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      Why Don’t More American Maestros Lead American Orchestras?

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      When Leonard Bernstein was named music director of the New York Philharmonic in 1958, his appointment was hailed as a breakthrough for orchestra conductors from the United States.For decades, American maestros had been cast aside in classical music, seen as inferior to Europeans. But Bernstein’s rise, recently glamorized in the Oscar-nominated “Maestro,” showed that conductors from the United States could compete with their finest counterparts across the Atlantic.Commentators predicted a golden age for American conductors at the top American orchestras. Some followed in Bernstein’s footsteps — including protégés of his — and as recently as 2008, there were American music directors leading orchestras in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis and Washington, D.C.Today, the only one of those ensembles still led by an American is the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Four of the 25 largest ensembles in the United States have an American at the podium, and at the nation’s biggest, most prestigious orchestras, American music directors are entirely absent.“It means that we’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Jonathon Heyward, who grew up in South Carolina and began serving as the Baltimore Symphony’s music director last fall. “We have to continuously think about ways to better relate to an American community.” (Heyward is one of those four American maestros at the largest ensembles today, along with Michael Stern in Kansas City, Giancarlo Guerrero in Nashville and Carl St.Clair at the Pacific Symphony in California.)Classical music has long been a global industry. The Berlin Philharmonic is led by a Russian-born maestro, Kirill Petrenko; the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Germany, by a British-born conductor, Simon Rattle. Just as maestros from overseas have assumed top conducting posts in the United States, American artists have gone to Europe, Asia and elsewhere to lead renowned ensembles. Alan Gilbert, the former music director of the New York Philharmonic, now has orchestras in Germany and Sweden.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Patti Smith Sings for the Morgan Library & Museum’s 100th Anniversary

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      The Morgan Library & Museum drew devotees out for a party celebrating its centennial, including Peter Marino, Vito Schnabel and Walton Ford.Over a century ago, J.P. Morgan built a majestic library for his opulent mansion in Midtown Manhattan. After his death, his son, the financier Jack Morgan, opened it to the public in 1924, and it eventually became the Morgan Library & Museum. Last night, crowds of art patrons and well-heeled bibliophiles gathered in that grand library to attend the Morgan’s centennial celebration.Beneath stained glass windows and murals of Dante and Socrates, guests wearing tuxedos sipped martinis while a violinist performed classical covers of pop songs by Keane and Taylor Swift. Servers wended through the crowd, carrying hors d’oeuvres trays of crescent duck and caviar as they passed shelves lined with rare editions of works by Rousseau and Voltaire.Devotees of the Morgan like the architect Peter Marino, the art dealer Vito Schnabel and the artist Walton Ford were in attendance. Patti Smith and her daughter, Jesse Paris Smith, who would soon perform a song together at the evening’s dinner, pulled away from the cocktail hour to stroll through the exhibit “Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature,” which displays the manuscripts and picture letters of the creator of Peter Rabbit and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.“Through her ephemera, you can feel Potter looking at her paint brushes,” Patti Smith said. “The Morgan’s collection honors the hand that writes the book. You get a sense of what an artist or writer was thinking as they were creating. You can see the energy lifting off Beethoven’s ink-splotched pages.”The Morgan Library & Museum’s director, Colin B. Bailey, slices into a cake made to look like a stack of books. The soprano Latonia Moore.The media and automotive heiress Katharine Rayner.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      10 Great Oscar Winners for Best Original Song

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      Hear tracks by Billie Eilish, Keith Carradine, Isaac Hayes and more.Billie Eilish, a potential two-time Oscar winner. (We’ll find out Sunday night!)Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDear listeners,Happy Oscar week! The 96th Academy Awards are this Sunday, and you know which competition we’re most excited about here at The Amplifier: best original song. Today’s playlist is a brief but star-studded tour through the category’s history.First awarded at the seventh annual ceremony, best original song has long been a reflection of popular music’s evolving style — the rare honor that’s been won by both Irving Berlin and Eminem. As the two-time winner Elton John can attest, it can be a sure path to an EGOT. As the veteran songwriter Diane Warren, who has been nominated 15 times but never won, might tell you, it can also be maddening.Warren is nominated again this year for Becky G’s “The Fire Inside,” written for Eva Longoria’s directorial feature debut, “Flamin’ Hot,” but she’s got stiff competition from the year’s most commercially successful movie, “Barbie.” (Heard of it?) That film boasts the highest-profile contenders: Ryan Gosling’s theatrical showstopper “I’m Just Ken” (penned by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt) and Billie Eilish’s wispy, haunting ballad “What Was I Made For?,” which last month won the Grammy for song of the year.Jon Batiste’s “It Never Went Away” or Scott George’s “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” could always upset if the “Barbie” songs split the vote, but my money’s on Eilish. “I’m Just Ken” is fun, sure, but in my humble, grouchy opinion, it overstays its welcome and contributes to an overall flaw of the film, which is that the supposed villain is far and away the most charismatic character. (I’m going to go hide now.)Eilish’s song is arresting and finely crafted; with all due respect to Warren, I think it’s the most worthy winner. And if you need another reason to root for the 22-year-old musician, a victory would make Eilish the youngest person ever to win two best original song Oscars, since she already won for her 2021 Bond theme, “No Time to Die.” (Her 26-year-old brother, Finneas, with whom she co-wrote both songs, would become the second-youngest two-time winner.)Today’s playlist is a reminder of some past best original song winners and a testament to the category’s stylistic diversity. Is it the first mix to contain both Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were” and Three 6 Mafia’s “Hard Out Here for a Pimp”? It’s certainly the first Amplifier playlist to do so.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Headlined the MadSoul Festival in Florida

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      The New York Democrat had top billing at a recent concert event in Florida that took a partisan approach to politics as entertainment.Two acts received top billing at MadSoul, a music and arts festival in Florida, on Saturday. The first was Muna, an indie-pop group that opened for Taylor Swift at some Eras Tour stops. The second: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York.She and several elected Democrats shared a stage with musicians like Phoebe Bridgers during the daylong event at Loch Haven Park in Orlando. Other politicians included Representatives Greg Casar of Texas and Maxwell Frost of Florida, the first Gen-Z member of Congress.Mr. Frost, a percussionist, is also the founder of the MadSoul Festival, which he started in 2018 when he was working as an organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union. He said in an interview before this year’s event that he had “personally booked the whole lineup.”Mr. Frost — who played drums for Venture Motel, a local band, during its set at the festival — described the event as a way to reach people who might not be as interested in politics as they were in politics as entertainment, a concept that has spread since the election of the country’s first reality-TV-star president.Representative Maxwell Frost, Democrat of Florida and the founder of the MadSoul Festival, played drums for a local band during its set.Todd Anderson for The New York TimesAlmost 3,000 people attended the event, with many saying they were primarily drawn by the promise of music and arts.Todd Anderson for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elim Chan Boxes, Conducts and Defies Stereotypes

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      Elim Chan, who is making her New York Philharmonic debut this week, blazed onto the scene as the first woman to win a prestigious conducting contest.When Elim Chan arrived in New York last week to prepare for her New York Philharmonic debut, her first stop was not David Geffen Hall, the orchestra’s home, or a rehearsal studio. It wasn’t even in the city.Instead, she visited Smith College, her alma mater in Massachusetts, to meet with young women interested in the arts. In a classroom, Chan, 37, candidly told them that she felt it was getting harder for women to succeed in conducting.“Now the pressure is insane,” she recalled saying. “I was really lucky.”It was only a decade ago that, Chan, a native of Hong Kong, blazed onto the scene as the first woman to win the esteemed Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in England. Since then, she has joined the global concert circuit and taken on jobs including chief conductor at the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra in Belgium.On Thursday, she will lead the Philharmonic in performances of Martinu’s First Cello Concerto, featuring the soloist Sol Gabetta; the world premiere of Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s “Pisachi”; and Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade,” a piece that helped Chan clinch her victory in the final round of the Flick competition.So far in her career, Chan has delighted in upending expectations about conducting and herself. She defied her relatives when they discouraged her from pursuing music because they were worried it would not pay the bills. She pushed back when colleagues challenged her credentials because she did not attend a conservatory and came to conducting relatively late — as a college sophomore — while dabbling in psychology and medicine. And she smiled to herself when orchestra players dismissed her as too short or fresh faced to be on the podium. She has also made a point of maintaining an active life outside music: She has become a devoted boxer, working with a coach between engagements.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kahil El’Zabar, Spiritual Jazz’s Dapper Bandleader, Keeps Pushing Ahead

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      At 70, he is releasing his 18th album with the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble to celebrate the group’s 50th anniversary and his role in the music’s lineage.Upon first glance, you might not think Kahil El’Zabar, 70, is a spiritual jazz musician. Tall and sprightly with taut skin and a thick mustache, wearing dark sunglasses and a stylish black suit on a January afternoon, he looked more like a fashion model or a recently retired athlete. That’s not to say avant-jazz guys can’t be chic, but rarely do they look this dapper.“My mother owned a bridal formal-wear business, so fashion was always a part of my life since I was a little kid,” he said over cups of green tea at the Moxy Hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “I have friends that are 70, and they’ll look at me and say, ‘Why you got those little silly clothes on?’ It’s like, ‘We wore wingtips and khakis in ’69. This is 2023, and just because I’m a senior citizen does not mean I can’t be current.’”For the past 50 years, El’Zabar has toed the line between fashion and music, the present and the future, American jazz and West African compositional structure. In 1974, he founded the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble as a quartet blurring the edges of traditional jazz, Afrocentric rhythms and cosmic expanse. Much like the Pyramids, the Ohio-based band that wore African finery and played polyrhythmic arrangements lifted from the continent, El’Zabar’s group wasn’t fully appreciated by American listeners. The quartet came at a time when jazz musicians started blending their sounds with stadium-sized funk and rock, and psychedelic African jazz was considered a bridge too far.El’Zabar has been sewing his own clothes since he was 11. Today, he runs an invite-only resale shop in Chicago.Lyndon French for The New York TimesAs a result, El’Zabar has been underrated in the pantheon of spiritual jazz luminaries, despite his healthy résumé. For someone who’s played with Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, Nina Simone and Dizzy Gillespie, his name doesn’t ring like those of Pharoah Sanders, John Coltrane and Sun Ra.It’s because “he’s a percussionist,” said the film director Dwayne Johnson-Cochran, who’s made five documentaries on El’Zabar, during a phone interview. “With Kahil as a drummer, it’s kind of discounted because he’s the guy keeping the beat. He has melodies that are simple yet complex in the counterpoint; in a lot of ways, he’s a genre within himself. People are not in tune with what he’s putting out, but it’s really quite spectacular.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Taylor Swift’s Singapore Shows Stir Anger in Southeast Asia

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      The country is defending paying the pop star to play nowhere else in Southeast Asia. Thailand’s prime minister said the price was up to $3 million per show.Taylor Swift has descended on Southeast Asia, or one small part of it at least: All of her six sold-out shows are in Singapore, the region’s wealthiest nation.Many of her fans in this part of the world, which is home to more than 600 million people, are disappointed. But the Singapore leg of Ms. Swift’s wildly popular Eras Tour, which began last weekend and ends on Saturday, is a soft power coup and a boost for the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery.The shows — and the undisclosed price that Singapore paid to host them — have also generated diplomatic tension with two of its neighbors, Thailand and the Philippines.Last month, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin of Thailand said publicly that Singapore had paid Ms. Swift up to $3 million per show on the condition that she play nowhere else in Southeast Asia. A lawmaker in the Philippines later said that was not “what good neighbors do.”Singapore pushed back. First its culture minister said the actual value of the exclusivity deal — which he declined to name — was “nowhere as high.” The country’s former ambassador at large later called the criticism “sour grapes.” And on Tuesday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told reporters that he did not see the deal as diplomatically “unfriendly.”Fans in other Southeast Asian countries are disappointed Ms. Swift isn’t performing elsewhere in the region.How Hwee Young/EPA, via ShutterstockWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Vienna Philharmonic and Franz Welser-Möst Return to Carnegie

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      Franz Welser-Möst, who stands at the top of this storied orchestra’s roster of conductors, led three meaty programs at Carnegie Hall over the weekend.The Vienna Philharmonic hasn’t had a chief conductor since 1933. But it has had favorite conductors.Of the great musicians who have led this self-governing, proudly idiosyncratic orchestra, Leonard Bernstein and Pierre Boulez were made honorary members; Herbert von Karajan and Karl Böhm were given honorary conducting titles. The violinist Daniel Froschauer, the Philharmonic’s chairman, has said that today, the ensemble not so secretly has two maestros at the top of its roster: Riccardo Muti and Franz Welser-Möst.At Carnegie Hall last weekend, it was the Austrian-born Welser-Möst, 63, who conducted three breathless, exhilarating and often moving performances by the Philharmonic, in meaty programs of Bruckner and Mahler symphonies, and works by Berg, Hindemith, Schoenberg, Strauss and Ravel.It takes a lot to win over the affection of the Philharmonic, one of Europe’s finest ensembles, just as it takes a lot to join its ranks. These players — known for their lush sound, their brighter, higher tuning frequency and their distinctly Viennese articulation — can be haughty and stubborn; I have seen them outright defy a conductor in rehearsal.Welser-Möst has not only penetrated the Philharmonic’s inner circle, but also has done so while leading the Cleveland Orchestra — another top-notch ensemble, though one whose sound differs enormously from that of the Viennese.The main difference between the Cleveland Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic is that while the Clevelanders have been criticized for giving performances that are too good, no one could ever accuse the Viennese of the same.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More