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      A Crash Course in the Elephant 6 Recording Co.

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      A new documentary explores the lo-fi psychedelic music made by bands including Apples in Stereo, the Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel.The Apples in Stereo, one of the anchors of the Elephant 6 scene that’s the focus of a new documentary.Tim BarnesDear listeners,Today’s Amplifier is a celebration of the Elephant 6 Recording Co., a humble but hugely influential music scene that grew in the 1990s out of two small Southern cities — Ruston, La. and later Athens, Ga. — and serves as the subject of “The Elephant 6 Recording Co.,” a spirited new documentary directed by C.B. Stockfleth that tells the stories of some of its most enduring bands, like Neutral Milk Hotel, the Apples in Stereo and the Olivia Tremor Control.If none of those names means anything to you, fear not: You’re only 25 minutes and eight songs away from knowing exactly what I’m talking about.The Elephant 6 story begins in Ruston, a sleepy college town where there was little to do but dream, hang out with friends and, when you got bored enough to try to figure out how, make music. One of my favorite things about the film is the way it captures the necessity of creativity and a do-it-yourself ethos in places where there isn’t a lot of pre-existing art or culture. “I feel like kids in places like that tend to get deeper into the things that they love — tend to go further into them, tend to lose themselves more in them because they need to,” Julian Koster of Neutral Milk Hotel says in the doc. “They have to escape into something.”Eventually, those kids cobbled together enough money to buy instruments, microphones and most crucially, four-track tape machines. In the film, Kevin Sweeney of the band the Sunshine Fix gives perhaps the most succinct summary of the Elephant 6 sound that I’ve ever heard: “Those guys were just trying to record ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ or ‘Pet Sounds’ on their cassette machines,” he says. After some consideration, he adds, in disbelief, “And they did!”A whole group of them relocated from Ruston to Athens, where the independent-minded bands who had come before — like R.E.M. and Pylon — had created an infrastructure where artful music could thrive and find its local audience. “It just seemed like a beacon for weirdos,” says the Elephant 6 musician Heather McIntosh.Sometimes called the Brian Wilson of the scene, Robert Schneider, the helium-voiced lead singer of the Apples and the producer of many of the early Elephant 6 albums, set up his own low-budget recording space that he called Pet Sounds Studios. (Although, as someone points out in the documentary, it acquired the nickname “Pet Smells,” because of all the cats that lived there.)“The Elephant 6 Recording Co.” is a vivid time capsule of musical community before the internet, before tape trading became a thing of the past and before indie rock became such a marketable commodity. Neutral Milk Hotel emerged as the scene’s breakout star when it released the critically adored 1998 album “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” but the group’s frontman, Jeff Mangum, fled the public eye and stopped releasing new music. (Still publicity shy, he’s the only major member of the collective who isn’t featured in the film.)Inspired by the movie, today’s playlist is a crash course in the Elephant 6 sound, which would go on to inspire the next generation of indie musicians and beyond. Though many other artists would be associated with the collective in later years, I’ve stuck to four of the original and most recognizable bands from that scene — the Olivia Tremor Control, the Apples in Stereo, Elf Power and Neutral Milk Hotel — selecting an earlier and later song from each.Get ready to lose yourself in a utopia of psychedelic pop-rock, layered and collagelike production, and the intoxicating ambition of a bunch of musicians trying to craft their own “Pet Sounds” with whatever they had on hand. (The film, which premieres this weekend, will be available on video on demand starting Sept. 1.)Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. The Olivia Tremor Control: “Jumping Fences”The Olivia Tremor Control melded psychedelic experimentation and pure pop melody, fronted by longtime friends Will Hart and Bill Doss, who died in 2012. The band’s 1996 debut album, “Music From the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle,” is one of the high-water marks of the Elephant 6 scene, and the jangly, tuneful “Jumping Fences” demonstrates why. Like many 19-year-olds who came before me and, hopefully, many who will follow, it blew my mind when I first heard it in college. (Listen on YouTube)2. The Apples in Stereo: “Glowworm”Fronted by Schneider and formed when he was temporarily living in Denver, the Apples in Stereo are the most sugary sweet of the Elephant 6 bands; their infectious tunes recall the sunshine pop of the ’60s coated with layers of tape hiss. After a run of singles and EPs, “Fun Trick Noisemaker,” the Apples’ 1995 debut that features the bouncy fan favorite “Glowworm,” was the first full-length LP to bear the Elephant 6 stamp. (Listen on YouTube)3. Elf Power: “Jane”Though the dream-pop group Elf Power recorded this 1999 song in New York with the accomplished producer Dave Fridmann, its introverted titular character still captures that imaginative, small-town spirit out of which so many Elephant 6 bands sprung: “Jane was the one who would always have her fun when she’s lying on her bed, making visions in her head,” the frontman Andrew Rieger sings. Sounds like Jane’s about to start a band. (Listen on YouTube)4. Neutral Milk Hotel: “Song Against Sex”Neutral Milk Hotel’s first album, “On Avery Island” from 1996, overflows with ideas, lo-fi resourcefulness and ramshackle energy. On its lead track, “Song Against Sex,” Mangum creates one of his soon-to-be-signature surrealist musical frescoes, while regal blasts of horns and crashing percussion give the song an antic maximalism. (Listen on YouTube)5. The Olivia Tremor Control: “A Peculiar Noise Called ‘Train Director’”The Olivia Tremor Control pushed even further into the realm of psychedelia on its great second album, “Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume One,” from 1999. On this track, hooky melodies and moments of pop lucidity suddenly burst forth from textured cacophony. (Listen on YouTube)6. The Apples in Stereo: “Please”Here’s an effervescent fuzz-pop gem from the Apples in Stereo’s 2002 album, “Velocity of Sound.” One of the longest running Elephant 6 bands, the Apples have also had some of the most high-profile cultural crossovers: cameos on “The Powerpuff Girls” and, later, “The Colbert Report.” Just as unexpectedly, Schneider is now a mathematician who teaches at Michigan Technological University — and, to the surprise of his students, moonlights as an influential indie musician. (Listen on YouTube)7. Elf Power: “All the World Is Waiting”Elf Power is perhaps the most prolific of the major Elephant 6 bands; last year, the group put out its 14th album, “Artificial Countrysides.” I love this warped, stomping tune from Elf Power’s 2006 release, “Back to the Web”; its music video, filmed in Athens, captures the communal zaniness of the Elephant 6 scene. (Listen on YouTube)8. Neutral Milk Hotel: “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”Mangum’s fervently beloved 1998 album brought more attention to the Elephant 6 scene than anything had before — maybe more attention than it could handle. Something changed after “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,” a visionary, heart-on-its-sleeve album that continues to find new listeners in new generations; this was clear enough when the band finally reunited in 2013 for an extensive world tour. The album’s title track, which on the record features little more than four frantically strummed guitar chords and Mangum’s keening wail, has since become the unofficial anthem of Elephant 6 and all it represented. When “The Elephant 6 Recording Co.” premiered last week in Los Angeles, an accompanying tribute concert ended with a group singalong of this tune. (Listen on YouTube)How strange it is to be anything at all,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“8 Songs That Explain the Elephant 6 Recording Co.” track listTrack 1: The Olivia Tremor Control, “Jumping Fences”Track 2: The Apples in Stereo, “Glowworm”Track 3: Elf Power, “Jane”Track 4: Neutral Milk Hotel, “Song Against Sex”Track 5: The Olivia Tremor Control, “A Peculiar Noise Called ‘Train Director’”Track 6: The Apples in Stereo, “Please”Track 7: Elf Power, “All the World Is Waiting”Track 8: Neutral Milk Hotel, “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea”Bonus tracksWant to feel old? Friday is the 10-year anniversary of Miley Cyrus’s most infamous Video Music Awards performance, which sent waves of moral panic throughout the nation in 2013. Exactly a decade later, she’s released a more wizened and reflective ballad, “Used to Be Young,” which I wrote about in the Playlist. This week’s roundup of new music also features new tracks from L’Rain, Zach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves and Al Green’s gorgeous cover of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” More

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      Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Selena Gomez, Al Green, L’Rain and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Miley Cyrus, ‘Used to Be Young’“You say I used to be wild, I say I used to be young,” Miley Cyrus sings on the muted, introspective new ballad “Used to Be Young.” The timing of the single’s release is canny: Cyrus gave her infamous, twerk-seen-’round-the-world MTV Video Music Awards performance 10 years ago on Friday. Cyrus, now 30, isn’t chiding her younger self or expressing regrets here, though — “I know I used to be crazy, messed up, but God was it fun,” she sings with an audible grin — so much as she is asserting her right to grow and change. Though “Used to Be Young” starts out quiet, it gradually builds in intensity, culminating in a finale that allows Cyrus to showcase the full power of her grainy drawl. LINDSAY ZOLADZAl Green, ‘Perfect Day’The magnificently idiosyncratic soul singer Al Green has re-emerged singing “Perfect Day,” a song from 1972 by — of all people — Lou Reed. Reed’s original had a disquieting undertone, warning “You’re going to reap just what you sow.” But Green’s remake — backed by musicians from his 1970s Hi Rhythm Section — trades any misgivings for romance, and the same line becomes a promise of mutual bliss. JON PARELESZach Bryan featuring Kacey Musgraves, ‘I Remember Everything’This wrenching highlight from Zach Bryan’s new self-titled album is a he-said/she-said account of a failed, whiskey-soaked romance, set to a forlorn chord progression. “A cold shoulder at closing time, you were begging me to stay ’til the sun rose,” Bryan sings in his aching croak, before Kacey Musgraves enters with a pointed question: “You’re drinking everything to ease your mind, but when the hell are you gonna ease mine?” ZOLADZL’Rain, ‘Pet Rock’“Why would you go without me?” L’Rain — the songwriter and musician Taja Cheek — wonders in “Pet Rock,” a turbulent song about unwanted solitude. Cascading guitars and shifty-meter drumbeats give the music an unpredictable, almost tidal motion that ebbs and flows with all the lyrics’ unanswered questions. PARELESSelena Gomez, ‘Single Soon’“I know he’ll be a mess when I break the news/but I’ll be single soon,” Selena Gomez exults in the ultra-smiley “Single Soon.” It’s a triumphal march about all the prerogatives of moving on — “I’m gonna do what I wanna do” — with giggles in the backup track as she decides it’s “Time to try another one.” Like Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space,” it celebrates the choices ahead. PARELESPrince, ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’The teaser for the next much-expanded Prince reissue — “Diamonds and Pearls,” due Oct. 27 — is a falsetto funk tune about a woman with a mysterious but alluring occupation. “Some call it a curse, some call it sweet salvation/No one can deny the stimulation,” Prince sings over a skulking synth-bass line. The lyrics stay ambiguous, but the groove tells its own sensual story. PARELESMargo Price, ‘Strays’Margo Price released her album “Strays” in January, but its title track arrives this week in the rollout of “Strays II,” a sequel she’s releasing a few songs at a time. In “Strays,” she sings about being young, broke and ferally in love back in January 2003, with a galloping beat and pounding piano chords that suggests the E Street Band visiting Nashville. The memories sound victorious. PARELESMon Laferte, ‘Tenochtitlán’The Chilean songwriter Mon Laferte sings about a woman shamed for her pregnancy in “Tenochtitlán,” comparing her to the Virgin Mary. In a track that melds the retro and futuristic, she overlays a trip-hop bass undertow with lushly dramatic strings, a flamenco-tinged guitar solo and a passage of pitch-shifted vocals, while she urges, “Beautiful one, cry no more.” PARELESLuciana Souza & Trio Corrente, ‘Bem Que Te Avisei’The new album from Luciana Souza and Trio Corrente, “Cometa” is a celebration of Brazil’s classic songbook, with covers of songs by Dorival Caymmi and Antonio Carlos Jobim alongside lively originals written in the spirit of tradition. Souza contributes a composition, “Bem Que Te Avisei” (“Well, I Warned You”), an up-tempo samba in which she admonishes a suitor not to chase someone unless he’s interested in committing. The piece comes fully alive midway through, when she sings a verse accompanied by just Paulo Paulelli’s bass and Edu Ribeiro’s light percussion, and achieves elevation at the end, as Souza’s wordless vocals double with the piano of Fabio Torres, briefly bringing to mind Flora Purim’s synergy with Chick Corea in Return to Forever. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOTitanic, ‘Anónima’The Guatemalan songwriter Mabe Fratti and the Venezuelan composer Hector Tosta, who bills himself as I la Católica, have collaborated as Titanic, with an album due in October. In “Anónima” (“Anonymous”), Fratti’s cello grunts rhythmic double-stops as she sings about persistent, troubling thoughts, surrounded by clusters of piano notes and increasingly brutal percussion. Her voice maintains its equanimity, but her distorted cello finally lashes out. PARELESAbiodun Oyewole, ‘Somebody Else’s Idea’In 1968, the poet-activists Larry Neal and Amiri Baraka released “Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing,” a collection that would help to define the Black Arts Movement. The poet with the most works featured in its pages was Sun Ra: Although mostly known as the bandleader of the Arkestra, Ra was a philosopher and poet as much as he was a musician. That same year, a group of young poets came together in Harlem, dubbing themselves the Last Poets and helping to lay the groundwork for what would soon become hip-hop; Abiodun Oyewole was one of them. Those histories collide on “My Words Are Music: A Celebration of Sun Ra’s Poetry,” a new album on which various artists read Ra’s poems between spacey synthesizer interludes from Marshall Allen, the Arkestra’s current leader. On “Somebody Else’s Idea,” Oyewole delivers verses that Ra first recorded in the early 1970s, when the Last Poets were in their prime: “Somebody else’s idea of things to come/need not be the only way to vision the future,” he declares. RUSSONELLO More

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      In Kentucky, a Maestro of the People

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      Teddy Abrams, the 36-year-old music director of the Louisville Orchestra, has embedded himself in his community, breaking the mold of modern conductors.On a muggy July night at an amphitheater in suburban Kentucky, the conductor and composer Teddy Abrams — sporting black jeans, camouflage sneakers and a bouncy mop of golden curls — took the podium and began to evangelize.It was the final stop on the Louisville Orchestra’s summer tour across Kentucky, and Abrams, the ensemble’s 36-year-old music director, paused to speak to the crowd of roughly 900 in Bardstown, 40 miles or so south of Louisville, about his mission.He told the audience — teenagers in tie-dye, retirees snacking on nachos and workers from nearby Bourbon distilleries among them — that he wanted to use music to “bring people together across all backgrounds.” Invoking his idol, the eminent conductor Leonard Bernstein, he said music was a universal language: “We have to do something with it.” He spoke of the need for Kentucky to promote its rich cultural traditions.“This is your Louisville Orchestra, everyone,” he said. “Kentuckians know good music. We’ve made a lot of the music that the world loves, invented entire genres right here in our state. That’s what this is all about — sharing the incredible music-making that takes places in Kentucky.”During his nine years at the helm of the Louisville Orchestra, Abrams has helped the 86-year-old ensemble emerge from a period of turmoil to reclaim its reputation as one of the most innovative in the United States.And he stands out for another reason. While many modern maestros lead jet-set lives, spending only as much as time in one place as contractually required, Abrams, a California native, has broken the mold, putting down roots in Kentucky and embarking on an ambitious project to make the orchestra part of daily life for Kentuckians.“Teddy, it’s so easy!” Students in the rap program invited Abrams to take part in a dance video, at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesHe lives in a house near downtown Louisville, where he regularly hosts musicians, activists, city officials and entrepreneurs, and rides a bicycle around town. (He finally got a driver’s license in October.) He writes music honoring local figures, including a “rap opera” about Muhammad Ali (a musical, “Ali,” by Abrams and the actor and director Clint Dyer, is set to premiere in Louisville next year and is aimed for Broadway in 2025). He has expanded the orchestra’s public efforts, starting a rap program for young people; founding a creator corps that invites artists from around the country to embed themselves in Kentucky; and leading a two-year statewide tour, which began in May, including the stop in Bardstown.His approach stands in stark contrast to that of many music directors, who often take on full-time commitments to several orchestras at once and can live thousands of miles from their ensembles.Abrams says that conductors too often operate at a distance from their communities, missing an opportunity to build connections.“We expect mayors and university presidents and police chiefs to be in the city,” he said. “I think that the conductor of the orchestra should be in that same category of civic leader. Because if they’re not, what does it say to the people of that town?”Abrams’s vision has drawn attention at a time when many arts organizations are looking to forge closer ties with residents and communities. His approach recalls that of Bernstein, who as music director of the New York Philharmonic popularized a series of concerts for young people and was credited with helping make classical music accessible to the public.“This is your Louisville Orchestra, everyone”: The orchestra performing in Bardstown. Jon Cherry for The New York TimesFiling into the stands at Bardstown.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesAbrams also draws inspiration from his mentor, Michael Tilson Thomas, the former music director of the San Francisco Symphony, who studied with Bernstein and has also initiated music education efforts, including the popular “Keeping Score” television series.Thomas, who has known Abrams since he was a child, said his protégé had created “a very natural space for people to feel comfortable inside of the music.”“He is extraordinarily devoted to helping people better understand what the music is all about, and what they’re all about,” Thomas said. “I’ve never really seen anything quite like it, and it fills me with an enormous sense of hope.”Abrams’s success in Louisville has fueled speculation that he might be tapped for a more prominent post, perhaps in Los Angeles or elsewhere. He doesn’t rule out such a move, he said, but at the same time he doesn’t feel pressure to climb the ladder.“I never thought I’m just going to stay here until a larger orchestra comes along, until I can get a ‘better’ gig,” he said. “That’s not the calling. I was brought here to do something for this place.”Born in Berkeley, Calif., the son of lawyers, Abrams played piano and clarinet as a child. He was drawn to conducting after seeing Thomas lead an all-Gershwin program with the San Francisco Symphony when he was 9. He wrote a letter to the famed maestro soliciting advice — and lessons.“I never thought I’m just going to stay here until a larger orchestra comes along, until I can get a ‘better’ gig,” Abrams said. “That’s not the calling. I was brought here to do something for this place.”Jon Cherry for The New York TimesThe singer Lisa Bielawa performed in the premiere of Tyler Taylor’s “In Memory’s Safe” in Bardstown. Both Taylor and Bielawa are composers in residence with the orchestra.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesJ. Bryan Heath, a trombonist in the orchestra, sang and played guitar in an arrangement of “Blue Moon of Kentucky.”Jon Cherry for The New York TimesThomas urged him to seek out 20th-century composers, including Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Bartok, in addition to Beethoven and Mozart, and told him to “keep your ears open.” (Thomas’s reply, framed, now hangs in Abrams’s Louisville bedroom.)Soon Abrams was studying with Thomas, who offered guidance on life as well as music. When he saw Abrams, then a teenager, with a pencil behind each ear, he counseled him that “one pencil is endearing; two are eccentric.”Thomas said that Abrams was eager from the start: “He always had this tremendous and thorough enthusiasm for music in all of its different forms.”At 11, he enrolled at community college because his family thought it would be a better fit than traditional schools (“I was a diminutive kid who related to adults,” he said). At 18, he graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and went onto the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, becoming one of the youngest conducting students to enroll there.Abrams seemed destined for a traditional career, earning plum posts as a fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami, co-founded by Thomas, and as an assistant conductor at the Detroit Symphony under its then-music director, Leonard Slatkin.Then the Louisville Orchestra, which had been searching for years for a replacement for Jorge Mester, its veteran conductor, invited him for an audition. Abrams said he felt an immediate connection with the orchestra, and in 2014, when he was 27, he became the youngest music director in Louisville’s history.He took up full-time residence in the city, buying a sprawling two-story home in the trendy NuLu neighborhood, and furnishing it with two pianos, a Hammond organ, a keyboard and other instruments. Abrams, who is also fluent in genres like jazz, swing and blues, sometimes took his keyboard to the street to entertain passers-by.When he arrived, the orchestra was still feeling the pain of having declared bankruptcy in 2010 in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. At the time, the orchestra made cuts to musicians’ pay and reduced the size of the ensemble to 55 from 71.Abrams with donors and board members at Toogie’s Table in Bardstown.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesAbrams watching the dance video he made with the students.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesAbrams signs a concertgoer’s program in Bardstown.Jon Cherry for The New York Times“We were left with ashes,” said Kathleen Karr, the principal flutist. “His ability to make us feel so worthy of all his ideas gave us new hope.”Abrams set out to improve morale and to rethink the orchestra’s place in the community.“The orchestra was in such a place of questioning and an identity crisis that it meant when I came here it was an open book,” he said. “We could write the story in a new way.”The Louisville ensemble had a reputation for experimentation going back to the 1940s, when the city’s mayor, Charles Farnsley, a fan of composers like Stravinsky and Villa-Lobos, came up with a plan to save the orchestra by commissioning works by living composers. In the decades that followed, as the orchestra premiered and recorded hundreds of new pieces, few ensembles could match Louisville’s ambition.Abrams has sought to resurrect that legacy, inviting composers and artists to Louisville for residencies and commissioning more than 70 works, including pieces by rappers and R&B stars. He has also presented many of his own works, including a piece about Mammoth Cave, in central Kentucky, which premiered this spring inside the cave with the renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma.The star pianist Yuja Wang, a classmate at Curtis who often enlisted Abrams to accompany her while rehearsing concertos, went to Louisville last year for the premiere of a piano concerto that Abrams wrote for her, which combines jazz, funk, big band and television and movie music. “He has this way of expanding on every thought and making it even more imaginative,” she said. “He always has a clear vision of what he wants.”As he enters his 10th season in Louisville, Abrams is keeping the focus on community, amicably playing the role of musical ambassador (a photo of him conducting greets visitors at the Louisville airport).One day this summer, he spent time with a group of students in the hip-hop program, a joint project of the orchestra and the education group Hip-Hop N2 Learning. When the teenagers invited him to take part in a dance video they would post on TikTok, he agreed with some hesitation, watching intently as they taught him the routine.“I’ve never done this before,” he said. “I’m worried this will be the white guy cannot dance situation.”“Teddy, it’s so easy!” the students exclaimed, and he began to sway his hips and cross his arms.When they finished, Abrams turned to the students. “Let me know when we get to a million views,” he said.Craig Greenberg, the mayor of Louisville, said Abrams often showed up in unexpected places to promote the orchestra. Several years ago, he said, Abrams brought a small band of orchestra players to perform at a wrestling match.“He’s always looking to break down the barriers,” Greenberg said, “so that more people have access to art and have an entry point to begin to enjoy the arts even more.”The pandemic, which forced the cancellation of in-person concerts, brought new challenges. But Abrams and the orchestra’s chief executive, Graham Parker, have kept the organization’s finances relatively stable. The annual budget has more than doubled to about $12 million over the past decade, and donations and grants have risen sharply.Still, there is work to be done: The orchestra’s audiences remain predominantly white, as do its players, despite the fact that about 24 percent of Louisville’s residents are Black and about 7 percent are Hispanic.A year after Breonna Taylor, a Black medical worker in Louisville, was shot and killed by police officers, Abrams and the orchestra joined forces with Jecorey Arthur, a rapper and City Council member, for a virtual program that included a Ravel piano concerto, as well as Black spirituals and a hip-hop track.Jecorey Arthur, a rapper and City Council member, said of Abrams: “He’s always very intentional, not just musically, but also socially and politically, and knows that he is a part of something that is bigger than him as an individual.”Jon Cherry for The New York Times“He’s always very intentional,” Arthur said, “not just musically, but also socially and politically, and knows that he is a part of something that is bigger than him as an individual.”Abrams, who has signed with Louisville through at least the 2024-25 season, acknowledges that he has lofty ideals and that he may at some point be tempted to try his community-driven approach elsewhere.But for now, he says, he is content where he is.“If Louisville becomes a destination city for composers, and they all start leaving Williamsburg and L.A. and Nashville and wherever they are, then the question is reversed,” he said. “Why would I leave? Why would you leave something if you actually helped make it?” More

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      The Maestro John Eliot Gardiner, Accused of Hitting Singer, Apologies

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      John Eliot Gardiner expressed regret after he was accused of lashing out at a singer after a concert in France, and he withdrew from the rest of a planned tour.The renowned conductor John Eliot Gardiner, who drew widespread criticism this week after he was accused of hitting a singer after a performance in France, apologized on Thursday, saying that he had lost his temper and that “physical violence is never acceptable.”In a statement, Gardiner, 80, said that he had apologized to the singer, William Thomas, 28, and that he would withdraw from the remaining concerts on a European tour with two of his venerated ensembles, the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. The incident occurred Tuesday night after a concert performance of the first two acts of Berlioz’s opera “Les Troyens” at the Festival Berlioz in La Côte-Saint-André in southeastern France.“I deeply regret the incident which occurred at the Festival Berlioz at La Côte-Saint-André on Tuesday evening and apologize unreservedly for losing my temper immediately after the performance,” Gardiner said in the statement. “I make no excuses for my behavior and have apologized personally to Will Thomas, for whom I have the greatest respect. I do so again, and to the other artists, for the distress that this has caused.”“I know that physical violence is never acceptable and that musicians should always feel safe,” he added. “I ask for your patience and understanding as I take time to reflect on my actions.”Gardiner provoked an outcry when, on Tuesday evening, he struck Thomas backstage because he had headed the wrong way off the podium at the concert, according to a person who was granted anonymity to describe the incident because the person was not authorized to discuss it publicly.After the incident, Gardiner abruptly withdrew from the festival and returned to London to see his doctor, missing a performance on Wednesday night.Thomas, a rising bass from England who was performing the role of Priam, was not seriously injured and performed on Wednesday.On Thursday, Askonas Holt, the agency representing Thomas, confirmed in a statement that an incident had taken place and said that Thomas would continue to take part in the tour, which will next head to the Salzburg Festival in Austria, the Opéra Royal in Versailles, the Berliner Festspiele in Germany and the Proms, the BBC’s classical music festival, in England. The agency said Thomas would not comment on the incident.“All musicians deserve the right to practice their art in an environment free from abuse or physical harm,” the statement said.The Monteverdi Choir & Orchestras, a nonprofit that oversees Gardiner’s ensembles, said in a statement on Thursday that Dinis Sousa, an associate conductor with the organization, would replace Gardiner for the rest of the tour. Sousa had stepped in for Gardiner on Wednesday in France.“We continue to look into the events that occurred on Tuesday evening,” the group said. “Our values of respect and inclusivity are fundamental to us as a company and we take seriously the welfare of all our performers and employees.’’Gardiner — a crucial figure in the period-instrument movement and the founder of some of its most treasured ensembles, the Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique — conducted at the coronation of King Charles III of Britain in May. He has made numerous recordings, many of which are considered classics, and wrote “Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven” in 2013 about the life and music of Johann Sebastian Bach.In a 2010 interview with The Financial Times, Gardiner was asked about his famously demanding style.“Can I protest my innocence?” he said. “I can be impatient, I get stroppy, I haven’t always been compassionate. I made plenty of mistakes in my early years. But I don’t think I behaved anything like as heinously as you have heard. The way an orchestra is set up is undemocratic. Someone needs to be in charge.” More

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      Jaimie Branch Adds to a Brilliant Legacy With Fly or Die’s Final LP

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      The trumpeter, who died a year ago at 39, recorded “Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((World War))” with her quartet in April 2022.Jaimie Branch was a real one. That’s the consensus among anyone who really knew her, and it’s what the record shows. The Guardian once quoted her as saying that “playing the trumpet is like singing your soul,” and somehow her music backs that up completely.A year ago this week, Branch died unexpectedly, at 39; the tragedy took the air out of creative music communities in Brooklyn, Chicago and well beyond. Branch hadn’t released her first LP as a bandleader until 2017, but she’d made up for lost time. With her two groups — Fly or Die, an unorthodox trumpet-cello-bass-drums quartet, and Anteloper, an analog-synth-splashed duo with the drummer Jason Nazary — she put out five albums in as many years. It’s an uncommonly good and unruly set of records: Each is devilishly fun but also musically serious and, as time went on, increasingly razor-sharp politically.Beyond its odd instrumental lineup, what immediately distinguished Fly or Die was the clarity of the melodies Branch was writing, and the pummeling force the band could build around them. Her trumpet lines — both written and improvised — had an irresistible terseness, with the direct power of mariachi trumpeting infused into ideas taken from Midwestern free-jazz players like Baikida Carroll and Lester Bowie, and from electric-era Miles Davis. She delivered it all via extended trumpet techniques borrowed from Axel Dörner, a German avant-gardist, and wreathed that crisp, purposeful sound in the quartet’s earthy timbres: bass, cello and the drummer Chad Taylor’s low, skulking beats, encompassing the samba-adjacent and odd-metered jazz funk.In the wake of her passing, those Fly or Die albums now represent Branch’s biggest legacy — and something of a challenge to the rest of the jazz world. Who else is here to sing their soul, in her absence? Who are the real ones that remain? Who else wants to fly?As it turns out, Branch had one last gauntlet to throw down. On Friday, International Anthem will release “Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((World War)),” the quartet’s third and final studio LP, recorded in April 2022 during her residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha. It is just as electrifying as the group’s first two LPs, but with a wider sonic horizon and more parts in motion. And there’s a triumphant streak running through it that only heightens the pain of Branch’s demise. She was moving fast and riding high when we lost her.Synths, mixed percussion, guest horn players and extra vocalists flood in at the edges. The nine-minute centerpiece “Baba Louie” starts out as a spiked punch of Caribbean carnival rhythm and South African-inflected horns, introduces a short flirtation between marimba and flute, blossoms into an anthemic trumpet solo section, and finally veers into a dragging, almost dublike stretch of groove.There is more space on “((World War))” than any previous album for Branch’s disarming, half-sung vocals, which she had started using on “Fly or Die II: Bird Dogs of Paradise” from 2019. “We’re gonna gonna gonna take over the world, and give it give it back back back back to the la-la-la-land,” she chants on “Take Over the World,” from the new album, stuttering rhythmically over Taylor’s deceptively complex drum beat, Jason Ajemian’s centering acoustic bass and Lester St. Louis’s furious scrub on cello.Stripped down to just two voices and a bass, she and Ajemian harmonize on a cover of the Meat Puppets’ “Comin’ Down,” a satirical inspirational country ditty, here retitled “The Mountain.” On the closer, “World War ((Reprise)),” she jangles a Fisher-Price musical toy and sings in an even, intimate tone, almost like Patty Waters:Publicize, televise, capitalizeon revolution’s eyesWhat the world could beIf only you could seeTheir wings are false flagsOn our wings, they all rise.Branch began her career on the Chicago scene, internalizing the city’s pulpy, blues-based brand of free jazz. She made her way to music school in Boston and Baltimore, then on to New York, where many of the musicians she played with (including all of Fly or Die’s original members) were Chicago transplants. Part of what delayed her in stepping forward as a bandleader was, sadly, an addiction that she would battle off and on for over a decade.But during periods of recovery, she found that she could get a natural high from “putting it all out on the table” as a performer, she told the audio journal Aquarium Drunkard in 2019. “Playing a simple melody is probably not something I would have done in 2007 or 2008,” she said, but the “vulnerability” of making a strong, clear statement gave Branch the “chemical reaction that I wanted.”She puts a lot on the line on “Burning Grey,” from the new album. Entreating the listener to stay vigilant, she sings: “Believe me/The future lives inside us/Don’t forget to fight.”If we’re lucky, Branch’s impact will be felt for years. Not just in the sound of improvised music, but in the fervor and hope — the all-on-the-table abandon — that improvisers put into attacking their craft.Jaimie Branch“Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((World War))”(International Anthem) More

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      Toto Cutugno, Singer Whose ‘L’Italiano’ Struck a Chord, Dies at 80

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      The nostalgic ballads and catchy pop songs he wrote paved the way for an international career. He sold more than 100 million albums worldwide.Toto Cutugno, an Italian singer and songwriter whose 1983 hit song “L’Italiano” became a worldwide sensation and was still hugely popular decades later, died on Tuesday in Milan. He was 80.His longtime manager, Danilo Mancuso, said the cause of Mr. Cutugno’s death, at San Raffaele Hospital, was cancer.In a career that began when he was in his late teens, Mr. Cutugno sold more than 100 million albums worldwide.“He was able to build melodies that remained stuck in the audience’s mind and heart,” Mr. Mancuso, who had worked with Mr. Cutugno for 20 years, said in a phone interview. “The refrains of his most popular songs are so melodic.”Mr. Cutugno’s career began with a stint, first as a drummer and then as a pianist, with Toto e i Tati, a small local band in Northern Italy. He soon branched out into songwriting.His talent for writing memorable songs earned him collaborations with famous French singers, like Joe Dassin, for whom he wrote “L’été Indien” and “Et si Tu N’Existais pas,” and Dalida, with whom he wrote the disco hit “Monday, Tuesday … Laissez-Moi Danser.” He also wrote songs for the French pop star Johnny Hallyday and for famed Italian singers like Domenico Modugno, Adriano Celentano, Gigliola Cinquetti and Ornella Vanoni. International stars like Celine Dion sang his songs as well.But Mr. Cutugno also found success singing his own compositions, first with Albatros, a disco band, which took third place at the Sanremo Festival of Italian Song in 1976. He then began a solo career and garnered his first national recognition in Italy in 1980, when he won the festival with “Solo Noi.”Mr. Cutugno in performance in Rome in 2002. “He was able to build melodies that remained stuck in the audience’s mind and heart,” his manager said.Fethi Belaid/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHe returned to the festival three years later with “L’Italiano.” He finished in fifth place, but the song, a hymn to a country straining to rebuild after World War II — marked by symbols of Italy like espresso, the Fiat Seicento and a president who had fought as a partisan during the conflict — became tremendously popular. It is still one of Italy’s best-known songs, played on television and at street festivals across the country, as well as a nostalgic reminder of their homeland for expatriates elsewhere.The song’s success paved the way for an international career: Mr. Cutugno went on to tour over the years in the United States, Europe, Turkey and Russia.“Russia was his second homeland,” said Mr. Mancuso, his manager. “The only Western entertainment that Russian televisions broadcast at the time was the Sanremo song festival, and Toto was often on, and was appreciated.”He added that Mr. Cutugno’s nostalgic tunes were reminiscent of the musical styles of Eastern Europe, and especially Russia, which made them instantly familiar to those audiences.In 2019, Mr. Cutugno’s ties to Russia got him into trouble with some Ukrainian politicians, who wanted to stop him from performing in Kyiv, the nation’s capital. Mr. Cutugno denied that he supported Russia in its aggression against Ukraine and noted that he had rejected a booking in Crimea after Russia reclaimed it in 2014. He eventually did perform in Kyiv.In 1990, Mr. Cutugno won the Eurovision Song Contest. He was one of only three Italians to have done so — the others were Ms. Cinquetti in 1964 and the rock band Maneskin in 2021. His winning song, “Insieme: 1992” (“Together: 1992”), was a ballad dedicated to the European Union and its political integration. That same year, Ray Charles agreed to sing an English-language version of a song by Mr. Cutugno at the Sanremo festival; Mr. Cutugno called the collaboration “the greatest professional satisfaction” of his lifetime.Mr. Cutugno, who was known for his emotional guitar playing and for shaking his longish black hair when he sang, also had a stint as a television presenter in Italy.Toto Cutugno was born Salvatore Cutugno on July 7, 1943, in the small town of Tendola, near Fosdinovo, in the mountains of Italy’s northwest between the regions of Tuscany and Liguria. His father, Domenico Cutugno, was a Sicilian Navy marshal, and his mother, Olga Mariani, was a homemaker.He went to secondary school in the city of La Spezia, where he grew up, and took private music lessons that included piano and accordion.He is survived by his wife, Carla Cutugno; his son, Niko; and two younger siblings, Roberto and Rosanna Cutugno. More

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      John Eliot Gardiner, Famed Conductor, Accused of Hitting Singer

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      John Eliot Gardiner was accused of lashing out backstage at a singer who had headed the wrong way off a podium during a performance of Berlioz’s opera “Les Troyens.”The appearance by the conductor John Eliot Gardiner leading the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique in southeastern France this week was supposed to be a celebration: the start of a tour across Europe by one of classical music’s most revered maestros and his esteemed ensembles.Instead, Gardiner, 80, provoked an outcry when, on Tuesday evening, he was accused of hitting a singer in the face backstage after a concert performance of the first two acts of Berlioz’s opera “Les Troyens” at the Festival Berlioz in La Côte-Saint-André.Gardiner struck the singer, William Thomas, a bass, because he had headed the wrong way off the podium at the concert, according to a person who was granted anonymity to describe the incident because the person was not authorized to discuss it publicly.Thomas, a rising bass from England who was performing the role of Priam, did not appear to be seriously injured and was set to perform again on Wednesday evening. His representatives did not respond to requests for comment.Gardiner withdrew from the festival on Wednesday to return to London to see his doctor, said Nicholas Boyd-Vaughan, a spokesman for Intermusica, the agency that represents him. Gardiner was unavailable for comment, Boyd-Vaughan said.Gardiner — a father of the period-instrument movement and the founder of some of its most treasured ensembles, the Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique — conducted at the coronation of King Charles III of Britain in May. In addition to making numerous recordings, many of which are considered classics, his 2013 book about Johann Sebastian Bach, “Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven,” was well received by critics.The incident at “Les Troyens,” which was first reported by the classical music website Slippedisc, prompted criticism in the classical music industry, with some saying that Gardiner should face consequences. Gardiner and the ensembles still have four more planned stops on the tour, including at the Salzburg Festival in Austria, the Opéra Royal in Versailles, the Berliner Festspiele in Germany and the Proms, the BBC’s classical music festival, in England.“John Eliot Gardiner is still going to be allowed to conduct @bbcproms?” the mezzo-soprano Helena Cooke wrote on Wednesday on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Are you joking?”The Proms said it was investigating. “We take allegations about inappropriate behavior seriously and are currently establishing the facts about the incident,” said George Chambers, a spokesman for the festival.Gardiner was replaced at the Festival Berlioz on Wednesday by Dinis Sousa, an associate conductor of the Monteverdi Choir, for a performance of the final acts of “Les Troyens.”Bruno Messina, the general and artistic director of the Festival Berlioz, said in a statement that he was “devastated by the incident,” which he did not describe or give details of, but that he felt it was important that Wednesday’s show go on. More

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      Popcast (Deluxe): A Shocking No. 1 Hit and Addison Rae’s New EP

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:“Rich Men North of Richmond,” the sudden No. 1 hit by Oliver Anthony Music, the recording alias of the roots-country singer Christopher Anthony Lunsford, which has become a culture war flashpoint and right-wing media cause célèbreThe release of “AR,” the first EP from the one-time TikTok star Addison Rae, and the way in which copycat pop might be the purest pop of all“In the Night,” the new song from DJ Sliink featuring SAFE and Bandmanrill“Namesake,” a new song from the Chicago rapper NonameSnacks 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