Music

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Music

      Pink Siifu Releases 'Gumbo'!,' a Nod to Southern Rap

      by

      The prolific 29-year-old rapper, singer and producer returned this month with “Gumbo’!,” a hat tip to the soulful Southern rap that inspired him.In 2018, Livingston Matthews landed in New York for a series of gigs and was low on money after having to unexpectedly check a bag on his flight. So he hopped a subway turnstile, only to be detained by a police officer who wanted to put him in his place.“He was just O.D. extra, bruh,” Matthews said in a relaxed Southern drawl between bites of cinnamon-sprinkled oatmeal in a Brooklyn cafe recently, visiting from Baltimore. “He was like, ‘You’re dead meat, I can do anything I want with you.’” The incident led him to write “Deadmeat,” the fiercest track from his 2020 album, “Negro,” which scolded racism and police brutality through an aggressive mix of rap, punk and free jazz.The album arrived just as Covid-19 cases surged globally and a month before protests arose following the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. For Matthews, a 29-year-old rapper, singer and producer who records under several names, mainly Pink Siifu, “Negro” was the most fearless album in his vast catalog of equally experimental music. It was also the most intense.“That record? It was Allah and my ancestors,” he said. “I was damn near crying after each track.”His most recent album, “Gumbo’!,” came out at the top of this month and flashes back to an even earlier musical moment: the trunk-rattling bass and downtempo Southern rap that Atlanta’s Dungeon Family crafted in the 1990s.“Their records sounded like everything,” Matthews said of the cornerstone collective that has counted Outkast and Goodie Mob as members.The poet Ruben Bailey, known as Big Rube, a Dungeon Family member who appears on “Gumbo’!,” said he hears the group’s influence in Matthews’s sound. “He’s got a Southern type of style, but at the same he’s lyrical,” Bailey said in a phone interview. “When I first saw his name, that tripped me out because it sounded like he was really creative, and it turned out he was.”Wearing a white sweatshirt, denim coveralls, glitter-gold-painted fingernails, beaded braids and a white durag beneath a brimmed leather kufi hat, Matthews looked like his influences all at once: Sly Stone, Andre 3000, Sun Ra. He spoke with the same laid-back cadence that he employs in his music, and he lit up when talking about his upbringing.He’s not always so chill, though: His live shows are filled with perpetual movement. Sometimes he’ll hop on speakers, and at other moments he’ll walk in a nonstop loop onstage or occasionally through the crowd. It’s as if all the music he has taken in over the years were trying to come through concurrently.Matthews grew up between Birmingham, Ala., and Cincinnati in a family that exposed him to all kinds of music. His mother loved ’90s R&B, and his father, a saxophonist, played old records by Charlie Parker. He got into rap through his older brother, Hardy, who liked the New Orleans-based Cash Money Records — Lil Wayne, especially — and decided to follow suit.“I always wanted to be like my brother, so I was like, ‘Wayne’s my favorite rapper, too,’” Matthews said.“You can lump me in with anybody you want to, but my music is everything,” Matthews said. Schaun Champion for The New York TimesHe took up the trumpet, then the drums, and he played in marching bands from fifth grade through high school. (The cover art for “Gumbo’!” is a caricature drawing of Matthews in a marching band uniform.) He didn’t get serious about music until he got to college where, as a theater major at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, he started performing poetry while quietly honing his image as a Cash Money acolyte who sang like the R&B vocalist Macy Gray — “I really want to work with her,” he said — but also admired the balladry of conscious rap.“I heard what they were saying, and I thought, ‘They’re just rapping poems!’” Matthews said. “Then I was like, ‘Oh nah, I can rap my poems.’”Featuring a who’s who of experimental musicians, including the soul vocalists Liv.e, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Nick Hakim, “Gumbo’!” is a comedown from the raw emotion of last year’s LP, designed to showcase the full breadth of Matthews’ artistry. The sound is bigger and more bass-heavy, but the focus remains his deep admiration for family and the companionship of friends, full of voice mail messages from relatives and recorded conversations with pals. On a run of tracks near the end of the album, songs like “Living Proof” and “Smile (Wit Yo Gold)” slow the tempo to a stroll that feels like summertime barbecues when the sun starts to dip and the temperature cools to perfection.“I didn’t want people to box me in,” Matthews said. “I was trying to make something that reminded me of those drives from Birmingham to Cincinnati.”His overall goal is to keep working to try to reach the heights of two of his idols: Prince and George Clinton. “You can lump me in with anybody you want to, but my music is everything,” he said. “It’s a slow meal. You at grandma’s house, you ain’t gotta rush.” More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Music

      It’s Never Too Late to Record Your First Album

      by

      “It’s Never Too Late” is a new series that tells the stories of people who decide to pursue their dreams on their own terms.One day a couple years back, the woman who has long cleaned Russ Ellis’s house in Berkeley, Calif., showed up with a new helper. Mr. Ellis did not think to ask her name.Perhaps he forgot. Or maybe the recovering academic — a celebrated architecture professor at the University of California, Berkeley, later a vice chancellor — had other things on his mind. Whatever the case, the lapse rattled him.“Russell Ellis, your father’s mother was born into slavery,” he said to himself. “You have the right to invisibilize no one.”He not only learned the woman’s name then and there — Eliza — but pledged to sing it next time she came by. With that pledge, something strange shook loose in him.“A song walked right in. Eliiiiiza. Eliiiiiiiiiza. And then the urge kept coming.”Calling on experienced musician friends to help, Mr. Ellis spent the following year recording “Songs from My Garden,” his first-ever album. He was 85. (He turned 86 in June.) It consists of 11 original songs, released online with an extremely local label, in a variety of genres.The experience delighted him at a new level — he got to explore all new terrain, with a creative abandon he’d never known. Then, with that, he was delighted to conclude his brief recording career. (The following interview has been edited and condensed.)Aubrey Trinnaman for The New York TimesQ: Tell me about your life before the “Eliza” moment.A: I never bit down on any one thing. Over the years I’ve been an athlete, a parent, a friend, a lover. “In the golden sandbox” — that’s how I think of my life in California. As a kid growing up in the working-class Black world, you wanted a secure job at the post office or teaching school. But doing new things has always been part of my life.After retiring, I got into stone carving, then modeling clay, then steel work and painting. Sometimes I’d see former colleagues from Berkeley and they were still kind of wearing the clothes of the old office. I couldn’t have been happier to let go of all that.How hard was it to start writing music for the first time?Not hard at all. The songs just started coming, easily and naturally. I have always been a laborer, but I suddenly had the experience of a muse saying, “I gotcha, I’m taking over.”What did it feel like, doing this entirely new thing?Having that muse — it’s like I was accompanied by another self, more sophisticated and supple than I was. I’m an empiricist. But if I had to romanticize, I’d say it was a spirit that came to visit. It was one of the best experiences of my life. What a joy to have stuff flow like that.One side effect: You know how you get a song in your head sometimes? I now get whole orchestrated movements. New doors still open as you age. Along with creaky limbs, interesting things happen, too.Mr. Ellis at his home in Berkeley, Calif. “I think doing the album made me a kinder person,” he said. Aubrey Trinnaman for The New York TimesHow did you learn about recording and songwriting?I’m kind of connected to the musical world through my children and their friends. I exploited any contacts I had: Would you mind helping me with this for free? Everyone was very generous.Were you nervous, taking the first steps into this new world?There are benefits to age. Not a lot, but some. I’m too old to get nervous. And nothing was riding on this.What kinds of challenges did you encounter at the beginning?The hardest thing was the blues. Recording my song “Night Driver (The Next-to-Last Old-Ass Black Man’s Bragging Blues)” was intimidating. Singing the blues ain’t just something you stand up and do. You have to be in it, you have to mean it, you have to deliver it in a way that people get into it themselves.How did this album change you?A big surprise to me about aging is that you do keep changing. I think doing the album made me a kinder person. Having my kids’ clear respect and support with it — it helped me feel better about myself, and when you feel better about yourself, you feel better about other people.In one of his many pursuits, Russ Ellis was a U.C.L.A. track star. In 1956, Mr. Ellis, second from left, ran in the 400-meter heats of the U.S. Olympic trials in Los Angeles.Hy Peskin, via Getty ImagesAlso, I was onstage for a living, teaching classes for 150 students, then representing the university in my administrative role. Before that I was a track star at U.C.L.A., from ’54 to ’58. If I ran a good race, my stroll across campus was an act of celebrity.All that stage time was not good for me. I felt somewhat unreal. I realized, when I finished this album, that was my last expression of my desire for it. I have been happy to get offstage.What’s next for you?My wife is suffering some significant health problems. It’s normal trouble, as they say — but it’s not trivial. Right now my life is about caregiving.What would you tell someone who’s feeling stuck in their life?Do something that involves other people. Even one other person. Getting out of a groove — sometimes you just need company.There’s this fantasy that creativity is something you do alone, by candlelight. No! Do something with other people who are as genuinely interested as you are.Was Mr. Ellis nervous about his album? “There are benefits to age. Not a lot, but some,” he said. “I’m too old to get nervous.”Aubrey Trinnaman for The New York TimesWhat do you wish you’d known about life when you were younger?That doesn’t involve sex?Life is shorter than you think and longer than you think. My two best friends are also Black men in their 80s. We marvel about our actuarial improbability. I’m happy to have used my time in so many different ways — ways that connected me to the world, to people.Were there experiences before the album that helped prepare you for it?Over the last 10 years I’ve actually had a bit of an art career. In the process I discovered that I wasn’t as vulnerable as I thought. At one point I had a piece in a group show, at a gallery. I walked by it just as a guy was saying, “this painting sucks.” And I didn’t die! I actually went over and, without telling him I was the artist, asked why he said that. Turned out he was a painter, and he told me his reasons. I learned a whole bunch.Any other lessons you can pass on?Take note of what’s interesting in your life. Don’t keep every little scrap of paper. But take note.We’re looking for people who decide that it’s never too late to switch gears, change their life and pursue dreams. Should we talk to you or someone you know? Share your story here. More

    • 75 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Where Are All the Wedding D.J.s?

      by

      After months of couples postponing and paring down their wedding plans, the season of celebrating nuptials is finally in full swing again and D.J.s are in high demand and in short supply.With more than 20 D.J.s on his roster at any given moment, Gary Hoffmann, who runs a D.J. company, cannot recall a single time he has had to turn an engaged couple away.“I’ve never done that,” said Mr. Hoffmann, the founder of Brooklyn-based 74 Events who has also been a D.J. himself since 2001. “I’ve never — in my 17 and a half years of being in business — had to tell anybody that we don’t have anyone.”That all changed this year, as the tsunami of postponed 2020 weddings came crashing down onto Mr. Hoffmann’s calendar. He has had to deal with many postponements because of the coronavirus pandemic. “I stopped counting around 400,” he said. “The reality was a lot of couples early on in the pandemic were conservative or delusional about how bad it was going to be for how long. I’ve had multiple couples postpone their date two, three — and in some unique cases — four times.”Right now, he has a handful of dates that are especially popular. And it’s putting him in a tough and unfamiliar situation. “I’ll use a specific example: Sept. 18,” Mr. Hoffmann said. “I have four or five different emails sitting in a folder where I told the couple, ‘Hey, I’m so sorry, I’m booked solid. But I’ll save this email and if something changes, I’ll let you know.’”Jason Alexander Rubio and Diana Anzaldua, the husband and wife team behind Austin’s Best D.J.s, based in Austin, Texas, have also struggled to manage an influx of postponed weddings now happening all at once. “We’ve seen a 300 percent increase in clients calling and emailing, and booking in the last month or so,” Mr. Rubio said. “We’re doing our best to meet demand: hiring more staff and passing events we cannot do to other D.J.s who may not be as busy as we are.”Further complicating the process is identifying a D.J. who complements a couple’s vision. “Finding the right fit based on style, experience and professionalism could be tricky nowadays because they might be all booked up,” said Vel Menash, the founder of TablePop, a platform for planning event experiences and an event concierge based in Burlington, N.J. “A multicultural couple I know needed help finding a D.J. that would be great for their cross-cultural wedding, which included Afrobeats and Indi-pop.”[Sign up for Love Letter and always get the latest in Modern Love, weddings, and relationships in the news by email.]Booking a D.J.As with any major wedding decision, research is essential. Decide on a budget for the D.J. and entertainment. Mr. Rubio recommends allocating 8 to 10 percent of your total wedding budget. Then, check out wedding websites and make a list of your top five D.J.s.“Do a little online stalking, and check out their social media and other reviews,” Mr. Rubio said. “Figure out which D.J. is best able to fulfill your overall wedding day vision and understand your vibe. See what other options the D.J. has — you may be able to book more services and not have to worry about paying too many vendors.”If Your D.J. CancelsIf you have a signed contract, review it carefully to see if there’s a section that discusses cancellations and how you’re covered.“Good, reputable D.J. companies will have a policy in place that doesn’t allow this to happen,” Mr. Rubio said. “If a D.J. is unable to make it, the company should have a backup D.J. who can easily cover. This is one advantage of booking a D.J. company over a solo D.J.”If You Can’t Find a D.J.Hitting dead end after dead end? Think about other places you may not have looked. According to Mr. Rubio, some D.J.s don’t advertise on the major wedding websites because of the cost. And many others may not have websites and rely exclusively on social media to attract potential clients. Search Facebook and Instagram by typing in “wedding D.J.” and the name of your destination.“There’s some decent D.J.s on Instagram and Twitch,” said Schquita Goodwin, a D.J. based in Washington, D.C. “But your most trusted source would probably be by asking around: alumni networks, co-workers, kickball team. The vast majority of my business is recommendations from previous clients.”What About Prerecorded Sets?While couples may encounter this option, Mr. Hoffmann cautions against it. Without a live D.J. to improvise and riff off guests and their energy, a prerecorded set could run the risk of not matching the atmosphere of the event as it unfolds in real-time.“It’s not really an ideal situation and I wouldn’t recommend it,” Mr. Hoffmann said. “Save your money for the honeymoon or mortgage. Just set up your own playlists for great background music, and don’t worry about the dance part.”Alternative Music SourcesConsider live musicians. Quartets, guitarists, and other performers may be contracted through freelancer sites like Fiverr and Upwork.“I would even consider scouting local spots that have live music, like a church or bookstore,” Ms. Goodwin said. “However, the absolute, most cost-effective method would be to rent a speaker from a local audio visual equipment rental service. Then, get your family and friends involved.”Get acquainted with your venue’s sound system and ask about audio connectivity so you can plug in your own device and equipment, if necessary. Once these capabilities are confirmed, start curating on your preferred streaming service. Earlier this month, Tidal, a streaming music service, launched a Wedding Hub, a one-stop source for soundtracking all wedding-themed events, like the processional and the first dance.Spotify tends to be the most popular. Don’t forget to sign up for a premium account to avoid awkward interruptions from ads during cocktail hour and dinner.Hiring a FriendAsking friends to flex their amateur spinning skills may be a suitable alternative, especially if the dance party is an absolute must-have. They should have “a basic instinct” for selecting music that’s fun for everybody, Mr. Hoffmann said. But even if they manage to get the party started, they might struggle to rein in over-enthused — and intoxicated — guests.“This is a serious gamble,” Ms. Goodwin said. “If you trust your friend, yes. If you don’t trust your friend, listen to their samples. If they can’t curate six hours of music, then no.”One major con: turning friends into vendors. Even if they insist, it may not be worth the hassle.“If your friend is already a D.J., then sure,” Mr. Rubio said. “If not, this isn’t the best idea. Plus, you want your friend to be there to celebrate and enjoy the special day with you, and not work.” More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      After a Quarter-Century, the Queen of Salzburg Calls It Quits

      by

      Since 1995, Helga Rabl-Stadler has ruled the Salzburg Festival, classical music’s premier annual event, as its president and public face.SALZBURG, Austria — It was intermission at the Salzburg Festival’s surreal and melancholy new production of “Don Giovanni,” and a small crowd of donors filled the office of Helga Rabl-Stadler, the festival’s president since 1995.Dropping the medical-grade FFP2 masks that have been required indoors at the 101-year-old festival, classical music’s premier annual event, the group sipped champagne and nibbled canapés. After some small talk, Rabl-Stadler gave a short speech about this summer’s program, a continuation of last year’s centennial — which was truncated by the pandemic but, through elaborate planning and force of will, not canceled entirely.“We couldn’t celebrate a hundred years,” she said, “by not doing everything.”As the applause died down, Reinold Geiger, the billionaire who runs the French beauty company L’Occitane en Provence, and whom Rabl-Stadler some time ago recruited to help underwrite the festival’s youth programs, spoke up to suggest a reason Salzburg had been one of the few major performing arts events that went forward during 2020.“Maybe,” he said with a smile, “it is because this festival has a president who is a bit unusual.”The Salzburg Festival returned to almost full strength this summer, including Romeo Castellucci’s surreal, melancholy staging of “Don Giovanni.”Monika Rittershaus/Salzburg FestivalComing from a prominent Austrian family, and with long experience in journalism, politics and business, Rabl-Stadler, 73, has indeed been unusually — perhaps uniquely — suited to the job of Salzburg’s de facto chief networker.This is her final summer after 26 years here, far longer than she or anyone else anticipated — and many would be happy for her to stay on. Her genial but no-nonsense presence has become a reassuring sign of stability, and the festival is bracing for a new leader at a delicate moment, as it faces the ongoing pandemic and looks toward a major renovation of its theaters that will cost hundreds of millions of euros.Salzburg is a massive operation, with a budget of roughly 65 million euros ($76.6 million) for about 200 opera, concert and drama performances in a six-week burst starting every July. Managing it in a triumvirate alongside an intendant (artistic director) and a finance director, the president serves as head fund-raiser, but also as a kind of all-purpose sounding board, tension diffuser, public face and global booster: “the principal host of the festival,” as Lukas Crepaz, the head of finance since 2017, put it.Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, left in red, as Klytämnestra and Ausrine Stundyte in the title role of “Elektra.”Bernd Uhlig/Salzburg Festival“She is incredibly loyal to every intendant,” said Markus Hinterhäuser, a longtime festival administrator who has been artistic director since 2017. “She supports me even if she might not always like what I’m doing. She is loyal; she is helpful; she is empathetic.”Rabl-Stadler and the venerable festival have grown synonymous. Last October, when she agreed to extend her contract for one final year, the governor of the region called her “the living embodiment of the Salzburg Festival.”The pandemic has been among her finest moments. Last summer, when few arts institutions were putting on full-scale productions, Salzburg pressed ahead with a curtailed but robust program, including Strauss’s mighty “Elektra” — with the full forces of the Vienna Philharmonic, the festival’s house band, crowded into the pit. Rabl-Stadler and her team lobbied politicians to make it all possible, rallied governmental and private funding sources to make up for ticket revenue lost because of capacity restrictions, and created an intricate safety plan.Then, this summer, Salzburg returned at nearly full strength. The festival brought back the two operas mounted last year, both set among a contemporary bourgeoisie much like the audience here. “Elektra” was conducted with cool elegance by Franz Welser-Möst and featured a laser-focused Vida Mikneviciute as Chrysothemis. A spare “Così Fan Tutte,” presented in a single, substantially cut act, was tenderly led by Joana Mallwitz and boasted, in Elsa Dreisig and Marianne Crebassa, commandingly sympathetic sister protagonists.Marianne Crebassa and Bogdan Volkov in a spare production of “Così Fan Tutte.”Monika Rittershaus/Salzburg FestivalBut Romeo Castellucci’s hotly anticipated staging of “Don Giovanni” was dreary, an unsatisfying mixture of naturalism with ambiguous symbols like basketballs and a meat slicer. Set in a permanent haze behind a scrim, the production, aided by clever casting and costuming, at least finally made Giovanni and his servant, Leporello, the uncanny doppelgängers they are in the libretto. Teodor Currentzis conducted his ensemble, MusicAeterna, with solemnity verging on somnolence. Handel’s “Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno,” set by the director Robert Carsen in the aftermath of a reality-TV model competition and conceived as a vehicle for Cecilia Bartoli, was unremarkably sung, if sensitively played by Les Musiciens du Prince-Monaco under Gianluca Capuano.But the concerts over a week in the middle of August were superb, including Evgeny Kissin’s pensive reading of Berg’s Piano Sonata, which felt the natural partner of the works by Gershwin and Chopin that joined it on the program. The violinist Isabelle Faust was the soloist in a sparkling “Mozart-Matinee” performance. A rapt audience packed the Kollegienkirche for Morton Feldman’s simmering monodrama “Neither.” MusicAeterna brought vibrancy to a Rameau program, if also a tendency to overdo gimmicks like foot-stomping and dramatic lighting shifts.In a staging inspired by reality TV, Handel’s “Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno” was a vehicle for Cecilia Bartoli.Monika Rittershaus/Salzburg FestivalThe Vienna Philharmonic, which appeared in almost everything, showed off its prodigious range over 12 hours on Aug. 15, including an afternoon “Così” and the evening premiere of a rare staging of Luigi Nono’s “Intolleranza 1960.” A coruscating parable of emigration, discrimination and violence, the work whips between ethereal choral chants and pummeling roars and shrieks, both instrumental and vocal. The director, Jan Lauwers, choreographed an endless danse macabre of bodies rushing around the stage, and Ingo Metzmacher conducted with nearly miraculous delicacy and precision.The Philharmonic had started its day at 11 that morning, playing Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” under Riccardo Muti, a Salzburg fixture for 50 years who was conducting the work this summer for the first time. The performance was the glory of seven days at the festival: radiant, intense, dignified, grand. And there was Rabl-Stadler in her seat on the aisle, leaning forward to chat with friends before the lights dimmed, and perusing the program as she listened.She was born in Salzburg in 1948. Her father, Gerd Bacher, was an influential journalist and media executive who eventually became the head of ORF, the Austrian national broadcaster; her mother was a fashion businesswoman. Rabl-Stadler spent time as a newspaper columnist; working for her mother’s business; as a member of parliament for the conservative ÖVP, or Austrian People’s Party; and as head of Salzburg’s chamber of commerce before coming to the festival in 1995, anticipating she’d stay perhaps 10 years.“She was not always like she is now,” Hinterhäuser said. “She had difficulties at the beginning; real difficulties.”The director Jan Lauwers choreographed an endless danse macabre of bodies rushing around the stage in Luigi Nono’s “Intolleranza 1960.”Maarten Vanden Abeele/Salzburg FestivalFor decades the festival had been ruled — and set firmly in its ways — by the conductor Herbert von Karajan. When he died, in 1989, the brilliant, pugnacious Gerard Mortier was brought in as artistic leader; in his flair for modern provocations, he represented a break with the Karajan era.But for all his artistic coups, Mortier hogged the spotlight and thrived on tensions, alienating conductors, directors and the Vienna Philharmonic, and secretly seeking to sideline Rabl-Stadler. The move backfired, and when he left a few years later, in 2001, the tenure of his replacement, the far more introverted Peter Ruzicka, proved an opportunity for her to come into her own.Her savvy and determination revived a long-stagnant effort to renovate the smallest of the festival’s three opera houses — which she set on track to open in 2006, Mozart’s 250th birthday year, when the festival planned to present all 22 of his operas. The Haus für Mozart, as the theater was called, became informally known as the Haus für Helga.“When you ask me what I did for the festival,” she said, “I can say that without me there would not be a Haus für Mozart.”She proved agile at courting corporate sponsors, and instituted (and starred in) a globe-trotting road show in the off-season to broaden Salzburg’s appeal around the world. She helped heal the raw relations with the Philharmonic.Through the brief tenures of Jürgen Flimm and Alexander Pereira, she was asked to take on more and still more responsibilities — including, for seven years, the combined duties of the president and finance director. On top of all that, for the summers of 2015 and ’16 she filled in as an artistic leader alongside Sven-Eric Bechtolf, to fill the gap before Hinterhäuser’s arrival. She was bruisingly overworked. But with Hinterhäuser and Crepaz, real stability arrived at last — the kind that could survive even the pandemic.While she has left sponsorship deals in place to tide the next president over for a time, that new person will preside over the continuing effects of the coronavirus. Rabl-Stadler’s replacement will be selected by the festival’s board, which is drawn from different levels of Austrian politics.“It’s a political decision,” Hinterhäuser said. “And I’m a little concerned which direction they will go. It will be a very decisive decision for the future of the festival.”It is considered likely that the next president will be a woman, since Crepaz (whose contract lasts until 2027) and Hinterhäuser (until 2026) are both men. But beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess.“A president is not a sponsorship department,” Hinterhäuser said. “This person has to have real empathy for what the festival is, what we do, what we want to achieve. I really believe in a kind of cosmopolitan elegance; it’s the Salzburg Festival, but it’s open to more than 80 countries. And then you need a very remarkable political and economic network — and also the capacity not just to have this network, but to use it in an intelligent way.”The next president will be tasked with advancing a long-simmering renovation plan that is currently budgeted at about 300 million euros (about $350 million). If the person can bring that project over the finish line, it will be a Haus für Helga-style achievement.Next summer, the consummate Salzburger won’t be in town: Rabl-Stadler plans to rent a villa in Tuscany so as not to seem to loom over her successor. During an interview, her voice grew thick with emotion recalling what Riccardo Muti had told her a few minutes before, as he embraced her backstage.“Helga,” he said, “the festival will not be the same without you.” More

    • 100 Shares119 Views

      in Music

      Billie Eilish's ‘Happier Than Ever’ Stays No. 1

      by

      George Harrison’s 1970 triple album “All Things Must Pass” also returns to the Top 10 for the first time in 50 years thanks to a host of reissues.It may be a digital world, but when it comes to the weekly music charts, old-fashioned sales still make a big difference.This week, Billie Eilish’s latest album, “Happier Than Ever,” a big vinyl hit, holds at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, while George Harrison’s 1970 triple LP “All Things Must Pass” returns to the Top 10 for the first time in 50 years thanks to a cornucopia of reissues, including a $1,000 “uber” version with collectible gnome figurines.“Happier Than Ever” had the equivalent of 85,000 sales in the United States in its second week out, according MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. That is down 64 percent from its opening week, but enough to hold the top spot on this week’s chart. The album’s overall number incorporates 66 million streams and 36,000 copies sold as a complete package — 34,000 of which were on physical formats like vinyl and CD.Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” is No. 2 in its 12th week out, while Nas’s surprise “King’s Disease II” opens in third place with the equivalent of 56,000 sales, including 47 million streams. The Kid Laroi is No. 4 with “____ Love” and Doja Cat’s “Planet Her” is No. 5.“All Things Must Pass,” featuring the hit “My Sweet Lord,” was released in late 1970 and held at No. 1 for seven weeks in early 1971. This month an array of reissue versions was released, ranging from a plain two-CD set ($20) to the $1,000 eight-LP, five-CD/Blu-ray Uber Deluxe Edition ($1,000). Packaged in a wooden crate, that version contains two books, a bookmark fashioned from an oak tree on the grounds of Harrison’s mansion, and miniature reproductions of Harrison and the garden gnomes pictured on the original album cover.Those reissues helped “All Things Must Pass” reach No. 7 on the weekly chart, its first time in the Top 10 since March 1971. The album had the equivalent of 32,000 sales, including 28,000 sold as a complete package; songs from the set were also streamed nearly 4 million times. More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Music

      A Reliably Varied Music Festival Returns to New York

      by

      Time Spans, a wide-ranging immersion in contemporary work, balances good taste and risk-taking.The Time Spans festival has carved out a unique place for itself in New York’s musical life over the past decade — and not just because it occupies an otherwise barren stretch of the calendar in late August.This contemporary-music event, now a multiweek affair, is that perfect paradox: reliably varied. On successive evenings you might find electroacoustic experiments, meditative string quartets and barreling pieces for chamber orchestra.There is no stylistic tribalism on offer, just a sagacious balance of good taste and calculated risk-taking. That’s thanks in part to the curatorial hand of the festival’s executive and artistic director, Thomas Fichter, a veteran bassist.And it’s also because of the quality of the performers. Ensembles like the JACK Quartet and Alarm Will Sound may well be familiar to music lovers. But they’re rarely presented in such concentrated helpings. Each Time Spans show generally lasts about an hour, while managing to feel like a full meal.After the pandemic led to the cancellation of last year’s festival, Time Spans restarts live performances on Tuesday, and runs through Aug. 29. Presented by the Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust, and held once again at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in Manhattan, it’s an early sign of concert life springing back to action in the city this fall.Here is a closer look at four of this edition’s presentations. (Details about the festival’s Covid-19 safety protocols are available at timespans.org.)‘Or we don’t need light’The cellist Mariel Roberts’s debut album, “Nonextraneous Sounds,” announced her as a talent to watch back in 2012. Since then, she has commissioned music by George Lewis and joined the Wet Ink Ensemble, a respected collection of composers and instrumentalists. Her first composition for the full group will be heard at the ensemble’s Time Spans slot on Friday, and draws its inspiration from a narrative embedded within “Seiobo There Below,” a novel by the Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai.“The story is about this man who’s going to the Acropolis,” she said in a recent interview, “and he’s trying to climb up on the Acropolis. But the light is so intense and unyielding that he can’t even see his surroundings. I thought that was an interesting concept in music, as well.”She added that the piece shares some traits with “Armament” — her recent, often ferocious solo album of her own works that closes with some earnest (if still aggressive) passages of lament.

      Armament by Mariel RobertsBoth “Or we don’t need light” and “Armament” make use of electronics, she said, adding that among the two works, “there’s a relation in that I’m interested in exploring beautiful harmonies, but with really kind of gruff and intense textures layered on top of them, almost obscuring them a lot of the time.”‘La Arqueología del Neón’The composer Oscar Bettison’s gutsy, peripatetic “Livre des Sauvages” was a notable highlight of the 2018 Time Spans festival, when it was played by the Talea Ensemble. (It has since been recorded for the Wergo label by Ensemble Musikfabrik.)Oscar Bettison’s “Livre des Sauvages”Ensemble Musikfabrik (Wergo 68692)On Aug. 23, Bettison and Talea reunite for a new work that channels similar energies. “I’ve got a little obsession about artificiality,” he said. “You know, distortion. There’s a lot of preparation on instruments. Those are the two things that are sort of themes that I keep coming back to in things I do.”“This piece is very up,” he added. “It’s always trying to move; it’s very frenetic.”This opus, though, is more intimate in forces than “Livre des Sauvages”; it’s written for just seven players. “I think of this piece as really being a chamber concerto for Talea,” Bettison said. “They really like to work, you know? They like to get into it. I wanted to write something that would push them a bit.”‘Neumond’The percussion and piano quartet Yarn/Wire is playing the premiere of a piece by Wolfgang Heiniger.Bobby FisherTo get a preview of Yarn/Wire’s next album, which will be released on the Wergo imprint on Sept. 10, you can hear its Time Spans set on Aug. 24. In addition to pieces by Andrew McIntosh and Zosha Di Castri, this percussion and piano quartet will give the premiere of this work by Wolfgang Heiniger.This is truly a premiere, said Russell Greenberg, one of the group’s percussionists, since the album version was recorded in multitrack fashion — with percussion and keyboard parts (and even some vocals) recorded individually.“So this will be the first time we’ve played it live,” Greenberg said.“The surface melodies and the harmonies, they’re so unique and dramatic; they kind of hit you immediately,” he said, adding, of Heiniger: “He thinks of it as a passacaglia. It’s pretty short, and just these motives just keep coming along. When I sent him the record, he said, ‘Yes you got it; it’s so goth.’”‘For George Lewis’The composer and instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey has formed a productive collaboration in recent years with the ensemble Alarm Will Sound. The group’s players have immersed themselves in his ongoing work “Autoschediasms” — which blends Sorey’s conducting skills, improvisational responsiveness and ventures into notated composition — with sterling results.They’ve also been preparing his meditative, fully notated tribute to the composer George Lewis, a mentor of Sorey’s. In an interview, Alarm Will Sound’s conductor, Alan Pierson, spoke of “a deliberateness with which Tyshawn places each of the sounds in this environment” as the work’s defining characteristic. (A recording will be released on the Cantaloupe label on Aug. 27.)“This is not a piece that belongs on a concert with other music,” he added. “So we’re really carefully and thoughtfully designing an experience of the piece for the DiMenna Center.” The ensemble will appear in the round, with specially planned lighting.“He spends all this time creating this landscape,” Pierson said, “and then once you’re there, there’s a kind of magical thing that happens — about 40 minutes into the piece — where Tyshawn suddenly takes you back to where the piece started. But takes a subtly different path, and makes the space for this really unexpectedly beautiful melodic thing to happen.”Time SpansThrough Aug. 29 at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in Manhattan; timespans.org. More

    • 63 Shares109 Views

      in Music

      The Lox, Triumphant at Verzuz

      by

      In early August, Verzuz — the pandemic-era staple that began on Instagram Live and within a year morphed into a multi-platform content powerhouse with artists “battling” hit for hit — held its first live, ticketed, in-person event. The night featured two of New York’s most historically vital hip-hop crews, the Lox and Dipset, facing off at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden.From a distance, it seemed like a light mismatch — Dipset, Cam’ron and his extended crew, are flashy and theatrical, and the Lox are workmanlike and relentless. But the battle took place in a boxing ring, and that set the tone: The Lox emerged triumphant.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about New York rap in the 1990s and early 2000s, the long-forgotten tension of pop crossover, and a night that brought the spirit of battle back to Verzuz, which had begun to turn into a lovefest.Guests:Jayson Rodriguez, a longtime hip-hop journalist and writer of the Backseat Freestyle newsletterJayson Buford, who writes about music for Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and others More

    • 88 Shares179 Views

      in Music

      Glimmerglass Creates Magic in Its Own Backyard

      by

      The pandemic forced the company outdoors and to trim staples by Verdi and Mozart. Our critic found the experience to be ripe with potential for drawing in new audiences.COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — The Glimmerglass Festival has long boasted two features that made it a magnet for opera lovers during summer seasons: A bucolic setting in upstate New York, and the acoustically splendid, ideally intimate Alice Busch Opera Theater, which has a sizable stage and just 914 seats.That very intimacy has made this theater an especially challenging space to present works during the pandemic, and like most performing arts institutions, Glimmerglass was closed last summer, though there was some online programming. But in July live opera came back: the company hosted a monthlong outdoor season — at least it could make the most of its environment.Under the adventurous leadership of Francesca Zambello, the Glimmerglass Festival built a temporary stage on the grassy grounds of the campus. Audience members either sit on the lawn in socially distanced squares, or purchase one of 14 wood sheds, seating six. Of course amplification was necessary. The singers wear microphones; the Glimmerglass Festival orchestra performed from the stage of the opera house, with its sound channeled into the general amplification. (Singers watch the conductor via video monitors.)Natural sound has been the glory of opera for centuries. It’s always hard to fully assess amplified voices. Yet, for the four rewarding programs I took in recently, the sound came across with resonance (sometimes too much) and clarity. The lawn theater, created by the set designer Peter J. Davison, served its function: the raised wood stage is framed by a network of black steel beams, with colored light bulbs dangling on cords from above. A group of tree trunks off to one side provided a permanent feature of scenic designs and blended in magically with the forest background.Raehann Bryce-Davis, a mezzo-soprano with a burnished voice and dramatic fervor, as Azucena in “Il Trovatore.”Karli Cadel/Glimmerglass FestivalThe ongoing challenges of Covid-19 compelled the company to keep performances to 90 minutes or less, with no intermissions. That meant making considerable trims to staples like Verdi’s “Il Trovatore” and Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” For some devotees this might seem sacrilegious. But during earlier golden eras of opera works were routinely cut. I found the experience fascinating, and rich with potential for drawing in new audiences. Zambello said in an interview that with the informal outdoor setting and intermission-less programs, the festival attracted many people attending for the first time. The crowds have averaged about 700 per performance, she said. The audiences I saw — beginning on Thursday morning with “Il Trovatore” — were eager, despite some steamy weather.The core of the “Trovatore” story might seem the ill-fated love between Leonora, a lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Aragon, and Manrico, the troubadour of the title, an officer in the forces of a rival prince at time of civil war. But the opera is driven by Azucena, supposedly the mother of Manrico, who is consumed with fulfilling her mother’s dying command to “Avenge me,” after the woman was accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake.Zambello, who directed the production with Eric Sean Fogel, decided to make Azucena the focus. This adaptation, set in contemporary times, opened with Part 2 of Verdi’s work, which the composer subtitled “The Gypsy.” Here, Azucena (Raehann Bryce-Davis, a mezzo-soprano with a burnished voice and dramatic fervor) sang the character’s gloomy, haunting aria, when she recalls her mother’s dying words, while looking at a steel container emitting smoke from burning refuse. Then, we were taken back to the actual start of the work, the scene with Ferrando (Peter Morgan) and his band of soldiers, here presented as scrappy militia forces of the count.In an opera with a plot as convoluted as this one, it was hard to complain that the reordering of scenes made a hash of the story. Dramatically, the reframing certainly gave a central place to the obsessed Azucena. The bright-voiced veteran tenor Gregory Kunde was a volatile Manrico; the soprano Latonia Moore, the Leonora of this production, was ill on Thursday and replaced by Alexandria Shiner, who displayed a gleaming, powerful voice. The young baritone Michael Mayes was a compelling Count di Luna. Joseph Colaneri conducted a sure-paced account of the abbreviated score.Eric Owens and Lisa Marie Rogali in “The Magic Flute.”Karli Cadel/Glimmerglass FestivalThat evening came Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” performed in an English adaptation and translation by Kelley Rourke, directed by NJ Agwuna, and conducted by Colaneri. This trimmed version introduced Sarastro, the priest who heads a temple of wisdom, as the narrator of Mozart’s fairy-tale opera. We first saw him (the formidable bass-baritone Eric Owens) reading the tale from a huge story book.The concept allowed the creative team to do away with whole chunks of spoken dialogue in Mozart’s work, which, truth to tell, there’s too much of. The other leads, mostly younger artists, were all impressive: the tenor Aaron Crouch as the questing Tamino; the soprano Helen Zhibing Huang as the tender Pamina; Emily Misch as the fearsome Queen of the Night; Michael Pandolfo as a wonderfully hardy Papageno.Concerns during a pandemic about casting three children in the roles of the three boys led to a bold decision: The three ladies who serve the queen see the light, turn against her, and eventually side with Sarastro! So they become the guiding spirits who help bring the opera to its joyous end. And why not? The relative goodness and badness of the characters in this opera is an open question.On Friday morning, the festival presented the final performance of a new play with music, “The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson,” which tells the story of the pioneering founder of the National Negro Opera Company in the early 1940s. Sandra Seaton wrote the play, which loosely focuses on an incident in 1943, when Dawson, who had been presenting opera performances on a floating barge on the Potomac River, tried to book a hall in Washington, D.C., for a performance of “Carmen.” But she was met with Jim Crow policies that would have entailed playing before a segregated audience, which she refuses here to do.Denyce Graves, center, with, to her left, Mia Athey, Victoria Lawal and Jonathan Pierce Rhodes in the world premiere of “The Passion of Mary Cardwell Dawson.” The play by Sandra Seaton has music by Carlos Simon. Karli Cadel/Glimmerglass Festival“Passion,” directed by Kimille Howard, was conceived as a vehicle for the mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, who was glamorous, gritty and poignant in the title role. We see her rehearsing three young singers (Victoria Lawal, Mia Athey, Jonathan Pierce Rhodes) for the “Carmen” she hopes to present, while taking infuriating calls from the renter of the hall. Dawson’s story is little-known and this work is an important step in telling it. In a revealing moment for Dawson, we hear Graves sing a melting, wistful song, “Free,” by the composer Carlos Simon, with words by Seaton. But this 70-minute play could benefit by being a little longer and having more of Simon’s music. Zambello, in the interview, said she hopes to develop the work further with Graves in mind.Weather, of course, is always a factor in outdoor opera, and rain and lightning forced the cancellation of Friday evening’s performance of “Songbird,” an adaptation of Offenbach’s “La Périchole.” (It was only the second cancellation, so far, of a 28-performance season.)“Gods and Mortals,” on Saturday morning, was a 90-minute program of excerpts from Wagner operas, directed by Zambello (with Foley as associate) and led by Colaneri. The work came across not just as a staged concert, but also as a dramatic entity on its own terms. Selections from “Tannhäuser,” the “Ring” operas, “Der Fliegende Holländer” and, a rarity, “Die Feen,” Wagner’s first completed opera, were presented in a manner that invited you to simply follow the themes of fate, love, mortality and the supernatural that run through Wagner’s works.The singers were excellent. Shiner, so good in “Trovatore,” was the star here, singing several excerpts thrillingly. Ian Koziara proved a youthful, exciting Wagner tenor. Owens gave a solemnly expressive account of Wotan’s farewell from “Die Walküre.” There was even a feisty performance, with six female singers wearing jeans and forest-green T-shirts, of the “Ride of the Valkyries” ensemble, against a dream-come-true Wagnerian backdrop: a real forest.From left: Mia Athey, Emily Misch, Alexandria Shiner, Stephanie Sanchez and Lisa Marie Rogali in “Gods and Mortals” at the Glimmerglass Festival.Karli Cadel/Glimmerglass FestivalI found the baritone Mark Delavan’s brooding, powerful account of the Dutchman’s monologue from “Holländer” especially moving. He sang this role memorably in 2001, when, four days after the Sept. 11 attacks, New York City Opera returned with a new production of this opera, signaling a first step back to normalcy. The 20th anniversary of that horrific event is coming up, even as New York, the performing arts, and the entire world continue to grapple with a very different kind of crisis. “Glimmerglass on the Grass,” as this summer’s festival was called, provided rewarding signs of renewal.Glimmerglass FestivalThrough Aug. 17; glimmerglass.org. More