Music

Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherStephen Sondheim, the person most responsible for the modernization of the American musical, died late last month at 91.A protégé of Oscar Hammerstein II, Sondheim brought complexity and intricacy to the union of lyric and music, helping to elevate the form somewhere past straightforward entertainment and into the American intellectual zeitgeist. He was most acclaimed for his run in the 1970s and 1980s, which included “Company” (1970), “Follies” (1971), “Sweeney Todd” (1979), “Sunday in the Park With George” (1984) and “Into the Woods” (1987). A revival of “Company” with a gender-swapped lead role is currently in previews on Broadway.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Sondheim’s legacy, his engagements with pop music, how his musicals have aged and whether he has any true inheritors in the current generation of lyricist-composers.Guests:Jesse Green, The New York Times’s chief theater criticElisabeth Vincentelli, who writes about theater, music and television for The New York TimesConnect 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

Swift, Jack Antonoff and St. Vincent are credited on “Sour,” but the awards don’t count interpolations — rerecorded quotations from other songs — toward album of the year consideration.In the latest tweak to this year’s Grammy Award nominations, Taylor Swift and two of her collaborators have been removed from the ballot as songwriters on Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour,” which is up for album of the year.Why? Months after the release of “Sour,” Swift, Jack Antonoff and Annie Clark (better known as St. Vincent) were added to the credits of Rodrigo’s song “Deja Vu” after similarities were pointed out between that track and Swift’s “Cruel Summer,” from 2019. But while the Grammys now recognize most songwriters for album of the year — which, in the case of releases by Kanye West and Justin Bieber, brings in dozens of names — it disqualifies the writers of samples or “interpolations,” a term of art for snippets of music that are recreated in a studio rather than lifted from an earlier recording.When the official nominations were announced in November, Swift, Antonoff and Clark were on the ballot. But on Sunday, the Recording Academy, the organization behind the awards, removed them. (Swift remains an album of the year contender for her own release, “Evermore.”)“Last week, we received the correct credits from the label that recognize Annie Clark, Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift as songwriters of an interpolation on the track, ‘Deja Vu,’” the academy said in a statement. “In keeping with current Grammy guidelines, as songwriters of an interpolated track, Clark, Antonoff and Swift are not nominees in the album of the year category for ‘Sour.’”The ban on interpolation credits also means that the writers of another track, Paramore’s “Misery Business” — who were added to the official credits for Rodrigo’s song “Good 4 U” — cannot share in the nod for “Sour.” Another “Sour” track, “1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back,” also interpolates a Swift song, “New Year’s Day” (2017), written by Swift and Antonoff.Grammy rules also explain the absence of a songwriting nomination for Cole Porter on Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga’s “Love for Sale,” a collection of a classic Porter songs like “Night and Day,” “It’s De-Lovely” and the title track. The awards recognize only the contributors of new material; most of Porter’s songs on the album are standards that date to the 1930s.Last week, the academy removed Marilyn Manson from the best rap song category and added a songwriter, Linda Chorney, to the best American roots song category. (Manson was cited in error as a writer on West’s “Jail,” and Chorney, who has criticized the Grammy process in the past, was reinstated after an “audit” by the academy’s accounting firm flagged her name.)In last month’s nominations, the academy also expanded the ballot in the top four categories — album, record and song of the year, and best new artist — to 10 slots apiece, from eight, after a last-minute approval by the organizations’s board of trustees.The 64th annual Grammy Awards ceremony will be held on Jan. 31. More

The superstar rapper and singer, long a critic of the awards, was nominated in two categories, best rap album and best rap performance.Drake, the chart-topping rapper and singer, has withdrawn his name from competition in the upcoming Grammy Awards, the latest problem involving headlining talent for the embattled awards, which have struggled with the alienation of other top acts like the Weeknd and Frank Ocean.Drake, one of the most popular and influential artists in pop music today, had two nominations for the 64th annual awards, which were announced two weeks ago. His song “Way 2 Sexy,” featuring Future and Young Thug, was up for best rap performance, and “Certified Lover Boy” — one of the biggest hits of the year — was up for best rap album. He was not nominated in any of the top categories, like album, record or song of the year.But Drake and his managers recently asked that his name be removed from the two rap categories, and the Recording Academy, the organization behind the awards, honored the request, according to representatives for the rapper.The Recording Academy had no comment, but a page on the Grammys’ official website, listing changes to the nominations, was updated on Monday noting the removal of Drake’s two citations.The news was first reported by Variety.Drake’s withdrawal, which emerged just as the final voting period for the awards was opening, is the latest complication for the Grammys. The academy has struggled for years to prevent an exodus among major artists of color, who have made a litany of complaints against the awards, including a poor record of wins for Black artists in the most prestigious categories, as well as a wider failure by the academy and its voters to recognize and appreciate the cultural heft and intricacies of contemporary Black music..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The Recording Academy has also taken steps in recent years to attract a younger and more diverse voting pool and to prove to the music industry that its processes are fair and transparent.But already this year, the awards have been dogged by questions about what has happened behind the scenes. The day before the nominations were announced last month, the academy’s board approved a last-minute plan to expand the ballot in the top four categories to 10 slots, from eight. Comparing the final ballot to an early version of its nominations list, which circulated throughout the industry, showed that the beneficiaries included Taylor Swift, Kanye West, Abba and Lil Nas X.Drake has been nominated for 49 Grammys in his career — counting the two nods he got this year — and has taken home four. But he has long expressed ambivalence about the awards, even after winning, and has often decided not to attend the ceremony even when he has been widely nominated.After his streaming smash “Hotline Bling” won best rap song and best rap/sung performance in 2017, Drake questioned his genre categorization in a radio interview. “‘Hotline Bling’ is not a rap song,” he said at the time. “Maybe because I’ve rapped in the past or because I’m Black, I can’t figure out why.” He added of the awards, “I don’t even want them, because it just feels weird.”In 2019, when Drake and Kendrick Lamar were the two most-nominated artists, each declined invitations to perform on the show. Drake did appear onstage to accept the best rap song award for “God’s Plan,” but seemed to allude in his speech to the Grammys’ fraught history in recognizing hip-hop — a rocky relationship that dated back to the first-ever rap award in 1989, when some artists boycotted the show because the category was not going to be televised.“This is a business where sometimes it’s up to a bunch of people that might not understand what a mixed-race kid from Canada has to say or a fly Spanish girl from New York, or a brother from Houston,” Drake said. “But the point is, you’ve already won if you have people who are singing your songs word for word — you don’t need this right here,” he added, holding up the Grammy.But as Drake started to continue speaking, the Grammys cut to commercial. Drake later called his words “too raw for TV.” A representative for the show said that producers had mistaken a pause in Drake’s speech for the end.Earlier this year, before the 63rd annual show, the Weeknd, who had been shut out of the nominations despite his album, “After Hours,” being one of the biggest hits of 2020, declared that he would boycott the awards in the future to protest its use of anonymous nominations review committees. Those were blue-ribbon industry panels that sorted through voters’ first-round nomination picks and settled on a final ballot.The review committees had long been a subject of intrigue in the business. A legal complaint by Deborah Dugan, who became the academy’s chief executive in 2019 — only to be ejected just five months later — said that those committees were rife with corruption and conflicts of interest. This year the Recording Academy, led by its new chief, the producer Harvey Mason Jr., eliminated those committees in most categories, though the last-minute rule change has once again put a spotlight on the nominations process.In response to the perceived snubs of the Weeknd last year, Drake wrote on Instagram that “we should stop allowing ourselves to be shocked every year by the disconnect between impactful music and these awards and just accept that what once was the highest form of recognition may no longer matter to the artists that exist now and the ones that come after.”He added, “This is a great time for somebody to start something new that we can build up over time and pass on to the generations to come.”The 64th annual Grammys are scheduled to be held in Los Angeles on Jan. 31. More

One summer night in 2019, Alana Haim was jet-lagged, tossing and turning in a London hotel bed, when her phone pinged with an email from the acclaimed filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson.This was not particularly out of the ordinary: Anderson had become a close friend of the family in the years since he’d started directing music videos for Haim, the Grammy-nominated rock band Alana is in with her two older sisters, Este and Danielle. (Their mother, Donna, was also Anderson’s beloved elementary-school art teacher — a fortuitous coincidence he realized only after having already met her daughters.) When the band is on the road, Anderson will occasionally send the Haim siblings affable emails: a silly YouTube video, an article that might inspire them. But this message was different, and a little mysterious: Just an untitled Word document.“All of a sudden, a script opens up,” Haim said over a video call from her home in Los Angeles,“And the first name on the script is Alana.” Save for a few appearances playing herself in music videos, Haim had never acted before, and this was the first movie script she’d ever read. “It was like ‘EXTERIOR,’” she recalled, giddily. “I was like, here we go. We’re reading a script. This is the movies.”As she read the screenplay for what would become “Licorice Pizza,” Anderson’s warm and nostalgic ninth feature, Haim thought he had sent it to let her know he had named a character after her. “I was honestly just flattered that he was using my name,” she said. “Because when you think about Paul Thomas Anderson movies, the names are so incredibly iconic,” she said, citing the porn star Dirk Diggler of “Boogie Nights” (1997) and Reynolds Woodcock, the tempestuous fashion designer that Daniel Day-Lewis portrayed in “Phantom Thread” (2017). “I mean, I like my name, but do I think my name is iconic? Not when you put it next to, like, Reynolds Woodcock. But I was flattered. I was like, ‘Paul’s going to use my name in a movie.’”Bradley Cooper, left, and Cooper Hoffman with Alana Haim behind the wheel of a truck in “Licorice Pizza.” Once she mastered driving it, she said, “I felt like a badass.” MGM, via Associated PressWhen presented with Alana’s version of events over the phone later that same day, Anderson sighed and then laughed for a long time. “Wouldn’t it have been completely rude and insane of me to send her a script with a character named Alana, only to say, ‘Thanks for reading it, I appreciate your notes, I’m going to go hire an actress to play a woman named Alana? Oh and by the way, she has two sisters named Este and Danielle and there are multiple situations that have come from your life.’ What kind of friend would I be? That’s terrible.”But that would have been about as plausible as what was actually happening: A famous auteur was asking Haim, who had never been in a movie before, to carry his next feature. Later that night when they spoke on the phone and Anderson clarified his request, Haim — in a torrent of “word-vomit” — said yes immediately. A few hours later, the first doubts set in: “What if I’m just terrible? I was like, ‘I don’t even know where to look. What if I look at the camera?’”Miraculously, she pulled it off in spades. “Licorice Pizza” establishes Haim as a revelatory and magnetic screen presence, a unique amalgamation of daffy, Carole Lombard screwball, early Sissy Spacek fresh-faced guilelessness, and an offbeat cartoon character’s nervy, can-do energy. Even when she’s sharing the frame with Sean Penn, Tom Waits or Bradley Cooper, it is her face — freckled, elastic, unpredictable — that commands the viewer’s attention. Critics have raved about the performance; David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter called it “one of the most exciting screen debuts in recent memory.”Haim didn’t know Paul Thomas Anderson wanted to cast her in his film until he sent her a script unbidden.Josefina Santos for The New York TimesAnderson said he knew Haim would be good but “I didn’t know she was going to be that good. I’ve worked with the same guys for like 20 years, and I just kept looking around at them for verification. Like, you have to tap me on my shoulder to make sure I’m seeing what I’m seeing. Don’t let me be delusional. And everybody collectively on set was seeing what I was seeing — her skill and the way you can photograph her.”It helped that her co-star, the effortlessly charismatic Cooper Hoffman (son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was a frequent Anderson collaborator) had also never been in a movie before. Anderson cast him late in the process, after auditioning a number of young actors who felt too mannered and formally trained to match Haim’s naturalistic style. Hoffman and Haim had met briefly through Anderson five years prior, never thinking their paths would cross again, but as soon as they read together, Haim recalled, “It was like, oh, we’re a team. We can take on the world together.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Despite the characters’ relatively chaste relationship, the age gap between them has caused some controversy. In real life, Haim, who turns 30 this month, is 12 years older than Hoffman (they bonded so much during the shoot that she still calls him “one of my best friends”), though in the movie her age is a little ambiguous. At one point the character says she’s 25, but there’s a pause between the two numerals that suggests she might be rounding up. “There was never really a conversation between me and Paul about how old Alana was,” she said. “Somewhere in her early 20s. I say some ages in the movie, but you don’t really believe Alana. She kind of doesn’t even know how old she really is? She’s very secretive. But really, it’s about her and Gary’s friendship more than anything.”When we spoke on a late November afternoon, Haim was battling a sinus infection she blamed on the Santa Ana winds. As a Southern California breeze tickled the curtains of her open living-room window, she occasionally paused our conversation to blow her nose with humorous theatricality. (“Oh, that was a lot!”) She wore a white T-shirt, jeans and, around her neck, her most prized possession, a “Sisters of the Moon” pendant given to her by one of her idols, Stevie Nicks. In conversation Haim is garrulous and ebullient, occasionally clipping the ends off her sentences in an excited hurry to get to the next thought.As they were shooting, Anderson found that the actor Haim most reminded him of was Joaquin Phoenix, whom Anderson directed in “The Master” (2012) and “Inherent Vice” (2014).“She can throw herself into something, a lot like Joaquin,” Anderson said. “You cannot tell if they’re completely out of control, or if they’re so in their body that they’re able to make it look like they’re out of control. They’re very similar. It’s weird. They’re both feral, you know? You’re not really sure what’s coming next.”Performing onstage as part of the band Haim. Emma McIntyre/Getty ImagesHer years onstage playing guitar, keyboards and percussion certainly taught her how to ground herself amid the chaos of a film set. “Being in Haim, I’m doing so many different things and there are so many different distractions that you have to tune everything out and just be very present in your body,” she said. “And I think that really helps with shooting a movie.”Seeing herself in close-up on a huge screen for the first time was, she admitted, a bit uncomfortable: “Look, for my future boyfriends that I’ll maybe have, would I love to see less acne and maybe more glamorous vibes?” Haim asked rhetorically. “Of course. But it wouldn’t be truthful to the movie. Because growing up in the Valley where it’s 100 degrees outside, you would look worse if you wore makeup, because it would melt off and you’d look insane.”But those supposed imperfections — and her contagious brand of self-acceptance — are at the core of Haim’s refreshing onscreen charm. “I feel like there’s this whole thing where everybody has to be perfect in all these movies,” she said, candidly admitting that the only reason her skin looked “impeccable and lovely” on our call that day was because she was using a Zoom filter. “But, I have acne, and there’s nothing I can do about it — and that’s OK!”Raised in the San Fernando Valley, the Haim siblings all took up instruments at a young age and formed a family band. What they lacked in social capital, they made up for with sisterly camaraderie and humor. “We all wanted to be Barbra Streisand in ‘Funny Girl,’” Haim said. “That was our Bible growing up. Like, ‘Oh, we might not be the most gorgeous person in the seventh grade, and no one wants to make out with us, but we could be the funniest!’”Anderson said that as a performer, Haim reminded him of Joaquin Phoenix: “They’re very similar. It’s weird. They’re both feral.”Josefina Santos for The New York TimesThe sisters had their first gig as a trio when Alana was just 10, at Los Angeles’s storied Jewish institution Canter’s Deli. Their breakthrough came in 2013 when they released their debut album, “Days Are Gone,” a collection of sleek, percussive pop-rock songs. They’ve since collaborated several times with their former tour-mate Taylor Swift, and their best and most recent album, “Women in Music, Pt. III” (2020), was nominated for the album of the year Grammy.Even though the siblings all harmonize and trade instruments, Alana is still known in the band, as in the family, as “Baby Haim.” Danielle is the de facto lead singer and guitarist, while the bassist Este is known for the gloriously over-the-top “bass faces” she makes onstage. Alana sometimes falls through the cracks. “I’m the baby, so that’s how I grew up with my siblings: ‘I’m just happy that you guys want me to hang out,’” she said modestly. “That was my whole upbringing.”All the members of the Haim family appear sporadically in “Licorice Pizza” — their father, Mordechai, is a bona fide scene-stealer. But Alana is the movie’s beating heart, and her star turn feels like her long-delayed “Funny Girl” moment. That was apparent from her very first day of shooting: she was not only driving a vintage moving truck that required her to learn to operate a stick shift, but also improvising hilariously alongside a deliriously entertaining Bradley Cooper, who plays a manic version of Streisand’s onetime boyfriend, the producer Jon Peters. “At the end of the day, once I got the hang of it, I felt like a badass,” she said. “I was like, not only can I drive stick — but a ’70s U-Haul with a movie star and my best friend in the truck.”She’d love to keep acting — and working with Anderson — if the right projects arise, but she’s also happy to have a day job to fall back on. “After this chapter is over with ‘Licorice Pizza,’ I go back on tour with my band, and I’m back to my other job that I love so much,” she said. “Nothing has changed. I’m still the baby.” More

Michael Bublé’s “Christmas” is No. 3 and the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s soundtrack to “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is No. 10, as holiday releases start filling playlists.Adele is No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart this week for a second time, with “30” holding off competition from Christmas collections and recent hits by Taylor Swift and Drake.“30,” Adele’s first new album in six years — which opened last week with the biggest sales of 2021 — remains at the top with the equivalent of 288,000 sales in the United States, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. That number, which includes 81 million streams and 225,000 copies sold as complete packages, is down 66 percent from its opening last week. But with no major new releases it was enough for Adele to maintain the lead handily.Swift’s “Red (Taylor’s Version)” is No. 2, and Michael Bublé’s “Christmas” jumps six places to No. 3. Bublé’s album has been a big seasonal hit each year since 2011.Also this week, Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” is in fourth place, and Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy” is No. 5. The Vince Guaraldi Trio’s soundtrack to “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” originally released in 1965, is No. 10, thanks to its placement on holiday-themed playlists on streaming services and strong sales on vinyl. More

Former President Donald J. Trump did not attend the tribute, but President Biden was on hand as Bette Midler, Joni Mitchell, Berry Gordy, Justino Díaz and Lorne Michaels were honored.WASHINGTON — The orchestra cycled through an early homage to the latest class of honorees: an excerpt from the opera “Carmen,” a tribute to the sounds of Motown, the chorus of “Wind Beneath My Wings.”But the 44th Kennedy Center Honors did not begin in earnest on Sunday night until President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden, the first lady, arrived to their seats in the presidential box in the opera house, and were introduced to a standing ovation from a crowd of thousands wearing masks and black tie.Mr. Biden’s presence — the first time a president has attended the event since 2016 — heralded the restoration of tradition for the Honors, a star-studded event that recognizes lifetime achievements in the arts, including music, dance, theater, film and comedy, and helps raise money for the arts complex. The event had been rattled in recent years by former President Donald Trump’s decision to skip the festivities altogether after some recipients had announced in 2017 that they would not attend a gala event at the White House. Then in 2020 it was derailed, or at least delayed, by the coronavirus pandemic.“It is quite nice — very nice — to see the presidential box once again being occupied,” David Letterman, the comedian, declared in opening remarks, prompting a standing ovation from the crowd as Mr. Biden and Dr. Jill Biden waved. They were joined by Vice President Kamala Harris and Douglas Emhoff, the Second Gentleman.Just six months after an abbreviated celebration of the 2020 nominees, there were glimmers of both political and artistic normalcy. The show returned to its annual December slot, providing nearly four hours of tribute performances and speeches to more than 2,000 guests, who packed the opera house in shimmering gowns and tuxedos.President Biden spoke at a reception for the honorees at the White House. This year’s honorees were Justino Díaz, Lorne Michaels, Bette Midler, Berry Gordy and Joni Mitchell.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesAnd in addition to attending the event, Mr. Biden revived the practice of hosting a White House reception for the five honorees: Bette Midler, the screen and stage actress; Joni Mitchell, the singer-songwriter; Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown; the opera singer Justino Díaz; and Lorne Michaels, the creator of “Saturday Night Live.”“For this pandemic of profound loss and pain, as we move forward toward repair and renewal, the artist vision is important as it ever has been — I would argue more important,” Mr. Biden told the honorees in the East Room. “We’ve seen the power of art in every form to heal, to comfort, and recover.”He lavished praise on the honorees, calling Ms. Midler “a performer without peer,” and praising Mr. Díaz for bestowing “the sound of soul” on audiences. He thanked Mr. Gordy for helping to create “music that lifted us higher” and told Ms. Mitchell, “You sing poetry, it seems to me.”And he called Mr. Michaels “Mr. Wise Guy,” joking about the number of actors tapped to play the president on “S.N.L.” over the years, and noting, “If you can’t laugh at yourself, we’re in real trouble —- and you make me laugh at myself a lot.”Echoes of the pandemic still reverberated. Attendees had to repeatedly show proof of vaccination, an existing policy for all performances at the Kennedy Center. Masks — an array of medical, satin and sequined — were required, but removed for photos, performances and food.The medallion ceremony on Saturday evening, a traditionally more intimate dinner where the honorees receive the rainbow-ribboned awards, was held at the Library of Congress in order to host just over 200 people and accommodate coronavirus protocols.Seated at library desks with the lamps on, the honorees were feted under the gaze of statues of Shakespeare and Plato, after guests perused exhibits dedicated to their work. As he received his medallion, Mr. Díaz, allured by the acoustics, burst into an excerpt from “Otello,” his deep voice reverberating throughout the room.Ms. Mitchell, who spoke briefly with reporters after receiving her medallion, said that “there was a lot of heart to the whole thing.”The Honors event is a key fund-raiser for the Kennedy Center, which is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its opening in 1971. The event raised nearly $6.5 million, a spokeswoman said, with the cost of tickets to the Sunday gala ranging between $600 and $10,000.But for the honorees and the menagerie of lawmakers, donors, artists, colleagues and family members arriving to pay tribute, it was a celebration of not just their legacy, but of the return of their communities and live performances after the pandemic devastated arts industries around the world.“It’s very special and it’s a different perspective — I get to enjoy, not suffer with nerves,” said Mr. Díaz, who performed during the Kennedy Center’s inaugural year in Ginastera’s “Beatrix Cenci” (and who sang in the first performance at the new Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center in 1966).“It’s like coming home again, except a different part of the house.”Members of the cast of “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations,” the Broadway musical, sang a cappella on the red carpet in between interviews, before performing in character onstage as part of a tribute to Mr. Gordy. For Pete Buttigieg, the Transportation secretary, and his husband, Chasten, the evening was their first date night since their twins were born. And Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and a host of bipartisan lawmakers could be seen applauding and dancing in their seats before the end of the night.“I think I’m in a dream,” Mr. Gordy proclaimed. “And it’s a wonderful dream.”To honor Ms. Mitchell, the ceremony included Brandi Carlile, a friend and collaborator, performing “River,” Ellie Goulding singing “Big Yellow Taxi,” and Norah Jones performing both “The Circle Game” and “A Case of You.”Mr. Díaz grew emotional as his daughters, Natascia Díaz and Katya Díaz, sang “En Mi Viejo San Juan,” before excerpts from “Carmen” and “Faust” were performed. Ms. Midler cheered as a trio of her “Hello, Dolly!” castmates performed “Friends,” before Billy Porter, the actor and singer, emerged from a clam shell to lead a medley of her songs.A parade of comedic veterans from S.N.L. alternated between gently ribbing Mr. Michaels, their former — or current —  boss, and thanking him for his influence on their careers. It was punctuated by a trio of mock “Weekend Update” segments hosted by Kevin Nealon, Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler, and Colin Jost and Michael Che. Paul Simon concluded the tribute to Mr. Michaels with a performance of “America.”During the tribute to Mr. Gordy, the show paused to restart after an apparent technical mishap. But when the set parted to reveal Stevie Wonder at the piano, breaking into a medley that included “My Cherie Amour,” “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” and “Superstition,” the crowd erupted into raucous applause.By the finale, “Higher Ground,” the audience was on its feet.“To be part of this sort of lineage and this long line of people who have contributed so much to the culture, it’s just staggering to me,” Ms. Midler said. “I am so thrilled.”The Kennedy Center Honors will be broadcast on CBS on Dec. 22. More

Olga Neuwirth’s “Orlando,” an adaptation of Virginia Woolf that jolted a conservative opera house, received the $100,000 Grawemeyer Award.“Orlando,” the Austrian composer Olga Neuwirth’s unruly and brazenly political opera adaptation of the Virginia Woolf novel, which made history as the first work by a woman to be presented by the Vienna State Opera, has won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition.When she learned the news — announced on Monday by the University of Louisville, which administers the award — Neuwirth, 53, was on the phone with someone else and didn’t know how to respond to a mysterious call. “I don’t know anyone from Louisville,” she said in a video interview. “I didn’t expect this at all.”It was truly a surprise in part because the award — which comes with $100,000 and a place alongside luminaries including Kaija Saariaho, Pierre Boulez and Gyorgy Kurtag — is for 2022, and “Orlando” premiered two years ago. Despite a DVD release of the production coming out this month, it was, Neuwirth said, “not on my brain anymore.”The work — a subversive blurring of genre, time and politics reflecting on how little has changed over the centuries, yet how much change is possible — jolted the generally conservative Vienna State Opera. It is also something of a milestone for the Grawemeyer, which since its inaugural award in 1985 has been given to only three other women before Neuwirth (an issue Andrew Norman called attention to when he won the 2017 prize).“‘Orlando’ is an enormous, supremely ambitious work,” Marc Satterwhite, the award’s director, said in a statement. “The libretto and multifaceted score challenge our preconceptions of gender and sexual roles and test our ideas of what opera is and is not.”Woolf’s novel, a fantastical parody of biographies, follows its forever-young protagonist through the centuries: from Orlando’s years as a favorite of Elizabeth I to the book’s publication in 1928. Appearing first as a titled man, the character suddenly becomes a woman — who later faces a comparatively frustrating life on the other side of gender politics. Sally Potter adapted the story into a wry and dreamy 1992 film, starring Tilda Swinton, that carried Orlando’s story into the late 20th century.Neuwirth’s opera goes another step further, taking the plot to the present — a world facing climate crisis, the rise of nationalism and the persistence of the patriarchy — and looking toward a better future. “It’s not kitschy, but in a way it’s hopeful,” she said in the interview. “And we need to keep that in our hearts. Otherwise hate will fill it up more and more. We are all different, but just by listening to each other we can try to create a different world.”Her “Orlando” covers several hundred years over three hours, with a score of smoothly fleeting stylistic shifts and disorientingly fuzzy instrumental distinctions — what Neuwirth has described as a kind of androgyny in sound. “I think it’s really my grand piece,” she said. “I’m in this business now for 35 years, and this brought everything together.”Neuwirth studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, then at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the San Francisco Art Institute. She described her time in the United States as formative; amid open-minded artistic friends and casual acquaintance with the chess legend Bobby Fischer, she thought about music in a more inclusive, genre-embracing way.“Orlando” followed other stage works, including a harrowing 2003 adaptation of David Lynch’s film “Lost Highway.” It starred the mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey and featured artists from outside opera — among them the cabaret legend Justin Vivian Bond as Orlando’s child and the fashion designer Rei Kawakubo, who did the costumes.Yet in bringing the production to life at the Vienna State Opera, Neuwirth said, “I had a lot of fights.” The company gave it a run of only five performances, and a revival is currently not expected. “Orlando” may have been a breakthrough for the house, but the fact that it came and went, she added, “is a sign that the system has not changed.”Neuwirth has recently faced other setbacks. Her next opera, “Manga for Lovers” — whose team includes the “Lost Highway” screenwriter Barry Gifford, the innovative director Yuval Sharon and the soprano Julia Bullock — had been planned for the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris next fall, but was canceled, with no new opening in sight. “Keyframes for a Hippogriff,” her commission for the New York Philharmonic’s Project 19 series to commemorate the 19th Amendment, was meant to premiere in June 2020 but remains delayed by the pandemic because the piece calls for a children’s choir. (It was instead first presented by the Berlin Philharmonic in September.)“I still think there are so many gifted composers out there, it feels like Russian roulette, in a positive way,” Neuwirth said of the Grawemeyer news, which follows her winning the Wolf Prize in Music earlier this year. “But after everything, and the whole story with ‘Orlando,’ it is a really wonderful sign to keep going.” More

His biggest record, “Waterloo,” topped the country music chart for five weeks in 1959 and became a crossover hit.NASHVILLE — Stonewall Jackson, the honky-tonk singer who overcame an abusive, hardscrabble childhood and went on to enjoy a long, successful career in country music, including more than 60 years as a member of the cast of the Grand Ole Opry, died on Saturday in Nashville. He was 89.His death, after struggling with vascular dementia, was announced by the Opry. In the book “From the Bottom Up: The Stonewall Jackson Story as Told in His Own Words” (1991), Mr. Jackson said his stepfather, a short-tempered sharecropper named James Leviner, had often abused him, once hoisting him high above his head and dashing him against a rock.Another time, Mr. Jackson wrote, his stepfather beat him and left him lying senseless in a field after the boy accidentally spilled a bucket of water that he had been carrying.“The physical scars and pain of being abused don’t last long,” Mr. Jackson said, “but the mental part of it goes on and on and on.”Mr. Jackson’s 1962 recording “A Wound Time Can’t Erase,” a Top 10 country hit written by Bill D. Johnson, called to mind this early trauma.“Is it power you’ve won for the things that you’ve done? What you’ve gained I guess I’ll never see,” Mr. Jackson wonders aloud, his heartache set to the record’s chugging rhythms and uncluttered production.“A Wound Time Can’t Erase” was the 11th in a string of 23 consecutive singles that reached the country Top 40 for Mr. Jackson from 1958 to 1965. He later had a run of eight consecutive Top 40 country hits from 1966 to 1968, and ultimately placed 44 singles on the country charts before the hits stopped coming in 1973.“Waterloo,” a catchy ditty written by John D. Loudermilk and Marijohn Wilkin, was his biggest record, occupying the top spot on the country chart for five weeks in 1959 and crossing over to the pop Top 10. “B.J. the D.J.,” his other No. 1 country single, began its run up the charts toward the end of 1963.Most of Mr. Jackson’s recordings were made in the traditional style known as hard country: a lean, shuffling sound accented by keening fiddle and steel guitar. Eleven of his singles, including “Life to Go,” a prisoner’s lament written by George Jones, and “I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water,” a Top 20 pop hit for Johnny Rivers in 1966, reached the country Top 10.Mr. Jackson in 1999 performing at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. He was in the cast of the Grand Ole Opry for more than 60 years.Mark Humphrey/Associated PressStonewall Jackson was born on Nov. 6, 1932, in Tabor City, N.C. His biological father, a railroad engineer named Waymond David Jackson, wanted him to be named after Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson, the Confederate general from whom he claimed to have been descended, but he died of complications of a hernia before Stonewall, the third of his three boys, was born.Mr. Jackson’s mother, who was born Lulu Loraine Turner, remarried after his father died.Fearing for their safety, Mr. Jackson’s mother eventually left her sons’ abusive stepfather and moved the family to Georgia, where they lived in a shack on the farm of the boys’ paternal grandmother and her husband. Stonewall was working in the fields and cutting timber there before he reached the age of 10.Hoping to escape the drudgery of sharecropping, Mr. Jackson, who received only a limited education, lied about his age and joined the Army when he was 16. He was discharged as soon as the deception was discovered.The next year, he enlisted in the Navy, where he served on the submarine rescue vessel Kittiwake and began honing his skills as a guitar player and songwriter. Four years later, he returned to Georgia to farm a small plot before moving to Nashville to try his luck as a songwriter.His many hit records notwithstanding, Mr. Jackson’s biggest claim to fame was his six-decade run on the Grand Ole Opry. He remains the only singer to have been invited to join the Opry cast before releasing a record, much less having a hit.Mr. Jackson, who lived in Brentwood, Tenn., recalled that in 1956, during his first visit to Nashville, he presented himself unannounced at the offices of Acuff-Rose Music in hopes of securing a songwriting deal. Wesley Rose, the son of Fred Rose, the Acuff-Rose executive who gave Hank Williams his start, invited Mr. Jackson to make a demo recording and was impressed with the results.“He called WSM, the radio station that owns and operates the Grand Ole Opry, and told them about me,” Mr. Jackson was quoted as saying in the liner notes to the 1972 compilation “The World of Stonewall Jackson.” “He asked if they would set up an audition for me the next day and asked if I’d like to try out for the Opry.”In 2007, Mr. Jackson’s relationship with the show soured when he sued Gaylord Entertainment, the Opry’s parent company, for age discrimination after his appearances on the program were curtailed to make room for younger artists. The lawsuit was settled, for an undisclosed amount, in October 2008, and Mr. Jackson resumed performing on the show.His wife, Juanita Wair Jackson, died in 2019. Survivors include a son, Stonewall Jr., and two grandchildren. More