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    Gustavo Dudamel Visits New York With Promise, and a Warning

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    The superstar conductor will take over the New York Philharmonic in 2026. Is his tour with the Los Angeles Philharmonic a preview?Home is a slippery concept in classical music, a global art form of constant travel and jobs that require relocating for months or years at a time.The superstar conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who will become the New York Philharmonic’s next music and artistic director in 2026, is based in Madrid with his family. You could call that home. In a recent interview with The Los Angeles Times, though, he said that he would always think of his native Venezuela as home. And, after 15 years of leading the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Southern California is home, too.“I am going to New York, of course,” Dudamel said, “but L.A. is home.”Comments like this are a reminder that, for now, New York has little claim on Dudamel. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is still very much his home orchestra: where he has led the premieres of some 300 pieces, founded an immense youth orchestra program and achieved celebrity status in a city of celebrities.There are, perhaps, clues to Dudamel’s New York future in his Los Angeles present, which was on exhilarating display over three evenings at Carnegie Hall this week. He led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in concerts that reflected his gift for must-hear programming and his open-minded disregard for genre, his welcome belief that at a high enough level, all music can be art.But Dudamel is not without his weaknesses. While he can be brilliant off the beaten path, he is less distinct and perceptive in the classics. In that sense, his visit to Carnegie is both a sign of promise and a warning.He has always been a bit uneven. His early Beethoven recordings, with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, hardly rise in a crowded field. Two years ago, he led the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Carnegie in a performance of Mahler’s First Symphony that lacked vision and precision.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Karol G, Shakira and Natalia Lafourcade Win Big at Latin Grammys

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      Karol G, Shakira and Natalia Lafourcade took the top prizes at the awards’ first ceremony outside the United States.Spain tried to share the cultural clout of its former colonies at the 24th annual Latin Grammy Awards, which were broadcast worldwide on Thursday night from the Fibes convention center in Seville. It was the first Latin Grammy ceremony to take place outside the United States.Even with the trans-Atlantic move, the top awards went to women from Latin America. Karol G, from Colombia, won album of the year for “Mañana Será Bonito.” Shakira, from Colombia, shared song of the year, a songwriting award, for her collaboration with the Argentine producer Bizarrap, “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53.” They performed it on the show, with Shakira dancing sinuously and defiantly.Karol G became the first woman to win a Latin Grammy for música urbana album; “How cool is it for a woman to win this?” she exulted. And “TQG,” her duet with Shakira from that album, was named best urban/fusion performance.Record of the year, an award for a single, was by Natalia Lafourcade from Mexico: “De Todas las Flores,” the title track of a richly retro album that was named best singer-songwriter album. “This is the most personal album I made at a time when I felt completely broken,” she said while accepting an award at the preshow. “I didn’t even know where to start, and music once again taught me its power, its medicinal power.”Joaquina, an introspective 19-year-old songwriter from Venezuela, won as best new artist. “They told me I wouldn’t make it if I recorded my own songs, but here I am,” she said in a tearful speech. “Music is always worth the pain.”For the Latin Recording Academy, which gives the awards, Latin music isn’t defined by geography or history. It’s simply a matter of what language the lyrics are in: Spanish, Portuguese or Indigenous languages of the Americas. This year’s award for person of the year, a lifetime achievement award, went to Laura Pausini, an Italian singer who has spent much of her three-decade career performing in Spanish.The Latin Grammys’ venture to Spain was supported by a $24 million grant, for this year’s Latin Grammys and other musical events in Andalusia, from the European Union and the government of the region of Andalusia, the cradle of flamenco.The awards took place on the annual International Day of Flamenco, commemorating UNESCO’s 2010 recognition of flamenco as an “intangible cultural heritage.” While Caribbean reggaeton and regional Mexican music are the styles that have spearheaded Latin music’s new worldwide popularity, the awards show played up the influence of Spain and flamenco.The preshow awards webcast began with the clang of a martillo — an anvil, harking back to a flamenco tradition of using rhythms from Roma blacksmiths — and a medley from the nominees in the flamenco category including Niña Pastori, the winner. She called flamenco “music of purity” and congratulated her fellow nominees, urging them to “keep fighting for this flamenco, which is the most beautiful music there is.”The main awards ceremony began with the Spanish songwriter Rosalía, whose “Motomami” was named album of the year in 2022. She sang “Se Nos Rompió el Amor” (“We Destroyed Our Love)” — a dramatic hit by Rocío Jurado, a Spanish singer who died in 2006 — in a stark crescendo surrounded by flamenco guitarists and hand-clappers. The raspy-voiced Spanish songwriter Alejandro Sanz performed amid 30 flamenco dancers. With orchestral backing, the popera tenor Andrea Bocelli sang a vibrato-charged “Granada,” the Mexican songwriter Agustín Lara’s tribute to the Spanish city.Where Latin American songwriters had collaborated with Spaniards, those songs were featured. Pablo Alborán, from Spain — who has had 24 Latin Grammy nominations without a win — was joined by the Argentine songwriter Maria Becerra for their duet, “Amigos,” before she went on to sing a fierce solo version of her bitter, wrathful post-breakup song “Ojalá” (“I Hope”). The Spanish songwriter Manuel Carrasco sang with the Colombian songwriter Camilo before they were also joined by the Brazilian singer Iza and by Camilo’s longtime collaborator Edgar Barrera, who was named producer of the year and songwriter of the year. Barrera also shared the songwriting award for regional Mexican song, the hit “Un x100to” (“One Percent”) by Bad Bunny and Grupo Frontera.The show offered a little recognition for the regional Mexican music that has been a growing international force in recent years. “Ella Baila Sola” (“She Dances Alone”) — a speedy, horn-pumped waltz about winning over a beautiful woman — became a blockbuster international single this year, and it got its first onstage performance in Seville from its studio and video collaborators, Peso Pluma and Eslabon Armado.The Mexican songwriter Christian Nodal, who won awards for both norteño album and ranchero/mariachi album, shared a vehement lovers’-quarrel duet, “La Siguiente” (“The Next One”), with Kany García from Puerto Rico. The Mexican songwriter Carín Leon got two performing slots, on his own and with the Colombian singer Maluma.Cross-genre, cross-border collaborations increasingly define pop both within and beyond the United States, and no music awards show can quite keep up. But the Latin Grammys’ excursion to Spain came across as a field trip, not an advance. More

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      12 Grammy Nominees You Need to Hear

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      Some of the best competitions are the under-the-radar ones. Listen to nominated songs by Bettye LaVette, Molly Tuttle, Tainy and more.The soul survivor Bettye LaVette, who’s up for best contemporary blues album.Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York TimesDear listeners,I’m Jon Pareles, sitting in for Lindsay this week because while she’s on vacation, we couldn’t let the Grammy Awards nominations go by without a playlist.Like a lot of critics, in and out of music, I’m pretty skeptical about awards shows. That’s not just because they rarely agree with my own taste. Awards shows have conflicted agendas and contradictory incentives. They trumpet artistic integrity but crave star power. They claim accountant-verified objectivity but often appear cliquish and stuck in industry bubbles.The one thing that makes me indulge the Grammys is an aspect that infuriates some other Grammy observers: the chronic sprawl of awards categories. There are 94 this year. That’s a lot, but fine: Let a hundred flowers bloom. The Recording Academy is forever trying to trim and adjust those categories, consolidating or renaming or expanding the list. But music keeps eluding them, changing styles and constituencies, while little Grammy voter pools — hopefully specialists, realistically partisans — battle to boost their candidates.It’s complicated, fluid, arbitrary, far from perfect. What, exactly, is “alternative jazz,” one of this year’s new categories? But down in the trenches of concert bookings, “Grammy-winning” can make a bigger difference for someone on a club or college tour than for an act with radio hits and arena gigs. The Grammys can be good for something.I regularly watch the pre-Grammy, non-network, un-prime-time “Grammy Premiere” livestream — just go to live.grammy.com or YouTube — where the unsung majority of Grammy Awards are given out before the prime-time show. They’re dorky and unpolished; some winners read their thank-yous from their cellphones, and they don’t always have designer outfits. But the pre-Grammys also book niche-category performers who tear the roof off, because that’s what happens beyond the controlled sphere of pop. Music can upend everything we expect.Here are a dozen down-category Grammy nominees, who are unlikely to show up in prime time. They’re not necessarily popular — though some were huge hits — or fashionable. They just made recordings worth noticing.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. Kylie Minogue: “Padam Padam” (pop dance recording)Kylie Minogue conquered dance floors, yet again, in 2023 with “Padam Padam,” her breezily confident assertion that “I know you wanna take me home.” The title is a heartbeat rhythm, the production uses reverb to play with space, and Minogue sounds quite amenable to a tryst. (Listen on YouTube)2. Killer Mike featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane: “Scientists & Engineers” (rap performance)Multifaceted ideas about creativity — as a calling, a compulsion and a career — unite Killer Mike and his guests in this ambitious, changeable track. Enfolded in restlessly blipping synthesizers and Eryn Allen Kane’s ethereal vocal harmonies, André 3000 and Future muse over past and present before Killer Mike arrives with a closing barrage. (Listen on YouTube)3. Allison Russell: “Eve Was Black” (American roots performance)Racism and misogyny are Allison Russell’s direct targets in “Eve Was Black,” which transforms itself from Appalachian toe-tapper to eerie rocker to jazz excursion to gospel incantation and asks the unflinching question, “Do you hate or do you lust?” (Listen on YouTube)4. Jason Isbell: “Cast Iron Skillet” (American roots song)A tangle of bleak, likely interconnected narratives — murder, death in prison, a family shattered by interracial romance — mingles with homey advice in “Cast Iron Skillet,” a modest-sounding but far-reaching ballad. (Listen on YouTube)5. Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway: “El Dorado” (bluegrass album)The songwriter and flatpicking guitar virtuoso Molly Tuttle spins a brisk, minor-key chronicle of the Gold Rush. She sings about desperate characters and wonders, “Was it worth the blood and dirt to dig our lives away?” (Listen on YouTube)6. Bettye LaVette: “Hard to Be a Human” (contemporary blues album)The gritty-voiced, 77-year-old soul survivor Bettye LaVette embraces 1970s-style Nigerian Afrobeat, with its chattering saxophone and curlicued guitars, in “Hard to Be a Human,” as she wonders about humanity’s irredeemable flaws. (Listen on YouTube)7. Blind Boys of Alabama: “Work Until My Days Are Done” (roots gospel album)The Blind Boys of Alabama, a gospel institution since the 1940s, bring their vintage-style harmonies to a traditional song that’s more about diligence than worship. The arrangement is a two-parter, an easygoing shuffle that revs up midway through to something like sanctified honky-tonk. (Listen on YouTube)8. Tainy featuring Bad Bunny and Julieta Venegas: “Lo Siento BB:/” (música urbana)Tainy, the Puerto Rican producer who’s an architect of reggaeton, racked up a billion streams across various platforms with “Lo Siento BB:/” (“Sorry Baby”). Julieta Venegas and Bad Bunny sing about her infatuation and his refusal to commit, juxtaposing cushy electronics and a blunt beat. (Listen on YouTube)9. Natalia Lafourcade: “De Todas las Flores” (Latin rock or alternative album)The Mexican songwriter Natalia Lafourcade’s album “De Todas las Flores’ isn’t remotely rock. It’s richly retro pop that harks back decades, with acoustic instruments and some orchestral arrangements. The title track is a rueful, elegantly nostalgic lament for lost love. (Listen on YouTube)10. Davido featuring Musa Keys: “Unavailable” (African music performance)Davido is from Nigeria, but he has international aims. In “Unavailable,” he infuses Nigerian Afrobeats with a South African style, amapiano, and he’s joined by the South African singer Musa Keys. They’re both playing hard to get. (Listen on YouTube)11. Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society: ‘Dymaxion’ (large jazz ensemble album)The composer Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society is an 18-piece big band that stokes suspense with dissonance, pinpoint timing and an arrangement that gets denser and denser throughout most of “Dymaxion.” Even when it eases back, the piece stays ominous. (Listen on YouTube)12. Ólafur Arnalds: “Woven Song (Hania Rani Piano Rework)” (new age, ambient or chant album)“Woven Song” originally appeared on Ólafur Arnalds’s 2020 album, “Some Kind of Peace,” with an eerie, sliding, untempered vocal. The Polish pianist and singer Hania Rani makes it cozier and more consonant in her “rework,” but the ghost-waltz spirit of the original persists. (Listen on YouTube)And I’d like to thank the Academy …JonThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“12 Grammy Nominees You Need to Hear” track listTrack 1: Kylie Minogue, “Padam Padam”Track 2: Killer Mike featuring André 3000, Future and Eryn Allen Kane, “Scientists & Engineers”Track 3: Allison Russell, “Eve Was Black”Track 4: Jason Isbell, “Cast Iron Skillet”Track 5: Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, “El Dorado”Track 6: Bettye LaVette, “Hard to Be a Human”Track 7: Blind Boys of Alabama, “Work Until My Days Are Done”Track 8: Tainy featuring Bad Bunny and Julieta Venegas, “Lo Siento BB:/”Track 9: Natalia Lafourcade, “De Todas la Flores”Track 10: Davido featuring Musa Keys, “Unavailable”Track 11: Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, “Dymaxion”Track 12: Ólafur Arnalds, “Woven Song (Hania Rani Piano Rework)”Bonus TracksCaryn the editor here flagging the rest of our Grammy coverage that’s gone live so far today:Ben Sisario’s big look at the field, with a spotlight on the top competitions.Our always-entertaining snubs and surprises, examining which genres were conspicuously absent from the biggest categories, and a delightful showdown between Olivia Rodrigo and the Rolling Stones.The full list of nominees: yes, all 94 categories. Yes, I formatted this myself.An interview with Victoria Monét, who has seven nominations (the second-most), and one for her toddler.And an interview with the indie-rock trio boygenius, who picked up six nods. More

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      Rihanna’s ‘Black Panther’ Ballad, and 8 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Ice Spice, Iggy Pop, SZA and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Rihanna, ‘Lift Me Up’Rihanna, who hasn’t released a solo song since her album “Anti” back in 2016, returns to music on the soundtrack for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” The title of “Lift Me Up” has a gospel resonance, and the song is a hymnlike call for intimacy and security: “Keep me close, safe and sound.” Harp plucking — perhaps from a West African kora — and a string section support Rihanna and an African duet partner, the Nigerian star Tems (Temilade Openiyi). For all its structural clarity, the song doesn’t try to be a banger; it’s a prayer and a plea. JON PARELESSZA, ‘Shirt’“In the dark right now, feeling lost but I like it,” SZA sings on the moody, mid-tempo “Shirt,” a long-awaited single produced by Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins. Fans have been clamoring for a follow-up to SZA’s landmark 2017 album “Ctrl” with such intensity that a snippet of “Shirt” actually went viral on TikTok in 2020; last year SZA admitted that she followed fans’ lead in titling the song. The wildly cinematic, Dave-Meyers-directed music video features SZA and LaKeith Sanfield killing a bunch of people and a plot as jam-packed as an entire feature film, but perhaps the most exciting part is the wittily lyrical, acoustic-guitar-driven new song SZA previews over the clip’s credits. LINDSAY ZOLADZNakhane featuring Perfume Genius, ‘Do You Well’The South African crooner Nakhane and the American indie darling Perfume Genius have each crafted plenty of ballads that express the pathos of queer desire, but here, on the ecstatic “Do You Well,” they choose joy. “Stay in the light so I can see your face,” they sing together on the thumping disco number, that lyric serving as both a potent metaphor and a subtle joke about the deceptive lighting of the dance floor. Produced by Emre Türkmen with an assist from none other than Nile Rodgers, “Do You Well” is an immersive evocation of the mystery, romance and kinetic sweatiness of the club. ZOLADZIce Spice, ‘Bikini Bottom’The sub-two-minute “Bikini Bottom” is another brisk missive from the rising New York rap star Ice Spice, who sounds characteristically unbothered: “How can I lose if I’m already chose, like?” she raps in that already-signature flow that’s somewhere between a taunt and a whisper. RiotUSA’s beat is effectively minimalist; its only embellishment is a sped up, noodly riff that vaguely conjures — what else? — Squidward’s clarinet. ZOLADZIggy Pop, ‘Frenzy’At 75, Iggy Pop would be fully entitled to continue the kind of cranky, sepulchral, jazz-tinged musings he offered on his 2019 album, “Free.” Instead, he’s back to flat-out, buzz-bombing, hard-riffing rock with a new single, “Frenzy,” backed by a credentialed band including the producer Andrew Watt on guitar, Duff McKagan from Guns N’ Roses on bass and Chad Smith from Red Hot Chili Peppers on drums. Proudly foul-mouthed and convincingly irate, Pop lashes out in all directions, fully aware of his standing: “I’m sick of the freeze, I’m sick of disease/So gimme me a try before I [expletive] die.” PARELESFeeble Little Horse, ‘Chores’What’s up with all these young, equine-monikered bands totally nailing the sound and spirit of Gen X indie rock? Like Chicago’s precocious Horsegirl (who, true to form, released an endearingly reverent cover of the Minutemen classic “History Lesson Part 2” this week), the Pittsburgh quartet Feeble Little Horse know exactly how much noise belongs in their noise-pop, a balance they strike with ease on the shaggily infectious “Chores.” The vocalist Lydia Slocum sings, charismatically, of the in-house tensions of group living, like sparring over refrigerated leftovers and passive-aggressively asking roommates to pull their weight: “You need to do your chores, you need to clean the floors,” she sings on the chorus before adding, “Sorry.” The pigpen squall of guitars makes a gloriously greasy mess, but Slocum’s vocals cut through like vinegar. ZOLADZNatalia Lafourcade, ‘Mi Manera de Querer’The Mexican songwriter Natalia Lafourcade offers pure, innocent, gender-neutral love in “Mi Manera de Querer” (“My Way of Loving”) from her new album, “De Todas las Flores.” It’s a retro-flavored, big-band arrangement rooted in bossa nova and Cuban son, and she sings it with teasing confidence. Lafourcade promises love without makeup or filters, “as innocent as the chords of this song,” in a vintage setting that holds a modern outlook: “It doesn’t matter to me if you’re a man or a woman,” she lilts. “I see you as a being of light.” PARELESHolly Humberstone, ‘Can You Afford to Lose Me?’With stately, reverential keyboard chords and a whispery voice, Holly Humberstone delivers an ultimatum: “Go ahead and pack your bags/But once you’re gone you can’t come back.” As a choir musters behind her, she enumerates her partner’s failings and points out all that she’s done — “I was always there to pick up the pieces when you were a full-blown catastrophe.” Then quietly — probably against her better judgment — she offers one last chance. PARELESCaroline Rose, ‘Love/Lover/Friend’Caroline Rose has traversed multiple styles since her 2012 debut album, from countryish roots-rock to gleaming electronic pop. None of them forecast the ghostly and then overwhelming “Love/Lover/Friend.” Her lyrics start by listing what she’s not — someone’s mother, keeper, debt collector, puppeteer, rag doll — in a diaphanous tangle of acoustic-guitar arpeggios. Then, as she announces “I am your love,” a string orchestra surges in, and further avowals — “I am your lover,” “I am your friend” — summon massed, Balkan-tinged vocals, as if that revelation is both ecstatic and humbling. PARELES More