Music

Questions about borrowing, authorship and inspiration — from the underground to the mainstream and vice versa — connect new releases from Beyoncé, Madonna and Saucy Santana.Much of the early fallout surrounding the release of Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” — in the sense that there can be any true fallout from a militarily precise rollout that moves in stealth and is staffed by armies of writers, producers, marketers, lawyers and social media savants — came down to matters of acknowledgment and credit.These are concerns that are, in essence, legal, but really more philosophical and moral. Acknowledging a source of inspiration, direct or indirect, is correct business practice but also, in the era of internet-centric hyperaccountability, something akin to playing offense as defense.This is perhaps unusually true in regards to “Renaissance,” a meticulous album that’s a rich and thoughtful exploration and interpretation of the past few decades in American dance music, particularly its Black, queer roots, touching on disco, house, ballroom and more. The credits and the list of collaborators are scrupulous — Beyoncé worked with producers and writers from those worlds and sampled foundational tracks from those scenes.But there were still quarrels, or quirks, as the album arrived. First came the ping-ponging songwriting credits on its first single, “Break My Soul,” which initially included the writers of the Robin S. club classic “Show Me Love,” then removed them, then reinstated them. (The credits don’t, however, acknowledge StoneBridge, the remixer who popularized the original song.)A few days before the album’s release, its full credits were circulated online, suggesting that the song “Energy” had interpolated a Kelis song that was produced by the Neptunes (Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo). Kelis, the early 2000s alt-soul innovator, posted a series of Instagram videos expressing frustration that she was not advised of the borrowing, even though she is not the publishing rights holder. (Kelis wasn’t a credited writer or producer on most of the early albums she made with the Neptunes, owing to an agreement she signed with the duo when she “was too young and too stupid to double-check it,” she told The Guardian.) That opened up conversations about legal versus spiritual obligations, and the potential two-facedness of Williams. Without comment, Beyoncé updated the song, seemingly removing part of the interpolation of Kelis’s “Milkshake.”When these sorts of dissatisfactions spill over into the public eye (or in the worst cases, the courts), often the text is about money but the subtext is about power. And it has been notable that even Beyoncé, ordinarily beyond reproach, couldn’t safely traipse across the modern internet totally without incident.Conversations about who has the right to borrow from whom — and whether it is acceptable — are heightened when the person doing the borrowing is among the most powerful figures in pop music. But on “Renaissance,” Beyoncé largely deploys her loans savvily — working with the long-running house music D.J. and producer Honey Dijon, sampling the hugely influential drag queen and musician Kevin Aviance — providing a huge platform for artists who are often relegated to the margins.Days after “Renaissance” officially arrived, Beyoncé released a series of remixes of its single, most notably “Break My Soul (The Queens Remix),” which blended her track with Madonna’s “Vogue.” That 1990 song, of course, represented an early mainstreaming of New York’s queer club culture. But Beyoncé brought new cultural politics to this version, turning Madonna’s roll call of white silver-screen idols into a catalog of crucial Black women musicians: Aaliyah, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Santigold, Bessie Smith, Nina Simone and more. (The idea for the remix seemingly originated with a D.J. named frooty treblez on TikTok, who received a miscellaneous production credit.)The remix is electric, both philosophically and musically — it displays a clear continuum of the ways in which pop stars are themselves voracious consumers, and have been granted certain latitude when their borrowings are perceived as respectful. (Naturally, both Beyoncé and Madonna have received some criticism from queer critics who find their work appropriative.)Three decades on from “Vogue,” however, Madonna is still demonstrating her ongoing, deep engagement with queer culture. She recently released “Material Gworrllllllll!” a collaboration with the rapper Saucy Santana remixing his own song, “Material Girl” (named, naturally, for her 1984 hit). It’s a bit of a messy collision — Madonna’s vocals sound as if they’ve been run through sort of a hyperpop vocal filter, and her segments of the song feel more aspirated than his. It’s peppy but lacks flair.The rapper Saucy Santana collaborated with Madonna on a remix of his own “Material Girl,” and nodded to Beyoncé on another single, “Booty.”Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesSaucy Santana, a gay rapper who first found fame on reality television after working as a makeup artist for the hip-hop duo City Girls, began achieving TikTok virality a couple of years ago. Of his song snippets that gained traction online, “Material Girl” was the most vivid, an ode to transactional luxury just as raw as Madonna’s original.But the wink of the title was his most effective gambit, a way of linking his insouciance to Madonna’s. This strategy spilled over into “Booty,” his most recent single, which is based on the same ecstatic horn sample as Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love.” Even in a year in which countless pop stars have plundered the past for obvious samples, this was a particularly audacious maneuver. Especially given that the borrowing is not, in fact, from “Crazy in Love,” but rather from the song that “Crazy in Love” samples, “Are You My Woman? (Tell Me So)” by the Chi-Lites.Here, again, the linkage to the past is a sleight of hand. To the uninitiated, “Booty” sounds like an official cosign from Beyoncé herself. To the slightly more savvy, it might appear that Beyoncé’s approval was implicit, the result of a behind-the-scenes understanding. Or perhaps Saucy Santana simply audaciously outflanked her.Whichever the case, these borrowings mark Saucy Santana as a pop star who understands that fame is pastiche. He’s building a persona from parts that are there for the taking, risking asking forgiveness rather than worrying about permission. Or more succinctly put, doing exactly what the divas before him did. More

The jazz bass player Matthew Garrison doesn’t like to slow down. “I’m always thinking, doing,” he said.As a performer, he has toured with Herbie Hancock and has upcoming shows with the pianist Jason Moran, the drummer Jack DeJohnette and others. But most days, he is focused on producing music events through ShapeShifter Lab and its nonprofit arm, ShapeShifter Plus. He also created the app Tunebend, which facilitates virtual collaborating and recording among musicians.Mr. Garrison, who is the son of Jimmy Garrison, the bassist for John Coltrane, seems to like pushing boundaries in the jazz world. “I’m really tired of the stagnant music scene, where this club only books a certain type of band and that club only books musicians that play this genre,” he said.For a decade, Mr. Garrison ran a performance space in Gowanus, Brooklyn, also called the ShapeShifter Lab, but it closed last year. Soon, he will open a new venue. “My new space will be a place for performers, those genius rejects, who would not otherwise be able to play in the city.”Mr. Garrison, 52, lives in Park Slope with his business partner, Fortuna Sung, 51.DARK AND QUIET Time has been wonky post-pandemic. It sounds horrible, but sometimes I wake up as early as 4 a.m. I get a lot of work out of the way. I code for my apps, including Tunebend, and organize things on my computer for a few hours because everyone is asleep. There’s no one around calling, texting or bugging you.Mr. Garrison plans to open a new performance space near the one he ran for a decade in Gowanus, Brooklyn, which closed last year. Danielle Amy for The New York TimesCAFFEINATED NAP I might have some coffee and a light breakfast. I have a weird relationship with coffee these days. It doesn’t keep me awake. I now use coffee as a sleep aid. I don’t know how that works. So after I work for a few hours and drink some coffee, I often go back to sleep.WORKING WEEKEND I wake up again around 9 or 10 a.m. and I’ll have another cup of coffee. The music industry is a 24-hour thing. I communicate with folks in Europe and Japan all the time, so my weekends don’t count as a day off. I have to divide my work hours and devote certain days to my three ventures to get everything done. On Sundays, I try to get to the stuff I couldn’t do during the weekday. But I make a mess if I multitask too much.STEPS Then I might compose for several hours. Or I go take a walk in Prospect Park or zigzag through neighborhood streets. Sometimes I venture out into Gowanus and Carroll Gardens. Fortuna says I walk too fast, but I need to get my heart rate up. My body is telling me I need it.Mr. Garrison’s piano used to belong to Ravi Coltrane, the son of John Coltrane.Danielle Amy for The New York Times“When you’re coding or composing music, you’re problem-solving.”Danielle Amy for The New York TimesSONG LAYERS I listen to music on Tunebend while I walk. I listen to see how all the bits and pieces that were recorded can become layers in a song. You can swap out different performers for the same part, so I do a lot of listening and rearranging. But I’m also interacting with the app as a user to see if anything needs to be tweaked. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but this is how I decompress.PIECING IT TOGETHER When you’re coding or composing music, you’re problem-solving. You’re in continuous research mode to figure out why something is done in a particular way. In the jazz world, there’s so much that you have to know and be able to play in a fraction of a second. In coding, you also have to remember all these bits and pieces to build something. The only difference between the two worlds is the pay!From left, Mr. Garrison, his mother, Roberta Garrison, and Fortuna Sung, his business partner, at Littleneck in Brooklyn.Danielle Amy for The New York Times“Fortuna says I walk too fast, but I need to get my heart rate up. My body is telling me I need it.”Danielle Amy for The New York TimesNEW SPACE I finally got the keys to a new performance space that we’ll open by the end of the year. So far I’ve done a livestream workshop on how to use the Tunebend app, but I’m gearing up for a lot of fund-raising so we can put on shows and events for all types of musicians here.SUSTENANCE We get our errands done in the neighborhood, including groceries from the Park Slope Food Co-op. Fortuna, whose family is from Hong Kong, is the better cook. Her family owned and operated many restaurants, so she knows her way around a kitchen. When we eat out, it might be Japanese or Thai. Today we had dinner with my mom at Littleneck.OLD-PEOPLE TIME After dinner, I’ll watch TV or read. I’m news-centric: There’s so much stuff to keep up with, which makes me understand how I can make this world a better place. I also like tech stuff, like articles about the newest plug-ins for music software. My mom still scolds me that all my reading is done on a screen. Now I’m on old-people time: I’m in bed by 9 or 10 p.m.“I’m really tired of the stagnant music scene, where this club only books a certain type of band and that club only books musicians that play this genre,” said Mr. Garrison, above with Ms. Sung. Danielle Amy for The New York TimesSunday Routine readers can follow Matthew Garrison on Instagram and Twitter @garrisonjazz. More

Hear tracks by Nicki Minaj, Gayle, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at [email protected] and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.M.I.A., ‘Popular’It’s a little hard to tell if M.I.A. is skewering the self-involvement of social media culture on “Popular” or if she’s vying for a TikTok hit herself — but hey, who says you can’t have it both ways? “Love me like I love me, love me,” she intones, as the skittish but thoroughly hypnotic beat (from the producers Boaz van de Beats and Diplo) lulls the listener into nodding along. The accompanying video is a wild, creepy trip into the uncanny valley, as M.I.A. confronts and ultimately destroys her A.I. alter ego, the appropriately named “M.A.I.” LINDSAY ZOLADZGayle, ‘Indieedgycool’A concept song about the resurgence of anti-pop posturing rendered with the dryness of 1990s alt-rock delivered by a singer whose breakout came via a record label-initiated TikTok. It’s a catchy eye roll that’s an ouroboros of TikTok-addled hype-cycle collapse, meshing microtrend and backlash all together into one. JON CARAMANICAWillow, ‘Hover Like a Goddess’“Hover Like a Goddess,” from the upcoming album “,” is further proof that Willow has finally found her lane in the space where bouncy pop-punk and anguished emo-rock converge. “I’ll never be fine if you won’t be mine,” she sings with pent-up intensity amid a number of other lusty confessions (“Just meet me under the covers/Baby, I wish”), before the song suddenly transforms into a dreamy reverie. That bliss is fleeting, though, and by the next verse Willow is just as quickly jarred back into her endearingly anxious reality. ZOLADZYeah Yeah Yeahs, ‘Burning’Yeah Yeah Yeahs unexpectedly interpolate Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons’ 1967 version of “Beggin’” for their fiery new single “Burning,” from their upcoming album “Cool It Down,” expanding the original’s feeling of romantic desperation into a more vast and ominous conflagration. Nick Zinner’s guitar riff snakes through the song like a lit fuse as Karen O croons devilish come-ons like, “Lay your red hand on me as I go.” The whole thing’s a little bit retro, and a little bit neo-apocalyptic. ZOLADZNicki Minaj, ‘Super Freaky Girl’As the title would suggest, this is simply a series of intense, gum-snapping Nicki Minaj raps over Rick James’s “Super Freak,” a combination so obvious and winningly bubbly that it’s shocking it didn’t already exist. CARAMANICAIce Spice, “Munch (Feelin’ U)”Few things have better mouth feel than a fresh piece of slang. The way the lips, teeth and tongue contort to form a word as the neural pathways connect that word to a new concept — it’s invigorating. So it goes with “Munch (Feelin’ U)” by the Bronx drill rapper Ice Spice, who in the past week received a boost following an embrace by Drake. In a frenzied genre, she’s a calm rapper, which is part of what makes this song so frosty — the beat is skittish and portentous, but Ice Spice sounds at peace. She’s rhyming quickly, but also calmly and slightly dismissively, probably because of the subject matter. That would be a man who might be useful in some ways, but is easily dismissed — someone who’s on call, but barely needed. He’s good at one thing, and when that’s done, not much else — he’s a munch. Get used to saying it. CARAMANICARex Orange County, ‘Threat’A tender take on self-doubt by the goofily warm British singer Rex Orange County. “I don’t wanna keep you in a boring life/I can pick up when you’re calling/Keep it real with you always,” he sings, wondering if he’s worthy of the object of his affection. It’s all delivered over a guitar figure that suggests the early Vampire Weekend revival is just around the corner. CARAMANICAAri Lennox, ‘Hoodie’Hoodies have never sounded sexier than they do on Ari Lennox’s slinky new homage to loungewear and whatever’s going on “underneath your North Face.” The track from the R&B singer’s forthcoming album “Age/Sex/Location,” which comes out on Sept. 9, has a few playful lines (“spread it like some queso”) but Lennox’s powerhouse vocal performance imbues the whole thing with a mature, pulsing sensuality. ZOLADZ More

As a versatile member of the loose association of musicians known as the Wrecking Crew, he was heard on many of the biggest pop and rock hits of the 1960s and ’70s.Bill Pitman, a guitarist who accompanied Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand and others from the late 1950s to the ’70s, and who for decades was heard on the soundtracks of countless Hollywood films and television shows, died on Thursday night at his home in La Quinta, Calif. He was 102.His wife, Janet Pitman, said he died after four weeks at a rehabilitation center in Palm Springs, where he was treated for a fractured spine suffered in a fall, and the past week at home under hospice care.Virtually anonymous outside the music world but revered within it, Mr. Pitman was a member of what came to be called the Wrecking Crew — a loosely organized corps of peerless Los Angeles freelancers who were in constant demand by record producers to back up headline performers. As an ensemble, they turned routine recording sessions and live performances into extraordinary musical moments.Examples abound: Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night” (1966). Presley’s “Blue Hawaii” (1961). Streisand’s “The Way We Were” (1973). The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” (1963). The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” (1966). On “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” from the Paul Newman-Robert Redford hit movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969), Mr. Pitman played ukulele.In a career of nearly 40 years, Mr. Pitman played countless gigs for studios and record labels that dominated the pop charts but rarely credited the performers behind the stars. The Wrecking Crew did almost everything — television and film scores; pop, rock and jazz arrangements; even cartoon soundtracks. Whether recorded in a studio or on location, everything was performed with precision and pizazz.“These were crack session players who moved effortlessly through many different styles: pop, jazz, rockabilly, but primarily the two-minute-thirty-second world of hit records that America listened to all through the sixties and seventies,” Allegro magazine reminisced in 2011. “If it was a hit and recorded in L.A., the Wrecking Crew cut the tracks.”Jumping from studio to studio — often playing four or five sessions a day — members of the crew accompanied the Beach Boys, Sonny and Cher, the Monkees, the Mamas and the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel, Ricky Nelson, Jan and Dean, Johnny Rivers, the Byrds, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, the Everly Brothers, Peggy Lee and scads more — nearly every prominent performer of the era.The pace was relentless, Mr. Pitman recalled in Denny Tedesco’s 2008 documentary, “The Wrecking Crew.”“You leave the house at 7 in the morning, and you’re at Universal at 9 till noon,” he said. “Now you’re at Capitol Records at 1. You just got time to get there, then you got a jingle at 4, then we’re on a date with somebody at 8, then the Beach Boys at midnight, and you do that five days a week.”Mr. Pitman was heard on the soundtracks of some 200 films, including Robert Altman’s Korean War black comedy “M*A*S*H” (1970), Amy Heckerling’s comedy “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” (1982), Emile Ardolino’s romantic musical drama “Dirty Dancing” (1987) and Martin Scorsese’s gangster fable “Goodfellas” (1990).On television, Mr. Pitman’s Danelectro bass guitar was heard for years on “The Wild Wild West.” He also worked on “I Love Lucy,” “Bonanza,” “The Deputy,” “Ironside,” “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In,” “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour,” “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour” and many other shows. He was credited with composing music for early episodes of the original “Star Trek” series.While generally indifferent toward rock, colleagues said, Mr. Pitman played it well, sometimes expressing surprise at the success of his work in that genre. He was far more enthusiastic about jazz, especially the work of composers and arrangers like Marty Paich, Dave Grusin and Johnny Mandel.Mr. Pitman, who grew up in New York City and had music tutors from the time he was 6 years old, came home from World War II and headed west determined to make a living in music. He attended the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, learned arranging and composing, and essentially taught himself the skills of a master guitarist.In 1951, at a club where Peggy Lee was singing, he met the guitar virtuoso Laurindo Almeida, who was quitting Ms. Lee’s band. After an audition, Mr. Pitman was hired to take Mr. Almeida’s place, and his career was launched.In 1954 he joined the singer Rusty Draper’s daily radio show. Three years later, he sat in for the guitarist Tony Rizzi at a recording date for Capitol Records. It was his big break.Word soon got around about the comer who could improvise with the best. Mr. Pitman got to know the session guitarists Howard Roberts, Jack Marshall, Al Hendrickson, Bob Bain and Bobby Gibbons, and he was soon one of them.Mr. Bill Pitman and a fellow studio musician, the bassist Carol Kaye, in a scene from the documentary “The Wrecking Crew” (2008).Magnolia PicturesHis fellow studio musicians included the drummer Hal Blaine, the guitarists Tommy Tedesco and Glen Campbell (before he had a hit-making singing career), the bassists Carol Kaye and Joe Osborn, and the keyboardists Don Randi and Leon Russell (who also went on to a successful solo singing career). They coalesced around Phil Spector, the producer known for his “wall of sound” approach, who regularly employed them.While not publicly recognized in its era, this ensemble is viewed with reverence today by music historians and insiders. Mr. Blaine, who died in 2019, claimed that he named the Wrecking Crew. But Ms. Kaye insisted that he did not start using the name until years after its musicians stopped working together in the ’70s. In any case, there was no disagreement about Mr. Pitman’s contributions.In his book “Conversations With Great Jazz and Studio Guitarists” (2009), Jim Carlton called Mr. Pitman a mainstay of the crew. “Perhaps no one personifies the unsung studio player like Bill Pitman does,” he wrote. “Few guitarists have logged more recording sessions, and fewer still have enjoyed being such a legitimate part of America’s soundtrack.”William Keith Pitman was born in Belleville, N.J., on Feb. 12, 1920, the only child of Keith and Irma (Kunze) Pitman. His father was a staff bassist for NBC Radio and a busy freelance player in New York; his mother was a Broadway dancer. The family moved to Manhattan when Bill was 6, and he attended the Professional Children’s School.Mr. Pitman in 2012. He performed in Las Vegas and on film soundtracks well until the 1980s, and continued to play guitar at home after that.Jan PittmanWhen he was 13, his parents split up. His mother joined a firm that made theater costumes. His father gave him guitar lessons, and young Bill played 50-cent gigs with musicians who would later become famous, like the trumpeter Shorty Rogers and the drummer Shelly Manne. But his schoolwork at Haaren High School in Manhattan suffered, and he dropped out. He joined the Army Air Corps in 1942, became a radio operator and flew many supply missions over the Himalayas from India to China during World War II.In 1947, he married Mildred Hurty. They had three children and were divorced in the late 1960s. In the ’70s he married and divorced Debbie Yajacovic twice. In 1985 he married Janet Valentine and adopted her daughter, Rosemary.Besides his wife, he is survived by his son, Dale; his daughters, Donna Simpson, Jean Langdon and Rosemary Pitman; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.Mr. Pitman quit session work in 1973 and went on the road, performing in concert with Burt Bacharach, Anthony Newley, Vikki Carr and others for several years. In the late ’70s he moved to Las Vegas, where he joined the music staff of the MGM Grand Hotel, playing for headliners well into the ’80s. He also continued to play on film soundtracks until he retired in 1989.Mr. Pitman performed professionally only once in retirement — at a memorial concert in 2001 in Pasadena, Calif., for an old friend, Julius Wechter, leader of the Baja Marimba Band. Mr. Wechter, who died in 1999, had Tourette’s syndrome and was a spokesman for people with the disorder.Mr. Pitman continued writing arrangements, and at 99 he was still playing music — and golf.“He plays the guitar at home just about every day,” his wife said in an interview for this obituary in 2019. “I am a bass player. We play only jazz. No rock ’n’ roll.” As for golf, she said, “He can still beat me.” More

The Lucerne Festival in Switzerland is trying to shine a light on race and gender disparities. But some are skeptical of its efforts.LUCERNE, Switzerland — The Lucerne Festival here, one of classical music’s premier events, has long had a reputation for exclusivity.For much of the event’s 84-year history, women and people of color have struggled to be heard onstage, and audiences have remained overwhelmingly white and wealthy.But this summer, the festival, which officially begins on Friday, is trying to remake its image, programming its season with an emphasis on diversity: a series of concerts featuring Black and Latino artists, as well as women.“We don’t have to be radical, but we should be aware,” Michael Haefliger, the festival’s executive and artistic director, said in an interview. “We should have this feeling of shaking the ground a little bit and realizing that we have for a long time excluded a certain part of the public.”That drive is part of a broader effort to address severe racial and gender disparities in classical music, a field in which women and people of color are still underrepresented among performers, conductors, composers and administrators.Chi-chi Nwanoku, the founder and leader of the Chineke! Orchestra, which will be featured at the Lucerne Festival this year.Patrick Hürlimann/Lucerne Festival“This is a big step toward shining a spotlight on the problems in our field,” said Chi-chi Nwanoku, the founder and leader of the Chineke! Orchestra, a British ensemble made up largely of musicians of color that will be featured at Lucerne this year. “A lot of the classical music that we pride ourselves on today is inspired by Black artists, Black musicians and Black composers. But we don’t hear that side of the story.”Lucerne’s leaders hope that the focus on diversity will help prompt discussions about racism, sexism and exclusion across classical music. They have tried, with mixed success, to capture the public’s attention. A series of talks related to the theme have been added to the agenda, including a recent one called: “Seeing is Believing? Black Artists in Classical Music!” A marketing campaign features an assortment of chess pieces reimagined for an era of inclusivity: a knight reborn as a purple unicorn, a bishop bearing zebra stripes.But the festival’s efforts have been met with skepticism by some artists, audience members and commentators, who see the drive as mere publicity and say it will do little to address systemic disparities in the industry. And others say the festival’s focus should be on art, not social problems.“This kind of P.R. may alienate the natural audiences of this festival,” said Rodrigo Carrizo Couto, a freelance journalist based in Switzerland. “Why are we doing this? Why are we following some sort of California agenda?”Since the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the wave of Black Lives Matter demonstrations that followed, orchestras have come under pressure to appoint more women and minority artists as music directors; opera companies have faced calls to program more works by overlooked composers; and performing arts organizations have been criticized for not moving swiftly enough to recruit leaders of color. Some groups have been denounced for having performers use dark makeup in productions of operas like “Aida,” long after racist caricatures had disappeared from many stages.At Lucerne, the debate about equity and inclusion has been particularly heated. The festival’s board is made up mostly of white men. Its orchestra includes 81 men and 31 women; only two musicians represent ethnic minority groups.“We don’t have to be radical, but we should be aware,” said Michael Haefliger, the festival’s executive and artistic director. Daniel Auf der Mauer/Lucerne FestivalHaefliger said that he had begun thinking before the pandemic about ways in which the festival could use its platform to shine light on issues of racism and sexism across the industry — inspired by the festival’s 2016 theme, “PrimaDonna,” which featured female conductors. He said he wanted to “break the ice” around discussions of race and gender.“We’re not a political organization,” he said. “But in a way, culture is also social responsibility, and we’re part of society.”The idea of devoting this year’s festival to diversity quickly prompted pushback in Switzerland.Der Bund, a German-language newspaper in nearby Bern, published an article calling the theme “an affront,” saying that while it seemed well intentioned, it could have the effect of making guest artists feel they were invited only because of their skin color.Although this year’s festival, which runs through mid-September, will feature regulars like the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic, there are many newcomers. All of the soloists making debuts this year, including the trumpeter Aaron Akugbo, the violinist Randall Goosby and the pianist Mishka Rushdie Momen, are people of color. Several renowned artists of color will also take part, including the cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, the sopranos Golda Schultz and Angel Blue, and the composer Tyshawn Sorey. As part of the pre-festival programming, Ilumina, an ensemble of young South American musicians, performed works by Schubert, Bach, Villa-Lobos and others.Ilumina, an ensemble of young South American musicians, is among Lucerne’s newcomers.ManuelaJans/Lucerne FestivalA particular emphasis will be placed on music by Black composers; 16 will be featured over the course of the festival. At the red-carpet opening on Friday, the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, who is also on Lucerne’s board, played a concerto by Joseph Boulogne, a Black composer born in the 18th century.Some musicians said they were pleased that Lucerne’s leaders were tackling issues of representation head-on. Still, they said it was too early to judge the success of the effort, and that the festival could demonstrate its sincerity by inviting back performers and composers of color in the future.“I don’t believe we should embrace diversity as a buzzword,” said Schultz, who will sing a recital at the festival and appear in a semi-staged production of Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” “I appreciate their willingness to grapple with these issues. Someone has to take a risk, and it’s not going to be perfect.”Gerard Aimontche, a pianist of African and Russian descent who performed in the run-up to the festival this week, said it was important to make a special effort to feature Black and Latino artists, given the lack of diversity on the world’s top stages. Still, he added that he longed for a day when it would no longer be necessary to use terms like “diversity” at a festival.The pianist Gerard Aimontche performed in the run-up to the festival.Emil Matveev“For now, you have to provide a special introduction because otherwise no one would never know about us,” he said. “But I hope that in 50 years from now it will be different. Even if the whole orchestra consists of people of color, we will be just another orchestra, and people will come just like they do to hear any other orchestra.”On Tuesday evening, Lucerne’s main concert hall was filled with the sounds of the Chineke! Junior Orchestra, which performed pieces by the Black composers Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Stewart Goodyear, as well as a Tchaikovsky symphony. The auditorium was not full, but the orchestra was warmly received, with whistles and shouts of “Bravo!”During rehearsal, the Venezuelan conductor Glass Marcano, who led the concert, told the orchestra’s players that performing in Lucerne was a special opportunity. She took selfies with the orchestra and assured the musicians that they would rise to the occasion.In an interview, Marcano said that classical music would thrive only if it welcomed a wide range of voices.“We are presenting classical music in all its richness and diversity,” she said. “From now on, this should be seen as normal.” More

The mezzo-soprano will sing with the Jupiter Ensemble in a concert of 17th-century Italian compositions at the Salzburg Festival.The mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre, a member of the Jupiter Ensemble, does not distinguish between the Baroque era and the age of rock ’n’ roll.“We grew up with this music,” she said by video call from Montreal. “Just like we grew up with the Beatles and Amy Winehouse.”The 28-year-old has established herself as one of today’s most exciting voices in early-music performance. She also cultivates 18th- and 19th-century operatic repertoire from Mozart to Meyerbeer, at prominent houses such as Zurich Opera and the Paris Opera.The singer has appeared annually at the Salzburg Festival, on both the opera and concert stages, since 2018. On Saturday, she and musicians of Jupiter arrive at the Stiftung Mozarteum with the program “Lettres amoureuses” (“Love Letters”). The concert of 17th-century Italian music — which the group has thus far performed in France and the Netherlands — juxtaposes arias and instrumental music from well-known composers such as Monteverdi and Handel with exciting discoveries such as Tarquinio Merula and Andrea Falconieri.Ms. Desandre has sung at prominent houses on both sides of the Atlantic, from the Paris Opera to Carnegie Hall, above, where she took the stage with the Jupiter Ensemble. Jennifer TaylorMs. Desandre enjoys something of a symbiotic relationship with the ensemble, which was founded by the lute player Thomas Dunford in 2018. They joined forces last year for her first solo album, “Amazone,” exploring French and Italian repertoire written about the female warriors of Greek myth known as Amazons. Their next recording, scheduled for release this fall, is a lineup of numbers from Handel oratorios titled “Eternal Heaven.”Mr. Dunford, 34, promotes a democratic spirit, taking suggestions from members of the ensemble in the curation of programs. “It’s a bit like a jazz group in that way,” he said by phone from Montreal, where he and Ms. Desandre were on tour with the ensemble Les Arts Florissants (the two met performing with that group in 2015 and maintain a close relationship with its founder, William Christie). “It’s people who love spending time together and working on the music.”For Jupiter’s first album, “Vivaldi,” the members started a poll on Facebook asking about friends’ favorite arias. In another surprising twist, each of Jupiter’s albums ends with a newly composed surprise track: For “Amazone,” Mr. Dunford contributed “Amazones,” a song that addresses the importance of environmental consciousness.Mr. Dunford, a French native with American roots, cited Jordi Savall, a player of the viola da gamba (with whom both his parents studied), and Mr. Christie as among the trailblazers who set the stage for today’s generation of players. “The best lesson we can learn is to be authentic and passionate,” he said. “Because we don’t really know what Vivaldi sounded like [in his time] — we can just understand his music in a logical way and put our personalities into it.”Ms. Desandre contributes a particular affinity for Italian Baroque music. The singer, who is of French-Italian heritage, left the conservatory track to study with the contralto Sara Mingardo in Venice, who had access to unpublished manuscripts by Vivaldi, along with works by rarely heard composers.Spiritual songs by Tarquinio Merula quickly became a starting point for “Lettres amoureuses.” In “Hor ch’è tempo di dormire” (“Now That It’s Time to Sleep”), the text hovers between tenderness and violence as the Virgin Mary has a vision of Jesus’ crucifixion while rocking him as a baby.Ms. Desandre, who debuted at the Salzburg Festival in 2018, has particularly strong memories of singing the role of Despina in the 2020 production of “Così Fan Tutte,” above.Christian Bruna/EPA, via ShutterstockMs. Desandre compared the music to “a beating of the heart” or a kind of spiral. “She says ‘sleep peacefully,’ but she knows that something tragic is going to happen,” she explained.Her studies with Ms. Mingardo were based on a holistic, rather than technical, approach to vocal studies. At a certain point, Ms. Desandre said, she was advised to “go out and have a good time, find a boyfriend and live — so that you can transmit this experience onstage.”Further singer-mentors include Natalie Dessay (who inspired Ms. Desandre to enter the profession when she saw her on television at age 12), Vivica Genaux, Véronique Gens and Cecilia Bartoli. The latter two singers perform on “Amazone”; Mr. Christie also joins for an instrumental work by French composer Louis Couperin.“The album is a kind of homage to key people in my life,” Ms. Desandre said. The singer also personally chose the photographer, Julien Benhamou, who works with dancers at the Paris Opera, to create the cover art.This is also a nod to Ms. Desandre’s training as a ballerina, which she says allows her to let go physically onstage. “It is one of the best ingredients for singing,” she said. “To be anchored and not become mentally stressed.”For her Salzburg Festival debut in 2018, the director Jan Lauwers gave her full artistic freedom to dance onstage while singing the comprimario roles of Amore and Valletto in Monteverdi’s “L’incoronazione di Poppea.” The singer said that, if Paris was the city in which she was born and raised, Salzburg had become a “city of the heart, because I found a kind of family there — people who are willing to take risks with me.”A lover of nature, she also pointed to the city’s inspiring landscape. “To leave rehearsals and find oneself in front of a mountain and surrounded by greenery in five minutes is extremely nourishing,” she said. “These are moments of communion which allow us to connect with our energy, center ourselves and be very focused.”Singing the role of Despina in a production of Mozart’s “Così Fan Tutte” that took place at a scaled-down Salzburg Festival in August 2020, amid the coronavirus pandemic, remains a particularly strong memory. “There was an intensity during rehearsals,” she recalled. “Of remembering why we love to make music and be together.”A similar spirit drives the Jupiter Ensemble. The group’s members take the time to work on a program until it comes to full maturation, and they always live in the moment.“There are also the experiences we share offstage,” Ms. Desandre said. “Which means that when we perform, we take confidence in each other, we listen to each other, we adore each other. We want to share this happiness with the audience.” More

Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherAmerican hardcore music is experiencing a creative burst at the moment, owing to bands including Gulch, Scowl, Drug Church, Drain, Mindforce and End It. The scene has its own network of YouTube channels, podcasts and websites that catalog it. And last month’s Sound and Fury Festival in Los Angeles was a powerful statement of purpose.There have been some recent precedents for this current moment — the ongoing crossover success and musical evolution of the Baltimore band Turnstile; the way the California act Trash Talk made inroads into hip-hop, skating and streetwear communities. But these have been moments in which outsiders took a gander at hardcore. Right now, the center itself is growing and thriving.On this week’s episode, a survey of contemporary hardcore bands, a look at the genre’s purposely porous boundaries, and a discussion of the hardcore scene as music, ethic and feeling.Guests:Tom Breihan, senior editor at StereogumChris Ryan, editorial director of The Ringer and co-host of The Watch podcastConnect 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 [email protected]. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

The duo’s fourth LP, “No Rules Sandy,” revels in constantly shifting sounds that are “surreal but free.”The electronic vertigo revs up immediately and rarely lets up on “No Rules Sandy,” the fourth studio album by Sylvan Esso. “How can I be moved when everything is moving,” Amelia Meath calmly muses in the opening track, “Moving,” over a hissing, scurrying beat, octave-swooping blips and stereo-panning whooshes that keep things spinning. It’s a whirlwind start to an album that celebrates renewed, unconstrained motion: lighthearted on the surface, purposeful at its core.Sylvan Esso — the duo of Meath and her husband, Nick Sanborn — has created its own niche of electro-pop: transparent yet intricate, airy but serious, fond of pop structures yet eager to bend them. The duo skillfully deploys the hardware and software of electronic dance music, even as it eludes genres and warps standard patterns. The technology makes repetition all too easy, but Sylvan Esso has better ideas.“No Rules Sandy” is a pendulum-swing sequel to “Free Love,” the subdued, wistful album that arrived in September 2020, when pandemic stasis and isolation were sinking in. “Free Love” contemplated, from a distance, the shared pleasures that were once taken for granted, with songs that longed to be, as one put it, “Shaking out the numb.”In Sylvan Esso’s new songs, pleasure is back within reach. “Sunburn” celebrates overindulgence — too much sun, too many sweets — with a track punctuated by the happy sample of a bicycle bell. “Didn’t Care” revels in an unexpected romance with a euphoric blend of Afro-pop guitars, Balkan choral harmonies and bubbly synthesizers.Sylan Esso hasn’t stayed isolated during the pandemic. Back in March 2021, it gathered fellow musicians around its North Carolina home base and completely reworked the electronic tracks from “Free Love” for a hand-played, full-band livestream set, titled “With Love” — a reminder of concert camaraderie. In September, the duo returned to touring. Still, “No Rules Sandy” sounds like Sylvan Esso had ample time to fool around in the studio.There’s a spirit of try-anything, knob-twirling whimsy throughout the new album, a determination that any parameter can change at any time. The album’s watchwords are the refrain of “Your Reality,” a track that meshes syncopated, ambiguous synthesizer chords and a sighing string quartet: “Surreal but free — it’s your reality.”Typical electronic pop and dance music offer reassurance through predictability: an obvious and reliable beat on the bottom, crisp verse-chorus-verse delineations for songs, or measured four-bar buildups leading to anticipated payoffs in dance tracks. Sylvan Esso challenges all those expectations. Throughout “No Rules Sandy,” beats appear, fracture and suddenly vanish and return; vocals are intimate and naturalistic one moment, glitchy or multitracked or pitch-shifted the next.In “Echo Party,” Meath sings about “a lot of people dancing downtown,” with hi-hats and piano chords that hint at disco and house music. But the track craftily refuses to settle into a club groove. The sliding bass line slows down to trip things up (or out); later, the beat drops away completely, leaving Meath on a looped a cappella syllable: “by, by, by.”The tweaks keep coming. “Look at Me” takes on the attention economy — “All I want is to be seen,” Meath sings — with production suggesting a constantly pinging internet; the rhythm is defined almost entirely from above by pecking, tapping, booping, clicking offbeats. “Cloud Walker” flickers in and out of a sense of 4/4 and 3/4, subdivided by the fibrillating cymbals of breakbeats, while Meath’s voice is overdubbed into chords as she sings about fear and acceptance: “learning disaster/relax in style.” As that line suggests, “No Rules Sandy” is upbeat but not oblivious. “Everybody’s hearing along with me/the alarm the alarm the alarm,” Meath sings in “Alarm,” near the end of the album. For all the fun Sylvan Esso was clearly having in the studio, the music also reflects just how unstable the 2020s feel. All the whizzing, zinging, twinkling, morphing sounds promise there are ways to cope with what’s coming at us.The album’s final track switches up once more. “Coming Back to You” is a simple, folky ballad, strummed on acoustic guitar (though Sylvan Esso can’t resist adding some filtered vocal harmonies). It promises a homecoming, a connection, a refuge: “I am the root, I am the leaf/I am the big tree you grew beneath,” Meath sings. After all the motion, the song offers a place to rest.Sylvan Esso“No Rules Sandy”(Loma Vista) More