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      Tokischa, Latin Music’s Newest Rebel, Isn’t Holding Back

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      SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — On a mid-March evening here in the capital, a crowd of hundreds of festivalgoers wearing fairy wings, rhinestones and rainbow face paint began to chant. “Po-po-la!” they shouted, deploying the local slang for vagina. The scene resembled the summoning of a cult leader, and the Dominican firebrand Tokischa, a rapper known for her prurient lyrics and high-profile collaborations, emerged onstage.For the next hour, the 26-year-old performer rapped about her bisexuality, carnal pleasures and doing drugs, all over speaker-frying dembow and trap beats. It was raining at the Isle of Light festival that night, the kind of Caribbean deluge that arrives in a flash. “I want to get wet with you guys!” she shrieked, walking out from under the stage awning and into the crowd. She unbuttoned her periwinkle blouse, revealing a hot-pink conical satin bra underneath, and the audience squealed.The ground, once covered in grass, was now an obstacle course of mud puddles. No one seemed to care. Fans belted every word, their voices audibly hoarse. One woman climbed a metal fence, twerking above the crowd. When her set ended, Tokischa, beaming, pulled her panties off from under her miniskirt and tossed them to a woman in the audience.Consider this a minor example of the provocation that defines Tokischa Altagracia Peralta. Her audacious lyrics, which revel in the linguistic rebellion of Dominican slang and embrace the euphoria of sex, are mostly unprintable. In “Tukuntazo,” she brags about sleeping with other women alongside her man. In her anthem “Yo No Me Voy Acostar,” she proclaims, “I’ve got a bunch of molly in my head/I have a girlfriend who kisses me.”“Not being afraid to express my sexuality, my way of thinking — it’s a beautiful thing,” Tokischa said.Josefina Santos for The New York TimesTokischa collects scandals like vacation souvenirs. Last year, she was forced to pay a municipal fine and issue a public apology after she posted risqué photos in front of a mural of the Virgin of Altagracia, the patron saint of the Dominican Republic. In the fall, she showed up to an awards show in a full-size vagina costume, dressed as a character she called “Santa Popola.” In a now deleted op-ed, a columnist for the Dominican newspaper La Información claimed her explicit lyrics “disrespect people who fight to conserve family values.”But there is also an entire generation of young Dominicans who see themselves in Tokischa’s gleeful refusal of respectability. To them, she is a sex-positive queer rebel, the kind of cultural figure whose performances gesture toward liberation from oppressive, retrograde politics.On a tucked-away street off the Malecón, the seafront esplanade that lines the coast of Santo Domingo, Tokischa reflected on her irreverent reputation. It was a few days before the festival, and the rapper had just arrived at the offices of Paulus Music, the label and creative team behind her videos. She wore olive green joggers and a matching T-shirt with a familiar, eternally memed image: the GIF of Homer Simpson retreating into a bush.“They say a lot of things about me,” she said. “‘Oh, she’s not an artist, she’s crazy, she’s a drug addict,’” she continued. “It doesn’t offend me, because I’m sure of who I am. I know who Tokischa is. I know what Tokischa’s doing.”Tokischa and Rosalía onstage in 2021. Tokischa appears on “La Combi Versace” from the Spanish pop phenom’s latest album.John Parra/Telemundo and NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty ImagesTokischa Altagracia Peralta was born in Los Frailes, a working-class neighborhood in Santo Domingo Este, but had an itinerant youth. Her parents separated, and she lived with her mother until she was 3 years old. When her mother relocated to the United States, Tokischa moved around often, living with aunts, godparents or other relatives. Her father was incarcerated when she was young.Tokischa is the first to admit that she was rowdy in school. “I would fight. They’d find me making out — someone always found me making out!” she said with a laugh. She talked back to her teachers and was expelled from schools — and was often punished physically, she added.“Aside from that, I was always creative,” she recalled. “I’d draw, I’d write. I’d lock myself in my room and act in front of the mirror.” She grew up surrounded by Dominican genres like merengue, dembow and bachata, but when she was around 14, she discovered a whole new musical universe online: Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna.“I lived dreaming up my life, imagining what I’d become,” she said. “I didn’t know in what field, but I did know I was going to be a big artist.”Tokischa’s first official single was “Pícala,” a trap song featuring Tivi Gunz that arrived in 2018. Josefina Santos for The New York TimesWhen she turned 18, a friend introduced her to Craigslist, and she said she became a sugar baby, receiving gifts from older, wealthy American sex tourists. One bought her Fenty Pumas, her first pair of sneakers. “This one guy had photos of himself on a camel,” she said impishly. “I was like, ‘He’s got money!’”Even though she’s playful as she talks about it, Tokischa didn’t like the work, especially when clients crossed the lines of consent. She transitioned to OnlyFans, the subscription-based platform where people can charge for access to photos and videos, and eventually started modeling and incorporating herself into the creative community in Santo Domingo. She learned how to write and record music after meeting producers in the scene through her manager, Raymi Paulus. She swiftly cultivated her vocal style, now her central weapon: an unmistakable, high-pitched, coy moan that oozes sex and allows her devilish, sensual raps to land with precision.Her first official single was “Pícala,” a trap song featuring Tivi Gunz that dropped in 2018. Then came a torrent of equally racy dembow singles: “Desacato Escolar,” with Yomel El Meloso; “El Rey de la Popola,” with Rochy RD; and last year’s “Yo No Me Voy Acostar,” among many others.The major labels soon came running: Last summer, she released “Perra” with the Colombian reggaeton star J Balvin. Then came “Linda,” and more recently “La Combi Versace,” both with the Spanish experimentalist Rosalía. In March, she completed her first U.S. tour, selling out Terminal 5 in New York in 30 minutes. She has a single with the EDM producer Marshmello arriving at the end of the month, and plans to record a full album over the next two years.“She’s different than people imagine. She’s very professional, very disciplined,” said LeoRD, the superstar dembow producer who’s collaborated with Tokischa on several tracks. In a phone call, he said that her climb has been unprecedented in the world of dembow. “In so little time, with just a few songs, I’ve seen her evolution go from zero to 100.”“They say a lot of things about me,” she said. “It doesn’t offend me, because I’m sure of who I am. I know who Tokischa is. I know what Tokischa’s doing.”Josefina Santos for The New York TimesTokischa’s rapid rise has been divisive. For some, she is a sexual deviant endangering children, or a victim of neglect and difficult circumstances. To others, she’s a self-objectifying woman who’s just satisfying male fantasies. And to still others, she is a fearless feminist whose insurgent spirit is breaking ground. Last summer, she performed in Santo Domingo at the Dominican Pride parade, and featured trans women as extras and dancers in the video for “Linda,” which drew praise from across the L.G.B.T.Q. community. The beauty blog Byrdie wrote that she’s “actively moving the needle away from the male gaze and towards female liberation,” and doing so in a Latin music industry that often favors white artists.It hasn’t all been rosy, though. Last fall, feminist activists and Colombia’s vice president condemned the portrayal of Black women in Tokischa and J Balvin’s video for “Perra,” in which Black women wear prosthetics that depict them as dogs, and Balvin, a white Colombian, walks one actress, who is on all fours with a chain around her neck.After the video was removed from YouTube, Balvin issued an apology. Tokischa later told Rolling Stone that she was “truly sorry people felt offended,” but that the visual was conceptual, intended to illustrate the song’s metaphors. “We were in the Dominican Republic; over there, we’re all Black,” she said of the backlash in a December podcast interview. “It wasn’t like we went to Africa or the United States to find those women.” Unsurprisingly, the comment drew criticism from some fans on Twitter for dismissing valid concerns about the animalistic depiction of Black women.The reaction illustrated how fans increasingly demand progressivism from pop stars, especially disrupters like Tokischa. “Since the first day I started making music, I said, ‘I’m going to speak my truth,’” she said. In a radio interview last year, she made the point a different way: “I only talk about me, my life,” she said. “I don’t feel like I’m responsible for fixing society.”Tokischa is still an agitator, and a necessary one. “Not being afraid to express my sexuality, my way of thinking — it’s a beautiful thing,” she said. “There’s a lot of people who are scared to say who they are, because they’re kicked out of their houses, they’re fired from their jobs, they lose friends. But you’re not bad — you’re doing what your heart is telling you.”“I have a lot of other messages to offer,” she continued. “But now is the moment for this message, and I’m loving it.” More

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      Review: In ‘Harmony,’ a Band’s Success Collides With History

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      Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman’s musical chronicles the story of the Comedian Harmonists, a sextet of Jews and gentiles in Weimar-era Germany.For many people, especially those of a certain generation, the name Barry Manilow immediately summons innocuous marshmallow-soft rock. Regardless of whether you interpret that description as comforting or saccharine, it is not necessarily a style you would associate with a show about a Weimar-era vocal group split apart by the rise of Nazism.And yet here is “Harmony: A New Musical,” a project Manilow and his longtime collaborator Bruce Sussman have been nursing for over 25 years. It opened on Wednesday at the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, a location bearing the weight of history that adds an extra layer of poignancy to an imperfect but very affecting show.Those skeptical of the fact that the men behind “Copacabana” could tackle serious matters should perhaps listen closely to “Tryin’ to Get the Feeling Again” or “Even Now,” just two examples of Manilow’s flair. Those 1970s songs are very much of their time yet also ageless, and they embrace dramatic storytelling seasoned with a touch of unabashed sentiment that some may dismiss as sentimental. They are the aural equivalent of 1950s melodramas by Douglas Sirk like “All That Heaven Allows,” and, as such, not so different from the best numbers in “Harmony,” which are crafted in a defiantly classic mold. Every time the production becomes a little wobbly, those songs steer it back to solid emotional ground.The Broadway veteran Chip Zien acts as narrator but also pops up as a rabbi and in other minor roles.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesPresented by the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene, the show is essentially a biomusical — though not a jukebox — in which Manilow (music) and Sussman (book and lyrics) retrace the saga of the Comedian Harmonists, a sextet made up of Jews and gentiles and whose popularity in the late 1920s and early 1930s spread well beyond their Berlin base.It is at Carnegie Hall in December 1933 that we first meet the band members, performing the lengthy title number, in which the singers emulate jazz instruments before whisking us back to the group’s formation in 1927.This is when Harry Frommermann (Zal Owen), a supremely gifted arranger and orchestrator, not unlike Manilow himself, places a newspaper ad looking for singers. A crew as motley as it is talented answers the call, as if this were in an episode of “Making the (Boy) Band.” It includes Erwin Bootz (Blake Roman), nicknamed Chopin because of his virtuoso piano playing; the “chain-smoking Bulgarian tenor” Ari Leschnikoff (Steven Telsey), who goes by the nickname Lesh; the wealthy, monocle-wearing medical student Erich Collin (Eric Peters); and the rapscallion bass Bobby Biberti (a very funny Sean Bell, with Danny Kaye vibes).Rounding out the ensemble is Roman Cycowski (Danny Kornfeld), nicknamed Rabbi because he had been studying in Poland to become one. Rabbi plays a key role, or rather two: His older self, portrayed by the Broadway veteran Chip Zien (the original Baker of “Into the Woods,” “Falsettos”), acts as narrator, both reflecting back on his band’s history and commenting on the various goings-on.This extra Rabbi is new to the NYTF’s iteration of the musical — “Harmony” premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in 1997, then re-emerged in 2014 for runs in Atlanta and Los Angeles — and, at first, he does not feel entirely necessary, especially since Zien also pops up, in a somewhat distracting manner, in a few minor roles.From left: Telsey, Bell, Roman, Kornfeld, Owen and Peters in the show, directed with a steady pace by Warren Carlyle.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAs we go on, though, Zien’s Rabbi comes into his melancholy own: He is, after all, the one character who knows where this is going, and Zien eventually leaves it all out on the stage in his heartbreaking last song. In case you were wondering what it feels like to cry under a mask, there is a good chance you will find out then.But before getting to that point, “Harmony” barrels through a lot as it tries to capture the band members’ individual lives and their joint accomplishments: the Comedian Harmonists’ original lineup may have been together only for a relatively brief time, but they were a terrific act and their run was action-packed. (No wonder they have continued to fascinate over the decades, as the subject of a documentary, a book, a feature film, and numerous tributes, including the short-lived 1999 Broadway show “Band in Berlin.”)The show is in good hands with the director and choreographer Warren Carlyle (“The Music Man,” “Hello, Dolly”). Not only does he maintain a steady pace but he somehow manages to fit ambitious numbers — including the pocket Ziegfeld extravaganza “We’re Goin’ Loco!” and the Kander and Ebbesque “Come to the Fatherland,” in which the Comedian Harmonists become human marionettes — on the Museum of Jewish Heritage’s small stage.From left: Sierra Boggess, Kornfeld, Zien, Jessie Davidson and Roman in the musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesManilow, Sussman and Carlyle mostly succeed in balancing the shifting moods, which is no easy feat because they must shuffle broad humor and, well, Nazis. The “comedian” in the band’s name was to be taken literally, for example, and the singers were as famous for their stage antics and novelty songs as for their tight singing.The downside is that there is a thin line between speedy and rushed, and the men are drawn in brushstrokes. A pair of love interests, Mary (Sierra Boggess) and Ruth (Jessie Davidson), are even less than that — one is loving, the other feisty, and that’s pretty much it.At least those two women get the epic “Where You Go,” which has the heart-on-sleeve grandeur of the finest Michel Legrand ballads. Such “Harmony” songs as that one, “This Is Our Time” and “Every Single Day” create a sense of out-of-time inevitability, yet they also remain grounded in the story: It is impossible to forget why we are watching the show.HarmonyThrough May 8 at the Edmond J. Safra Hall at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Manhattan; nytf.org. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. More

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      Modern Love Podcast: First Love Mixtape, Side B

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      Listen and follow Modern LoveApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherWhat’s the song that taught you about love as a teen?Brian ReaWhen we asked this question at the start of the season, the responses came pouring in. We heard from present-day teens streaming their anthems on repeat, and we heard from listeners who have been with their partners for over 50 years. There were stories of jazz and rap, adrenaline rushes and loneliness, and many lessons in matters of the heart. (“Don’t let your friends choose your boyfriends,” Amy from St. Louis said.)On our season finale, we share more of these songs and stories. Then, we fast-forward to an essay about the end of love. After more than 50 years of marriage, Tina Welling decided that she wanted a divorce — a decision that turned out to be liberating.Thank you to all of the listeners who sent us their teenage anthems. We’ve compiled them into one glorious Spotify playlist. Take a listen below.Hosted by: Anna MartinProduced by: Hans Buetow, Julia Botero, Anna Martin and Mahima ChablaniEdited by: Sara SarasohnExecutive Producer: Wendy DorrEngineered by: Elisheba IttoopOriginal Music: Hans Buetow and Dan PowellTheme Music: Dan PowellEssay by: Tina WellingRead by: Suzanne TorenFounder, Modern Love: Daniel JonesEditor, Modern Love Projects: Miya LeeSpecial thanks: Mahima Chablani, Renan Borelli, Jeffrey Miranda, Julia Simon, Lisa Tobin, Sam Dolnick, and Ryan Wegner at Audm.Thank you to so many listeners who shared their teenage songs and stories, including Kate Mitchell, Ankit Sayed, Helen Coskeran, Michal Vaníček and Sara Molinaro.Thoughts? Email us at modernlovepodcast@nytimes.com. More

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      F.D.R. Speeches and Alicia Keys Album Added to National Recording Registry

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      A hit by the band Journey, radio accounts of the 9/11 attacks, “Buena Vista Social Club” and a recording of Hank Aaron’s 715th home run also made the registry.Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speech about “a date which will live in infamy.” The rock band Journey’s song about “a small-town girl livin’ in a lonely world” who takes a midnight train going anywhere. And firsthand descriptions of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.Each of those are “unforgettable sounds of the nation’s history,” the Library of Congress said on Wednesday, adding that they are among 25 recordings selected this year for inclusion in the National Recording Registry.Since 2002, the Librarian of Congress, with advice from experts, has picked recordings that are at least 10 years old and are “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” for inclusion in the registry.The program, library officials said, aims to provide a long-term archival home for the preservation of the recordings and to acknowledge their importance.The registry “reflects the diverse music and voices that have shaped our nation’s history and culture,” the librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, said in a statement.“The national library is proud to help preserve these recordings,” she added.Other recordings selected this year include Alicia Keys’ first album, “Songs in A Minor”; the 1997 album “Buena Vista Social Club”; a 1956 recording of Duke Ellington and his orchestra at the Newport Jazz Festival; and the 1974 radio call of Hank Aaron’s 715th home run, which broke a record previously held by Babe Ruth.The 575 recordings already included in the national registry include classical music; opera performances; blues and pop songs; monologues and poems; and speeches and radio broadcasts reflecting momentous news events. Among those are Robert F. Kennedy’s speech upon the death of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the 1973 Wailers album “Burnin’” and a 1977 recording of a Grateful Dead concert at Cornell University.That diversity can also be seen in this year’s selections, which include all of Roosevelt’s speeches as president and the 1981 Journey single turned karaoke favorite, “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which the library described as “the personal empowerment anthem of millions.”One of the more somber recordings chosen this year consists of the Sept. 11, 2001, broadcasts by the radio station WNYC, which was located at that time in Lower Manhattan, blocks from the World Trade Center.That morning station employees broke with scheduled programming to describe the chaos of the terror attacks on the Twin Towers, broadcasting what the library called “the tragedy’s first eyewitness accounts.”“As the story unfolded,” the library wrote, “the dedicated staff of WNYC remained on the air.” More

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      Nebula, a Big New Club, Wants Manhattan to Dance Again

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      Yang Gao, a newcomer to the nightlife business, took a gamble when he spent $12 million in the middle of a pandemic to carve out a 10,000-square-foot space in the heart of Midtown.Two years ago, Yang Gao and Richie Romero were watching over a very noisy and very expensive construction project: Digging down, down, down, beneath the floor of an old building on West 41st Street, just off Times Square.Mr. Gao, an entrepreneur, and Mr. Romero, a nightlife impresario, were carving out Nebula, a giant dance club. By blasting into the bedrock, the ceilings could be that much higher — 27 feet above the dance floor.Known in the tabloids as a “club king,” Mr. Romero had definite ideas about what Nebula should and should not be. The main thing was, it had to be the kind of place where people would actually dance, rather than lounge the night away in banquettes.That’s how it used to be when he started going into Manhattan from Queens as a teenager, eager to show off his moves at Tunnel, Palladium and Club USA. Everybody went out on the floor back then. You mingled. You sweated. You got into it. By age 18, Mr. Romero was working as a promoter of parties at Limelight. He was armed with a beeper and a list of more than 2,000 names and numbers. If your name was the list, Richie waved you in.Yang Gao, left, and Richie Romero in one of the V.I.P. rooms in the basement of the club.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York Times“Manhattan was the king of the world back then,” Mr. Romero, 46, said. “The stages were bigger than the DJs. Every DJ wanted to play them.”He was sitting in Nebula’s balcony during off hours. The place was empty and quiet. He recalled an early success he had, taking on the challenge of Monday nights at the China Club and just packing the place.“I was 19 years old,” he said. “I was so excited. I thought I was a big shot.”Manhattan may still be the epicenter of finance and media, but the club scene has moved elsewhere — Miami, Berlin, Las Vegas, even Scottsdale, Ariz. These days, New York is “the little stepsister,” Mr. Romero lamented. And although Marquee is going strong on Tenth Avenue, New York’s nightlife energy has moved on to Brooklyn.With Nebula, Mr. Romero and Mr. Gao are hoping to return Manhattan to its glory nights. Mr. Gao said he plowed some $12 million into the project, a huge gamble to take in the middle of a pandemic, when nightlife was on lockdown.“Dealing with the uncertainty of it all scared the hell out of me,” Mr. Romero said.At 10,000 square feet spread over three levels, Nebula was the largest new nightclub in the city when it opened last September. The main dance floor is 5,000 square feet. A D&B sound system pumps out the beats. Six LED projection screens descend from the ceiling to enclose guests in trance-like visuals.The multimedia aspect has appealed to the tech crowd. “Every NFT company wants to come here and do something,” Mr. Romero said.Nebula has also become a go-to place for newly minted 13-year-olds: “Funny,” he added. “We’re like the king of the bar mitzvahs now.”The private events, which take place on weeknights, are a lucrative sideline to the main attraction: weekend dance parties with top DJs from around the world, including Jamie Jones, Artbat and Eric Prydz, all of whom are scheduled to perform at Nebula this month.A clubber at Nebula.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesAs New York’s clubs have become more lounge-like in recent years, with a focus on bottle service for high rollers who lay out $10,000 to $20,000 for a private table, Nebula is decidedly old school.“I want to capture the people that are artistic, that are able to go into the club and appreciate the music,” said Mr. Gao, Nebula’s owner.Mr. Gao, 42, is new to the nightlife industry. A classically trained oboist who once played in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, he said he has a hand in several businesses, including a wine store in Astoria and East River party boats. About five years ago he started looking for club space in Manhattan, insisting the ceiling height be at least 21 feet. After signing the lease in late 2018, he sought out Mr. Romero.Nebula’s location has a long history in clubland. It was formerly Saci, Show and Arena. Most recently, it housed Circle, a Korean American spot that defined going out for a generation of the Asian and Asian American communities in New York until it closed in 2018. Mr. Romero promoted parties at all of those venues, except Circle. In recent years, he drifted out of nightlife and got into quick-service restaurants, opening a pizza chain, Zazzy’s, only to be lured back by Mr. Gao.“I believe in good bones. And this room always had good bones,” said Mr. Romero, who speaks at 200 beats per minute. “Sat down. Saw the vision. Came in here. We started putting it all together and made Nebula Nebula.”Business boomed in the brief window between opening and Omicron, Mr. Romero said. Since then, supply chain problems have led to shortages of Don Julio 1942, the club’s most popular tequila. The banquettes meant for the edges of the main dance floor didn’t arrive until last week.For those who remain wary of big crowds, Mr. Gao designed private rooms at the basement level, each with its own sound system, lights and bathroom. Despite reports of coming Covid-19 waves, he said he is optimistic.“I know that people want to come out,” Mr. Gao said. “People long for human interactions. That’s when I decided that this sector isn’t going away.”Saturday night at Nebula.Dolly Faibyshev for The New York TimesAt 12:30 a.m. on a recent Tuesday, Nebula’s main dance floor was nearly full. As images flashed on the LED screens, several hundred clubgoers were dancing to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” The event was Tuesday Baby Tuesday, a night set aside for people who work at nightclubs.“It’s an industry night,” Jonas Young-Borra, 37, a musician and former male model who described himself as the “left-hand, right-hand” to Mr. Romero, said over the music. “You get people from other clubs who can’t go out on the weekends, plus the 21 and up crowd.”Mr. Romero, who stood watching the action on the dance floor, said that, in terms of the crowd, this was a bit slow for a Tuesday. He promised a bigger turnout the following week, when 50 Cent would be making an appearance. But after two years of social isolation, it was incredible all the same to see hundreds of bodies so close together, without masks or discernible phobias. Hostesses brought Champagne bottles topped with sparklers to the V.I.P. section.New York has changed since Mr. Romero’s Limelight youth, but he was determined that some things would not.“It’s important,” he said, “that we keep Manhattan thriving.” More

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      Chick Corea, the Master Mixer of Jazz’s Past and Future

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      An eclectic array of musicians will gather in New York to celebrate the pianist’s legacy. Five collaborators and admirers discuss his experiments, artistry and generosity.When the groundbreaking pianist Chick Corea died unexpectedly, at 79, last February, he left a legacy of experimentation, preserving and expanding the jazz tradition. Over more than a half-century, he deftly navigated the music’s continually shifting boundaries. Corea started his career playing with the Afro-Cuban percussionist Willie Bobo and spent time with the bossa nova stalwart Stan Getz. His presence in Miles Davis’s “Bitches Brew” ensemble, and later, his leading role in Return to Forever, gave him a seminal role in the origins of 1970s jazz fusion.But Corea didn’t stop there, devoting himself to straight-ahead jazz trios and quartets; duos with greats like Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett; outside-the-box collaborations with the bluegrass banjo player Béla Fleck; and even to playing Mozart Concertos with Bobby McFerrin. His long stint with the Elektric Band showed he never abandoned fusion, and his 2019 release, “Antidote,” recorded with an array of Spanish and Latin American musicians, renewed his early passion for Latin sounds. Over the course of his career, he won 25 Grammy and Latin Grammy Awards and was nominated for more than 60 others.Friday and Saturday at Lincoln Center, an all-star lineup of musicians who either played with Corea or were strongly influenced by him will come together for concerts that reimagine his classic compositions.“Chick had this way of instilling in us that if someone is trying to define what jazz is or isn’t for you, you don’t have to accept it,” the bassist John Patitucci, a longtime member of the Elektric Band and musical director of the shows, said in a phone interview. “He was extremely affirming with all of us, and he was funny — hysterically funny.”The shows will be more than just a tribute; they will allow Corea’s colleagues to recapture his energy, focused determination and generosity of spirit. In a recent interview, five musicians — Rubén Blades, Béla Fleck, Christian McBride, Renee Rosnes and Corea’s widow, Gayle Moran, a singer and keyboardist who was by his side till the end — discussed how deeply he connected with his collaborators when creating music and the ways he touched them personally. (All but Fleck will take part in the Lincoln Center event, which was postponed from January.) These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How did Corea’s experiments in jazz fusion and eclecticism inspire you?CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE I think there’s this accepted narrative, like, there was quote unquote, “no jazz in the ’70s” and people like Chick, Herbie, Weather Report, George Duke all turned their backs on jazz. I’m not exactly sure how so many critics and writers missed all these great albums that Chick did in addition to his Return to Forever albums, which were also great. Anytime you got a group with people like Bill Connors and Al Di Meola, that was the peak of Return to Forever. I mean, how can anyone not like Flora Purim and Joe Farrell [who played important roles on a few Return to Forever albums]? That band was absolutely crystalline, everything they did was just gorgeous.RENEE ROSNES His fusion playing — electric playing, whatever genre you want to call it — was as harmonically and rhythmically complex as all the music he wrote. It wasn’t that anything was dumbed down. It was all beautiful, and from his very individual mind. He remained curious, whether it was classical, bebop, Latin, electric, acoustic. He really had a limitless range and he seemed to be fearless. He didn’t really seem to care what anyone thought, what the critics thought, he would just go ahead and make the music he wanted to make.“He really had a limitless range and he seemed be fearless,” Renee Rosnes said.Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images)BÉLA FLECK It just was all music to him. So I don’t know if there was much of a line between the different styles. In terms of Return to Forever, for me, I don’t think I would be doing anything I’m doing if it wasn’t for that band. In 1975, I saw them at the Beacon Theater and I wouldn’t have gone on to try to play the banjo the way I play. I wouldn’t have had the Flecktones. Fusion has almost gotten a bad name or something, but if you go back to the original stuff, this music had a lot of intelligence to it. It was not just rock with jazz. It was its own thing. It really was a fusion.RUBÉN BLADES Chick was always curious, and I think that that is the real definition of an intellectual, an artist constantly curious. He collaborated with a lot of different people and showed them ways that perhaps were not clear to them at the time, no matter how successful they were. The opportunities that he created for music to go forward are impossible to consider as a whole. He was just an incredibly curious and talented man.Corea was unusually attentive in the way he worked with musicians, his sense of generosity and mentoring. Can you talk about that?FLECK He had this thing about giving permission to everybody to do what they needed to do, or what they ought to do, which was be themselves. One of the first times he came to play with me in the Flecktones in Nashville, we did an interview and the idea of rules came up in music and he said something like: “Well, there are no rules. If there’s anybody out there who thinks there’s any rules, I hereby give you permission to ignore them.” When we were in the airports, you’re standing in a line and there’d be those barriers, and he would always walk around and pop them out so that people wouldn’t have to stand on the lines anymore.“This music had a lot of intelligence to it,” Béla Fleck said. “It was not just rock with jazz. It was its own thing. It really was a fusion.”Jessica Hill/Associated PressMCBRIDE I was very fortunate to play with Chick a lot with Roy Haynes. Even though it was Chick’s band, he always put the power with Roy. We went on the road with the Remembering Bud Powell Quintet in the summer of 1996 and I remember after we rehearsed each arrangement, Chick would say something like, “Roy, is that cool?” You know, “Is that the right vibe?” And it made me love Chick even more because even though it was his band, he was checking with Roy Haynes to make sure everything was cool.FLECK Because I play with different kinds of people, I get asked, “How do you play all this stuff?” And I say, “I really don’t. I just play like myself all the time, and it’s the people around me that change.” He was just so him, anything he did had the stamp. I mean, is there any Chick Corea thing you could hear that you wouldn’t know? It was him within three or four notes. So he just had this language.MCBRIDE Even with the Foo Fighters.ROSNES Or even going right back to the very beginning, you know, the beginning of when he was playing with Mongo Santamaría, Cal Tjader — I mean, he still sounded like himself even then.GAYLE MORAN He really wanted to be a better classical player, and he worked at it. He practiced Mozart over and over and over. He said to me more than once, “If I could practice 24 hours a day, maybe someday I’ll be a pretty good piano player.” He says that to me [laughs], yeah!What kind of things did Chick share about his influences and the musicians he played with?MORAN I got this little family concert together because the doctor told me it wouldn’t be long. I didn’t tell anybody that news — we were celebrating our anniversary coming up. We all started “All Blues,” the famous Miles tune, and it was really beautiful. And he just very gently raised up his hand and said: “That is so beautiful. Now I want to show you the original arrangement that Miles taught me.” And he took his time and energy to teach everybody — When does the melody come? When does the piano come? His eyes brightened up when he was talking, and we played it and he gave everybody a thumbs up and, and we were supposed to have one more concert the next night. He wasn’t strong enough. And then he had this next adventure.MCBRIDE Chick deeply loved Horace Silver, and I don’t think a lot of people draw that line between Horace and Chick. He would talk about Horace so much and how much he influenced the structure of his writing. He was telling me the story about when he first joined the Blue Mitchell-Junior Cook Quintet, which was basically the old Horace Silver Band, and he was like, man, I always feel like the one thing I was never really that great at was playing the blues. I was like, Chick, I’m going to blindfold test you, and I played a recording of him playing with Blue Mitchell and Junior Cook. And I said, this cat sounds a lot like Wynton Kelly. And he’s like, yeah, that’s swinging. And then like after about eight bars, he went, wait a second — and I said, yeah, you can very much play the blues. You funky as hell, Chick!“That band was absolutely crystalline,” Christian McBride said of Return to Forever, “everything they did was just gorgeous.”Rebecca Sapp/Getty Images MORAN Oh, that’s great to hear, Christian. I heard him say that too. He didn’t think he really could. Of course Miles gave him the big compliment, and, and that made Chick just fly — it was his first gig with Miles, no rehearsal, no charts. Chick was getting a drink by the bar because he thought he didn’t do so good. And then Miles whispers in his ear. I can’t say the word Miles used … But Chick went, Oh my goodness. He was dancing around.How did Chick influence your approach to music?BLADES He was playing at the Blue Note and I went over and said hello. So Chick asked if I would like to do something with him. I had no idea what I was going to do to fit in this thing. You know, he goes to Mars and he goes to Jupiter, a lot of places that I don’t know how to get to. And there are no directions. I had a great time when I was with him, always respectful. It was very hard for me to call Tito Puente “Tito,” you know what I mean? That’s the way he wanted to be called, he was Chick. I knew immediately he would not bat an eye if I would do “Pennies From Heaven” with a salsa band. Right away, he would go like, oh, that’s wonderful, you know?ROSNES He was so open, and his imagination just knew no bounds. He had a desire to cross all those lines, musically, and play anything. That definitely inspired me in so many ways, compositionally as well as just playing the piano and improvising. I know that when I write, I don’t really think about what genre I’m writing. I follow in his footsteps that way, in terms of just having the whole world at your fingertips. He was so focused all the time, too. One piece I’m excited about playing at the show is “Eternal Child” because I I’d heard it, but I never studied it. It’s such a beautiful composition.MORAN Oh my, he wrote that in the middle of the night, Renee, I remember in L.A. We were trying to sleep and he just said, “I hear something.” And he had to get out of bed and go down. And he said, when he wrote that down on the paper, by the piano, he was crying.Corea with his wife, Gayle Moran, in 2020.Chick Corea ProductionsROSNES Well, it’s beautiful. I kind of think of Chick himself as the eternal child. He has that spirit. He had an email address at one point, something with “eternal child” in it.BLADES When I recorded “Spanish Heart,” he sent me the lyric and I’m singing on top of what the chart was, but I did the thing in my tone, and he said: “Oh, that’s great. Let’s do that.” He felt a special attachment to that song. It was a tremendous honor for me to do it. He was someone who called, he talked to you, he would prod you. He was always keeping in touch. I don’t know how his heart was big enough to be able to keep up with all this stuff. I’m terrible at that. I love people, but I don’t tell them.MORAN You hear those lyrics and it sounds like a love song, and that’s what I thought it was. One time I said, “Oh sweetie, you wrote that for me.” And he said, “Well, yeah, but it’s for them.” And he meant the audience, a love song for the audience. That’s how it ends, he says “I give it all to you.” More

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      The Boston Symphony cancels its European tour over virus concerns.

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      The Boston Symphony Orchestra announced on Monday that it was canceling a four-city tour of Europe because of concerns about the spread of the coronavirus in Europe and the United States.The orchestra said the tour, which was to have included stops next month in Germany, Austria and France, was not feasible because of the potential for the virus to disrupt travel. The orchestra has recently reported a surge in cases among players and members of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.“Given the ongoing presence of Covid, brought home by its unfortunate impact on a significant number of our own artists, we must keep as our first priority the health and safety of everyone involved with the Boston Symphony Orchestra,” Gail Samuel, the orchestra’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “Sadly, the only prudent and responsible course of action is, with deep regret, to cancel the European tour.”Many classical music ensembles hoped to resume global tours this year after the long hiatus brought by the pandemic. But the persistence of the Omicron variant has continued to complicate plans.The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra recently announced it was canceling a tour of Japan and South Korea in June because of concerns about the virus.Orchestra tours have been a staple of classical music going back decades, when the biggest ensembles in the United States and Europe began leading whistle-stop visits to global capitals. In those days, tours served not just artistic purposes but also commercial ends, giving orchestras exposure to new markets and, occasionally, lucrative sponsorships.Tours are no longer the moneymakers they used to be, except for a small number of elite ensembles like the Vienna Philharmonic. But they bestow international prestige on orchestras — an attractive prospect for donors — and give ensembles an opportunity to build cohesion.Overseas trips came to a halt at the outset of the pandemic, when classical touring was one of the first industries to shut down. (At the end of January 2020, before the disruptions caused by the coronavirus were widely felt in the United States, the Boston Symphony announced that it was canceling a tour of Asia.)Other ensembles have plans to go overseas in the coming months. The New York Philharmonic is planning a residency at a festival in Usedom, Germany, next month. The Philadelphia Orchestra is planning a tour of Europe in late summer. More

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      Ukraine Benefit Featuring Russian Ensemble Is Canceled in Vienna

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      A planned benefit concert in support of Ukraine was canceled in Vienna on Monday amid concerns about the Russian-based ensemble it was to feature, MusicAeterna, which is led by the conductor Teodor Currentzis and is supported by a state-owned bank in Russia.The concert, organized by the Konzerthaus in Vienna, one of Austria’s premier halls, was to take place on Tuesday and feature MusicAeterna, which is based in St. Petersburg and is financed in part by VTB Bank, one of Russia’s largest financial institutions. The United States and other western countries have recently imposed sanctions on the bank because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.The Vienna Konzerthaus said it canceled the concert after the Ukrainian ambassador to Austria, Vasyl Khymynets, expressed concern about featuring Russian artists at an event meant to benefit Ukraine. The ensemble’s founder, Mr. Currentzis, who was born in Athens, is a charismatic conductor who has built a large following in Russia and abroad.“The Vienna Konzerthaus cannot ignore the political dimension of the performance of a St. Petersburg-based orchestra at a time of immense suffering caused by the Russian Federation’s war of aggression against Ukraine,” Matthias Naske, the hall’s chief executive and artistic director, said in a statement. “We understand and share the despair over the war crimes in Ukraine and condemn this aggression without reservation.”The Konzerthaus said that it would suspend ticket sales for future appearances by MusicAeterna until the group secured an independent source of financing. But it also said it would allow MusicAeterna to perform a separate concert planned for Monday night. (The ensemble already performed at the hall on Sunday.)Mr. Khymynets and the Ukrainian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The cancellation of the benefit concert comes as tensions between Russia and the west continue to reverberate in the performing arts. Several high-profile Russian artists have lost global engagements in recent weeks because of their ties to the government of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.MusicAeterna, renowned for its intense, electric performances, has come under scrutiny for its connections to VTB Bank, which has helped finance some of its tours and recording projects. Mr. Currentzis called for peace in Ukraine in a statement issued last month by the SWR Symphony Orchestra in Germany, where he is chief conductor, though he has not directly criticized the Russian government or Mr. Putin.“Teodor Currentzis and the members of the SWR Symphony Orchestra unequivocally support the common appeal for peace and reconciliation,” the statement said. The orchestra has said it was aware of MusicAeterna’s association with VTB Bank, but it has continued to defend Mr. Currentzis. “From today’s perspective, this is certainly problematic, but it has existed for a longer period of time,” the statement said, referring to the bank’s support for MusicAeterna.The benefit concert in Vienna was to feature works by Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and others.MusicAeterna is set to perform in Germany, Austria and France in the coming weeks. Mr. Currentzis is scheduled to lead the ensemble in a production of Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” at the Salzburg Festival this summer, paired with “De temporum fine comoedia” by the German composer Carl Orff. The Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany, another major concert hall, said on Monday it had no plans to cancel a series of engagements this week by MusicAeterna. More