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      Smokey Robinson Faced a Sexual Assault Allegation in 2015

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      No charges were filed because of what the authorities said was insufficient evidence. The singer has been accused in a lawsuit of sexually abusing four women, which he denies.A 2015 sexual assault allegation against the Motown singer Smokey Robinson was presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, but no charges were filed because of insufficient evidence, the office said on Friday.In a brief statement in response to inquiries from The New York Times, the district attorney’s office said that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department had brought it the allegation in 2015. It did not provide further details, citing a criminal investigation that the sheriff’s office opened into Mr. Robinson this month.News of a previous allegation comes weeks after four anonymous women filed a lawsuit accusing Mr. Robinson of sexually abusing them repeatedly over many years while they worked for him as housekeepers.Three of the four women worked for the Robinson family in 2015, according to their court papers, but their lawyers, John Harris and Herbert Hayden, said on Friday that none of their clients made the 2015 allegation.Mr. Harris and Mr. Hayden said in a statement that the decision by the district attorney’s office to not file charges that year “underscores the significant challenges victims face when reporting incidents of sexual assault, particularly when the alleged perpetrator is a powerful and well-known figure.”Lawyers for Mr. Robinson have denied the allegations against him and filed a cross-complaint on Wednesday suing the women and their lawyers for defamation. One of those lawyers, Christopher Frost, said on Friday that he and his team were “pleased” that “the L.A. district attorney has confirmed there was no basis to file charges a decade ago.”“One unfortunate aspect of celebrity is that it is not uncommon to be the target of spurious and unsubstantiated allegations,” the statement continued.A spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Department confirmed it had handled a 2015 allegation in the manner described by the district attorney’s office but did not provide additional details. More

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      Yasunao Tone Dead: Experimental Composer and Fluxus Artist Was 90

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      A Japanese-born multimedia artist whose associates included John Cage and Yoko Ono, he pushed digital music past its breaking point.Yasunao Tone, an experimental composer and multimedia artist associated with the Fluxus movement who used manipulations of digital technology to turn digital technology against itself, including a 48-minute exercise in aural endurance made up of squawks and bleeps from a mangled compact disc, died on May 12 in Manhattan. He was 90.His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by Artists Space, a New York contemporary art nonprofit that presented a retrospective of his career in 2023.Before moving to New York City in the early 1970s, Mr. Tone, a native of Tokyo, was a founding member of Group Ongaku, a groundbreaking free-improvisation ensemble, and of Team Random, an early computer art collective.He became an influential figure in the Japanese wing of Fluxus, the loose-knit avant-garde movement that began in the early 1960s, whose members included John Cage, the experimental composer; Nam June Paik, the video art pioneer; and Yoko Ono, the conceptual artist. All of those artists influenced his work.Mr. Tone, left, performing in 1976 with Suzanne Fletcher.via the Estate of Yasunao ToneWhatever the medium, the guiding principle of Fluxus was to “promote a revolutionary flood and tide in art, promote living art, anti-art,” as its founder, the artist George Maciunas, once put it.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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      Trump Says He’d ‘Look at the Facts’ of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Case: Latest Trial Takeaways

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      President Trump discussed if he would consider a pardon for Sean Combs, while in court, an ex-assistant testified about sexual abuse. Mr. Combs denies sexually assaulting anyone.As the third week of Sean Combs’s racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking trial came to a close on Friday, the second woman to testify that she was sexually abused by him came under close questioning by the music mogul’s lawyers. The woman, who took the stand under the pseudonym Mia, spoke about eight grueling years working for Mr. Combs in an environment characterized by sleep deprivation and violent outbursts.In the afternoon, President Trump commented on the trial, saying that although no one had asked about a potential pardon, he would be open to looking “at the facts” of the case.The music mogul has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges. His lawyers have acknowledged their client has a history of violence and a “bad temper,” but assert he is not a racketeer or sex trafficker.Here are some takeaways from the day in court.Mia faced her former boss’s lawyers.Mia testified that Mr. Combs threatened her, threw objects at her and sexually assaulted her during her years working for him. Prosecutors have accused him of subjecting her to forced labor — including sexual activity — through violence and threats of serious harm.During cross-examination, Brian Steel, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, sought to show the jury another side of Mia’s time working for the famous record producer. The defense displayed dozens of posts from her Instagram account, many of which showed her posing beside or celebrating Mr. Combs, whom she called a “mentor” and an “inspiration,” as well as marveling at her good fortune to be working for him — years after she says he first sexually assaulted her.“Why would you promote the person who has stolen your happiness in life?” Mr. Steel asked.“Those are the only people I was around, so that was my life,” Mia replied, describing her time working for Mr. Combs as a “confusing cycle of ups and downs.”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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      Lorde’s Anthem of Transformation, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Miley Cyrus featuring Brittany Howard, Thom Yorke, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Lorde, ‘Man of the Year’“I’ve become someone else, someone more like myself,” Lorde sings, somewhere between pride and astonishment, in “Man of the Year,” the second single from her album due in June, “Virgin.” It’s a crescendo of self-transformation, from quietly plucked cello to full-band stomp, as Lorde seizes the masculinity within herself. In the video clip, she flattens her breasts, taping them down with duct tape; she ponders, “Who’s gonna love me like this?” and then proclaims, “Now I’m broken open / Let’s hear it for the man of the year.”Miley Cyrus featuring Brittany Howard, ‘Walk of Fame’“Walk of Fame,” from “Something Beautiful,” the new Miley Cyrus album, turns the proverbial morning-after walk of shame into something prouder: “I walk the concrete like it’s a stage.” The song is mostly formulaic disco, thumping away. But the voice of Brittany Howard — adding little responses and wordless overlays, then promising “You’ll live forever”— gives it some gravity.Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, ‘Urges’Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, an dedicated electronic-pop experimenter, toys with and displaces dance-floor rhythms in “Urges,” from her coming album, “Gush.” She whisper-sings “I keep getting urges /What if I just let them move through me like this” while brittle programmed syncopations, disembodied voices and distant, tootling arpeggios materialize around her voice; even as the sounds disintegrate, the pulse is danceable.Santana and Grupo Frontera, ‘Me Retiro’Two generations of Mexican American musicians — the Texas band Grupo Frontera and the guitarist Carlos Santana — make a natural combination in “Me Retiro” (“I’m Leaving”), a song about trying to drink away a heartbreak. Santana sits in with the Grupo Frontera band and, rightly, takes over; his guitar slices through the clip-clop beat and accordion chords and compounds the sorrows that Adelaido “Payo” Solís III sings about.Obongjayar featuring Little Simz, ‘Talk Olympics’Obongjayar — Steven Umoh, a Nigerian musician based in London — has a new album, “Paradise Now,” that’s full of inventive, Pan-African electronic grooves like the zippy staccato propulsion of “Talk Olympics.” With an octave-bouncing bass line and the sounds of balafons, drums, synthesizers and sampled voices, Obongjayar and Little Simz take turns complaining about someone who’s far too chatty: “I let you speak, that was my mistake,” Little Simz notes; Obongjayar adds, in his sweetest falsetto, “Shut up! Shut up!”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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      Peter Seiffert, Acclaimed Tenor in Wagner’s Operas, Is Dead at 71

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      A German tenor, he was admired for his clear, powerful voice and his exceptional stamina during hourslong performances.Peter Seiffert, a German tenor admired for his clear, powerful renditions of Wagner, died on April 14 at his home in Schleedorf, Austria, near Salzburg. He was 71.His death was announced by his agent, Hilbert Artists Management, which didn’t specify a cause but said that Mr. Seiffert had suffered from a “severe illness.”Mr. Seiffert was the archetype “heldentenor,” or heroic tenor in German, one of the rarest and most sought-after types of voices in opera. The leading roles in much of Wagner’s work — Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan, Parsifal — demand big tenor voices of exceptional strength and stamina, able to withstand the most extreme vocal demands over hourslong performances.Wagner himself wanted a tenor that was the opposite of what he had been hearing in the Italian opera of his day, which he considered “unmanly, soft and completely lacking in energy,” he wrote in an essay on the performing of the opera “Tannhäuser.”Mr. Seiffert had the sort of voice that Wagner sought, in the view of critics: It projected strength. Over the nearly five hours of “Tannhäuser,” his voice rang out clear and true, from the bottom of his range to the top. The effort was intense.“You don’t become the knight of the High C just for fun and games,” he told the online magazine Backstage Classical in 1996.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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      South by Southwest London Has Its Own Musical Touch

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      The festival, which has a long association with music, presents an opportunity for London acts to perform on a bigger stage.When South by Southwest first began in Austin, Texas, in 1987, the Shoreditch neighborhood in East London was still filled with empty warehouses. But it was beginning to attract a wave of artists who would help it eventually become synonymous with music and culture.Almost 40 years later, this area will be the site of South by Southwest London, the organization’s first foray into Europe. And for some of the London-born musicians who are performing, it’s a huge opportunity that also reflects the area’s reputation and artistic cachet.“It’s super exciting that it’s now finally arriving on home soil,” said Joel Bailey, an R&B and soul artist from Southwest London whose stage name is BAELY. He continued: “London’s got so many different hubs of, kind of like pockets of creative spaces and Shoreditch is definitely one of them. It’s thriving.”Jojo Orme, who performs as Heartworms, was born in London and said she briefly lived in Shoreditch. “They just have the fingers on the pulse there. It’s always beating,” she said, adding that “so many people love to travel to Shoreditch for a show because it’s always a good time.”Jojo Orme, who performs as Heartworms, said people flock to shows in vibrant Shoreditch, the festival’s home base. “They just have the fingers on the pulse there.”@kate.samsara.photographySouth by Southwest London, which begins on Monday and runs through June 7, will feature performances by more than 500 artists across about 30 venues as part of its music festival. It will also include a film and conference series, just like the flagship festival in Austin. An Asia-Pacific branch of the event started in Sydney in 2023.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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      Charles Wadsworth, Pianist and Champion of Chamber Music, Dies at 96

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      As the founder, director and genial host of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, he helped drive the chamber music boom of the 1970s.Charles Wadsworth, a pianist who parlayed his Southern charm and his passion for chamber music into a career as the founder, director and host of important chamber series — including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York — and whose work helped propel the chamber music boom that began in the 1970s, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 96.His death, at a rehabilitation center, was confirmed by his wife, Susan.During his two decades as director of the Chamber Music Society, Mr. Wadsworth was the face of the organization, likely at any time to stride onto the stage of Alice Tully Hall with a broad grin, tousled blond hair and a boyish gait and offer folksy introductions to the music at hand.“I discovered very early that when people laugh, they relax,” Mr. Wadsworth told an interviewer in 2014. “They may be at a chamber music concert for the first time, or they may be unfamiliar with the repertory, but my feeling was that if I could get them relaxed, they would be open to listening, and to letting the music happen to them, rather than worrying about whether they understand it. And that seemed to work very well.”He also performed with the society, playing the piano, harpsichord or even the organ in staples of its repertory as well as some of the oddities he found while assembling the society’s programs — works like Anton Arensky’s Suite No. 1 for Two Pianos, François Couperin’s “Le Parnasse, ou L’Apothéose de Corelli” or Jan Zelenka’s Trio Sonata for Two Oboes, Bassoon and Continuo. But since the society’s roster included pianists who by Mr. Wadsworth’s own admission were more accomplished, he often deferred to them.His real accomplishments took place behind the scenes. Not least was the creation of the society itself, an organization meant to explore the breadth of the chamber music repertory, regardless of the instrumental (or vocal) combinations required. Mr. Wadsworth assembled a core group of “artist members” — string, wind and keyboard players with active careers, who would commit to performing with the society throughout the season — alongside guest musicians, who would expand the instrumental possibilities and bring an extra measure of star power.Mr. Wadsworth often performed with the Chamber Music Society. He played piano alongside the flutist Paula Robison, the violinist Jaime Laredo and the cellist Fred Sherry at Alice Tully Hall in 2009.JB Reed 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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      Taylor Swift Buys Her Masters From Shamrock Capital, Reclaiming the Rights to Her First 6 Albums

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      The master recordings to the pop superstar’s earliest work were sold to Scooter Braun in 2019, and acquired a year later by the investing firm Shamrock Capital.It was a business deal that led to one of the most ambitious recording projects in pop: When Taylor Swift’s catalog was sold in 2019 as part of a larger acquisition of the Nashville record company Big Machine, she said she would redo all of the affected albums to maintain some control over her creative work.Now the original recordings are hers again.On Friday, Swift announced on her website that she had bought her masters back from Shamrock Capital, the Los Angeles-based investment firm that was founded by Roy E. Disney, a nephew of Walt Disney. She did not disclose the price.“I can’t thank you enough for helping to reunite me with this art that I have dedicated my life to, but have never owned until now,” she wrote to fans. “The best things that have ever been mine … finally actually are.”In her statement, Swift said she now had ownership of all of her music videos, concert films, album art and photography and unreleased songs.Shamrock acquired the rights to Swift’s first six albums — “Taylor Swift” (2006), “Fearless” (2008), “Speak Now” (2010), “Red” (2012), “1989” (2014)” and “Reputation” (2017) — in 2020 from Scooter Braun, the music manager who shepherded Justin Bieber’s career and had worked with the longtime Swift adversary Kanye West, and his company Ithaca Holdings.Braun’s 2019 deal for the Big Machine Label Group, founded by Scott Borchetta and also home to country artists like Florida Georgia Line, Rascal Flatts and Thomas Rhett, was estimated at $300 million. Shamrock paid more than $300 million for Swift’s catalog, according to a person briefed on the deal.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