwartz traveled to the university town of Tübingen, Germany, for what was supposed to be a one-year exchange program as part of his graduate school studies in Arizona. He has lived in Germany ever since.Schwartz considered studying musicology, but a professor, citing his then-rudimentary German, discouraged him. Instead, Schwartz practiced the language and worked on the assembly line of a Mercedes-Benz factory. “I was either listening to German grammar or to music, because the job was super boring,” he said. “You could sit there for hours and not have a single part come by.” (He now speaks German so fluently he sometimes needs a moment to find an English word.)In 1990, Schwartz became an assistant in the musical archives of the Stuttgart State Theater, where he did what he described as “menial tasks.” Later, the theater noticed his composition skill, and hired him to write small pieces of incidental music. The job wasn’t for him. “I don’t like being subordinate to some director saying, ‘I need four bars of minor’ and those kinds of ridiculous demands,” Schwartz said.But he did take advantage of free tickets to everything at the theater. He saw opera, ballet or theater nearly every night, and listened to contemporary music on public radio. He made some of his closest friends in those years. Still, it was a time of soul-searching. “An identity crisis comes with entering a foreign country,” Schwartz said. “And that whole identity crisis is super important for forming an artist. I had years when I couldn’t compose. When it did happen, it was a flood.”His catalog includes 16 pieces of chamber music, five vocal works, an opera, a recent recomposition of Schubert’s “Winterreise” for voice and saxophone ensemble, a piece for voices and orchestra, and eight pieces in the series “Music for Orchestra,” of which “Theta” is the most recent.Schwartz began the “Music for Orchestra” series in 2002, when a cellist friend asked him to write a piece for 12 of his students and a semiprofessional string quintet, “Music for 17 String Instruments.” A year later, the artistic director of the German National Theater in Weimar commissioned him to compose incidental music for a stage adaptation of Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” with a full orchestra at Schwartz’s disposal.“He wanted me to copy Tchaikovsky, which I did,” Schwartz said. “At the same time, I looked at the recording plan, and I had a ridiculous amount of time in the recording studio.” He took the opportunity to orchestrate “Music for 17 String Instruments” and record it.“I put it on their stands, and they did it, like, ‘This is part of the play,’” Schwartz said. “It never entered the play.”That work became the first “Music for Orchestra.” In a phone interview, Eric Marinitsch, the former head of promotion for Universal Edition, Schwartz’s publisher, described hearing the music as a “big bang.”“The piece was so clear in its dramaturgy,” Marinitsch said, “and yet composed with such complex means.”Composed over the past two decades, the pieces of “Music for Orchestra” evoke the austere, ominous beauty and subtle gradations of the environments where Schwartz was raised: the ocean and the desert. “The best art, at least that I’ve done, I don’t feel like I’m inventing it,” he said. “I find it, in the sense of excavating, going into something, and digging something up.”In late November, Schwartz traveled from Cologne, where he lives with his husband, to rehearsals for “Theta.” In an early rehearsal, Schwartz and Currentzis worked to make the individual parts coalesce into a unified texture. “I hear fragments,” Currentzis told the timpanist as he tried to smooth out a long, slow glissando.Working together with visible joy, the conductor and the composer added Mahlerian touches — winds playing with their bells up, a dramatic hammer stroke — to the piece. They sang bits of “Komm, süßer Tod” to demonstrate musical shapes.In a section of frothy trills, Schwartz addressed the woodwinds. “Realize,” he told them, “that you’re part of the wave.” More