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    Review: The Philharmonic’s Conductor Returns to His Perch

    Jaap van Zweden led the orchestra after seven weeks away in works by Julia Perry, Shostakovich and Beethoven.He’s back: After six weeks of guest conductors — including some prominent contenders to succeed him as music director when he leaves in two years — Jaap van Zweden returned to the New York Philharmonic on Thursday.And he’s back, too: A month after swooping into Carnegie Hall as a last-minute replacement for an artist with ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the pianist Seong-Jin Cho was once again in Manhattan.They joined at Alice Tully Hall for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor,” its opening orchestral chord full and rounded; the balances between the strings and the winds, which had heavily favored the violins at Tully earlier this season, equitable; the tempos judicious.Cho, who played a tour date with the Philharmonic in 2019 but on Thursday made his subscription series debut, was most memorable when most delicate: his silvery playing under the horn just after his cadenza in the first movement; his gentleness in the questioning chords wandering from the second movement to the third; his shimmering trills at the end of the piece.His forcefulness in his right hand sometimes tipped into rawness — which, in passages of worried repetition, added an intriguing note of obsessiveness but otherwise felt too steely for such an intimate space. In the Rondo finale, though, he and the orchestra shared a graceful mixture of lightness and weight.In 1965, the Philharmonic premiered the final version of Julia Perry’s “Study for Orchestra,” but hadn’t reprised it until a one-off last year. Also known by an earlier title, “A Short Piece for Orchestra,” it is certainly that: Barely seven minutes long, it opens punchily, with heated strings and sardonic brasses, then enters a slower section of poetic winds and quietly suspended harmonies. The music turns blocky and dramatic again, with the vehemence of a Bernard Herrmann film score, before a softening ensemble, with touches of celesta and piano, is surprised by a brief, fierce coda.Perry’s “Study” felt connected — across the Beethoven concerto and the intermission that followed — to Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony, another work whose swaths of high spirits are tinged with a bit too much aggression, a clenched grin. And both pieces relax into melancholy passages of seeming sincerity, haunted by eerie mists.Shostakovich wrote it as World War II came to an end, and originally planned something huge and triumphant, akin to Beethoven’s full-chorus Ninth. When he delivered a slighter, merrier piece, less than half an hour long, some were charmed, while others — including, dangerously, officials in Stalin’s government — felt he had failed to meet the historic moment.The degree to which the music is ironic — its bubbly passages even politically subversive — is unclear, a familiar ambiguity from a composer adept at playing all the angles. Its sprightliness in a sober time recalls Prokofiev’s “Classical” Symphony, written three decades earlier, which the Philharmonic played under van Zweden in February.Sharp, precise performances of this kind of repertory are the main reason van Zweden — known in past positions as a martinet of polish — was hired, and the orchestra played on Thursday with pep and something close to unity. The slower sections were particularly impressive, with icy waves of violin, brasses ominously smoldering, Anthony McGill’s clarinet aching and Judith LeClair’s bassoon offering eloquent humanity, without schmaltz.What are the piece’s politics? The jury is, and always will be, out.But playing the work makes its own political statement as Putin went on television on Friday to decry what he called instances of the West canceling Russian composers like Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff to protest his invasion of Ukraine. This is, of course, largely his fantasy, a message of division meant to rally his people against phantoms he imagines to be demeaning and destroying Russia’s cultural heritage.For the Philharmonic to play this Ninth Symphony — and, next week, Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev — is a gesture, however small, against that message.New York PhilharmonicThis program repeats through Saturday at Alice Tully Hall, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More

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    5 Classical Music Albums to Hear Right Now

    Listen to Anna Netrebko’s new solo recording, Brahms clarinet and piano works, and Renaissance quartet arrangements.‘Amata dalle Tenebre’Anna Netrebko, soprano; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala; Riccardo Chailly, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)The soprano Anna Netrebko has always been more satisfying in person — her voice blooms in the vast space of an opera house — than on recordings, where her super-wide vibrato feels, in close-up, less expressive than unsteady. On her new solo album she struggles to sustain the long, lush lines of “Es gibt ein Reich,” from “Ariadne auf Naxos”; soft phrases waver in “Ritorna vincitor” (“Aida”) and “When I am laid in earth” (“Dido and Aeneas”); “Un bel dì,” from “Madama Butterfly,” is shaky from start to finish; high notes are difficult throughout. She endures “Einsam in trüben Tagen” (“Lohengrin”) with steely determination, and the exuberant “Dich, teure Halle” (“Tannhäuser”) similarly seems to press her to her limits.But there is still time for Netrebko, 50, to do a staged “Queen of Spades,” excerpted with focused passion here. And the “Liebestod” from “Tristan und Isolde,” while audibly challenging for her, is movingly — and, at moments, ecstatically — negotiated. Given a meaty stretch to shine in the “Tristan” prelude, the orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, under its music director, Riccardo Chailly, is otherwise mellow and very much in the background. “Sola, perduta, abbandonata” (“Manon Lescaut”) and especially “Tu che le vanità” (“Don Carlo”) convey, with generous, fiery, largely secure singing, the urgency of Netrebko’s best live performances. ZACHARY WOOLFEBach, HandelSabine Devieilhe, soprano; Pygmalion; Raphaël Pichon, conductor (Erato)Recorded in a Paris church days after a lockdown in France ended last December, this moving release of Bach cantatas and Handel arias is surely one of the most affecting albums to emerge from the pandemic. Opening with the soprano Sabine Devieilhe and the lutenist Thomas Dunford bewailing Christ’s agonies on the cross in the song “Mein Jesu! was vor Seelenweh,” and ending in a blaze of trumpet-topped praise with the “Alleluja” that concludes the cantata “Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen,” the album’s narrative arc — from sinfulness and repentance to faith and joy — is immensely satisfying.Much of that is because of the supreme detailing that Pichon (Devieilhe’s husband) draws from his starry ensemble Pygmalion, including the benediction that Dunford wraps around Cleopatra in “Piangerò,” the second of her laments from “Giulio Cesare”; Matthieu Boutineau’s feistily impulsive organ solo in the sinfonia from “Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal”; and the ethereal, almost cleansing violin of Sophie Gent in “Tu del Ciel ministro eletto,” the heart-stopping plea for mercy from “Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno.” Devieilhe is at the core of it all, wielding her voice with flashing sharpness one moment, crushing tenderness the next. DAVID ALLEN‘Here With You’Anthony McGill, clarinet; Gloria Chien, piano (Cedille)Brahms had all but decided to retire from composing when, in the early 1890s, he became friendly with the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld and was inspired to write a series of major works, including two clarinet sonatas that have long been mainstays of the repertory.Anthony McGill, the New York Philharmonic’s principal clarinet, and the splendid pianist Gloria Chien offer vibrant and insightful performances of the sonatas on their new album. These works, like much of late Brahms, can come across as weighty and thick-textured, but this duo brings wonderful transparency to the scores. Even in dark, stormy episodes, McGill and Chien play with unforced fervor and eloquence.Particularly impressive is the way they convey the coherence of the final movement of the second sonata, written as a theme and variations — music that often seems awkwardly intricate, with curious turns and twists. The album also includes a glowing account of Jessie Montgomery’s mellow “Peace,” as well as an ebullient, dazzling yet unshowy performance of Weber’s virtuosic Grand Duo Concertant, which here sounds aptly grand. ANTHONY TOMMASINI‘Of All Joys’Attacca Quartet (Sony Classical)The Attacca Quartet’s name comes from the musical term for playing without a pause. And the group seems to be taking that literally: Their new album, “Of All Joys,” is their second this year after releasing their Sony Classical debut, “Real Life,” in July.“Real Life” was a shot of adrenaline, an electronic dance record that remixed music by the likes of Flying Lotus and took a refreshingly broad view of the string quartet form. “Of All Joys” — a juxtaposition of Renaissance arrangements and contemporary works by Arvo Pärt and Philip Glass — couldn’t be more different, yet its conceptual swerve from “Real Life” is fitting for an ensemble equally comfortable in Haydn and Caroline Shaw.Glass’s “Mishima” Quartet is the only proper string quartet on the new album, which takes its title from a line in the John Dowland song “Flow My Tears.” The rest is adaptation — an insistence on the elasticity of music, borne out with rich, organ-like sonorities in pieces like the Dowland or John Bennet’s “Weep, O Mine Eyes.”With a teeming “Mishima” at its heart, the album is also a testament to how few ingredients are needed to inspire emotional intensity — as in the players’ sudden shifts, during that quartet’s final movement, between churning arpeggios and streaks of lyricism. At the end of Pärt’s frosty “Fratres,” you might find yourself trying to reconcile the album’s title with its solemn sound world. But perhaps joy is something beyond mood; it may simply lie in the making of, and listening to, music. JOSHUA BARONE‘Phoenix’Stewart Goodyear, piano (Bright Shiny Things)Not many artists would place Mussorgsky, Debussy, Jennifer Higdon and Anthony Davis on the same album. But the pianist Stewart Goodyear intriguingly locates in all of them — as well as in two pieces by Goodyear himself, inspired by his Trinidadian roots — the fundamental influence of Liszt.Goodyear’s playing here has both virtuosic flash and deeply considered feeling. When approaching Davis’s “Middle Passage” — after the poem of the same name by Robert Hayden — he handles the more improvisatory sections with a pugilistic force indebted to Davis’s own 1980s reading on the Gramavision label. But Goodyear also treats Davis with a meditative touch that calls to mind the lush rendition of “Middle Passage” recorded by Ursula Oppens, who commissioned the piece.The final line of Hayden’s poem, “Voyage through death to life upon these shores,” gives a sense of the emotional range of the rest of the album. Selections from Debussy gambol and ruminate; Higdon’s “Secret and Glass Gardens” moves from a guarded interiority to brash, attention-grabbing declarations. And Goodyear’s performance of Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” likewise covers much ground, including a delightful “Ballet of Unhatched Chicks” and a stately “Great Gate of Kiev.” SETH COLTER WALLS More

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    Review: At the Philharmonic, Contemporary Is King for a Week

    Music by Missy Mazzoli, Anthony Davis and John Adams was conducted by Dalia Stasevska, in her debut with the orchestra.You could hear a tantalizing possible future for the New York Philharmonic on Wednesday evening at Alice Tully Hall — as well as some of the orchestra’s present difficulties. The program at Tully, one of the Philharmonic’s bases as David Geffen Hall is renovated this season, featured three contemporary works. One was by the safely canonized John Adams, the other two by names newer to Philharmonic audiences: Missy Mazzoli and Anthony Davis.Not that either of the two is really unknown. Both have been tapped for premieres at the Metropolitan Opera in the coming years — for Davis, the belated Met debut of his “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” from the 1980s, and for Mazzoli, a new adaptation of George Saunders’s novel “Lincoln in the Bardo.” But until this week, neither had been played on a Philharmonic subscription program.Their works landed with persuasive panache on Wednesday, aided by powerful but never overly brash conducting by Dalia Stasevska, also making her Philharmonic debut. But there were some problems with the overall sound. The sonic glare of Tully, generally a home for chamber music rather than larger-scale contemporary symphonic repertory, sometimes worked against the haunted sensuality of Mazzoli’s “Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres),” written in 2013 and revised three years later.Stasevska fostered warmth whenever possible, shaping the 12-minute piece’s transfers of elegantly gloomy melodic ornaments from section to section of the ensemble with care and relish. And when a small army of harmonicas gently peeked out from behind the work’s often mournful textures, they glimmered delicately. Stasevska also found moments to collaborate with the bright harshness of Tully’s acoustic, allowing herself a leap and a stomp on the podium during one transition between a string glissando and a full-orchestra blast. Call it fighting the hall to a draw.Davis’s 25-minute, four-movement clarinet concerto “You Have the Right to Remain Silent,” written in 2006 and revised in 2011, fared more unevenly. The superbly varied work was inspired by a time that Davis, who is Black, was pulled over by the police while driving in Boston in the 1970s. Amid the dense music, he sometimes asks the players to recite portions of the Miranda warning. (On a recording by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, this is done in a deadened Sprechstimme.)On Wednesday, the Philharmonic did well by the concerto’s debt to Charles Mingus in passages of gravelly extended technique and others of deceptively breezy swing — and, as with Mingus, at the intersection of the two.But the initial vocalization of the Miranda text wasn’t quite crisp enough, slightly deflating the dramatic stakes. And the frenetic cello figures that followed lacked the tight ensemble necessary to suggest the first movement’s title: “Interrogation.”Yet the soloist, the Philharmonic’s principal clarinetist Anthony McGill, excelled in the grave material for contra-alto clarinet in the second movement, “Loss,” while his sound turned more arid amid more assaultive music in the third movement, “Incarceration.” The sly final movement, “The Dance of the Other,” felt the most inspired. There’s a satirical edge to this music, but in lingering, affecting phrases McGill also evoked a fully sincere yearning to travel from the grimness of interrogation, loss and incarceration.With its febrile mixture of influences from Minimalism, Hindemith’s pellucid peculiarity and classic cartoons, Adams’s 22-minute Chamber Symphony for 15 musicians, from 1992 — which the Philharmonic has played just once before, in 2000 — needs subtlety as well as brio. On Wednesday the middle movement, “Aria With Walking Bass,” was more plodding than witty. But an energetic “Roadrunner” finale was a saving grace. (And McGill deserves plaudits for playing the fiendish piece right after the Davis concerto, and without any intermission.)Philharmonic audiences will get more Adams soon, and in more welcoming acoustics, when the orchestra plays his Saxophone Concerto at Carnegie Hall in January. But here’s hoping we also hear more of Davis’s music; how about his piano concerto “Wayang V,” with its composer as soloist? And more Mazzoli, too. Hopefully both will be frequent presences once the Philharmonic returns to Geffen Hall next season. Refreshed acoustics do only so much; Davis and Mazzoli can be part of a refreshed repertoire.New York PhilharmonicThis program continues through Saturday at Alice Tully Hall, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More

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    I Found Myself at Band Camp

    A concert in the morning, then a rehearsal in the afternoon. Bringing your violin outside to practice under the trees, and studying scores before bed.

    Summer is a time of exploration and self-discovery for all kinds of young people. But for budding musicians, band and orchestra camp can be especially transformative.

    It’s their first full immersion in their instrument; an opportunity to meet others who love Beethoven, Barber and bowing technique as much as they do; and a taste of what life as a player might actually be like.

    Here is a glimpse of the 11- to 15-year-old campers this summer in the intermediate division at Interlochen Center for the Arts in Northern Michigan, learning about Mozart and themselves.

    Their schedule includes both regular camp activities (like capture the flag and cleaning the bunk) and, well, less regular ones, like chatting with fellow eighth graders about phrasing in a Mendelssohn quartet.

    This is Anika Patel’s sixth summer at Interlochen. “People are really, really serious about their music here, which I really like.”

    “Living with the people you play with is a different experience,” Trinity Williamson, who plays violin, said.

    “There’s a lot of playful competitiveness.”

    Anthony McGill, the principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic, credits Interlochen with showing him what being a musician could be like. “This was the first time I had that level of performances every week, that whole sense of what a regular schedule would be,” he recalled.

    “I was like a professional musician, but I was 11.”

    Román Berris is from Venezuela and took up the oboe when he was 5. “The instrument was really big for me.”

    He was playing first oboe in a recent concert when the conductor told him to stand up after a solo. “All my friends were in the audience, and the ones playing with me, they were clapping for me,” he said.

    “I just met them like five days before, and we were so close.”

    As the intermediate orchestra’s concertmaster, Tai Caputo got to conduct the Interlochen theme song, played after every concert. After being isolated for a year and a half it was even more special.

    “Everyone knew that our time with each other to make music is just really precious.”

    Diamond Ramos played trombone in an ensemble. After six hours of class each day, she also enjoyed making s’mores and going boating.

    Chloe Wyruch is a third-generation camper. “If you’re in your school band, some people’s parents might be making them do it,” she said. “But at Interlochen, everybody is super excited and into it.”

    Looking back, McGill from the New York Philharmonic said, camp “was the first time I was away from home, and it was eight weeks, so I was homesick, but I was able to make serious lifelong friends.”

    Liszt’s “Les Préludes” always closes out the summer. And by then, he said, “everyone is crying.” More

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    10 Classical Concerts to Stream in March

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeWatch: ‘WandaVision’Travel: More SustainablyFreeze: Homemade TreatsCheck Out: Podcasters’ Favorite PodcastsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story10 Classical Concerts to Stream in MarchMitsuko Uchida, the Louisiana Philharmonic and a performance organized by Teju Cole are among the highlights.The pianist Mitsuko Uchida will stream a Schubert program this month through Cal Performances.Credit…Hiroyuki Ito for The New York TimesFeb. 25, 2021, 10:00 a.m. ETAs the live performing arts continue to struggle through the coronavirus pandemic, here are 10 highlights from the flood of online music content coming in March. (Times listed are Eastern.)‘Die Tote Stadt’Feb. 28 at 1 p.m.; operavision.eu; available through March 28.Korngold’s breakthrough opera has not been well served on DVD. Some productions emphasize the plot’s salaciousness at the expense of its musical beauty. For others, the problem is the reverse. If anyone can achieve the delicate balance of the two elements, it’s the experienced director Robert Carsen, whose production of the rapturous, late Romantic score — a precursor to Korngold’s influential Hollywood work — appeared at the Komische Oper in Berlin in 2018, and is streaming now. The soprano Sara Jakubiak stars, and has made something of a specialty of Korngold in recent years, including appearing in another recent Berlin staging, at the Deutsche Oper, of “Das Wunder der Heliane.” SETH COLTER WALLSTeju Cole and Orchestra of St. Luke’sMarch 3 at 6:30 p.m.; oslmusic.org; available until March 10.This ensemble, which has responded robustly and creatively to the constraints of streamed performance, begins a new words-and-music series, “Sounds and Stories,” with a program organized by the writer Teju Cole and hosted by the actor David Hyde Pierce. Cole will read selections from his work alongside visual elements and pieces by an eclectic array of composers: Caroline Shaw, Yvette Janine Jackson, Henryk Gorecki, Unsuk Chin, Kaija Saariaho and Hildegard von Bingen. Oh, and Beethoven. ZACHARY WOOLFEAnthony McGill will collaborate with the Catalyst Quartet on a performance presented by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Credit…Hiroyuki Ito for The New York TimesAnthony McGillMarch 9 at 7 p.m.; Facebook and YouTube; available indefinitely.“Cadence: The Sounds of Justice, the Sounds of a Movement,” presented by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has been organized by Anthony McGill, the New York Philharmonic’s principal clarinet and the latest winner of the Avery Fisher Prize. Inspired by the Great Migration and works in the museum’s collection, McGill is joined by the Catalyst Quartet, with whom he collaborated on the group’s album “Uncovered, Vol. 1: Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.” They will play Coleridge-Taylor’s Clarinet Quintet in F sharp minor alongside Kerry James Marshall’s 2014 painting “Untitled (Studio),” and a premiere by Richard Danielpour, in front of Philip Guston’s “Stationary Figure” (1973). Closing the concert will be Adolphus Hailstork’s solo “Three Smiles for Tracey,” juxtaposed with Joel Shapiro’s sculpture “Untitled” (2000-01). JOSHUA BARONESteven BanksMarch 10 at 7:30 p.m.; Facebook and YouTube; available indefinitely.This adventurous saxophonist and composer presents his debut recital for the organization Young Concert Artists, which named him the winner of its prestigious international auditions competition in 2019. The program, with the pianist Xak Bjerken, includes premieres by Carlos Simon and Saad Haddad and Banks’s own new work “Come As You Are.” He will also perform Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F (with members of the Zorá Quartet) and Schumann’s “Fantasiestücke” for Clarinet and Piano — both arranged for saxophone. And why not? The sax, after all, is a latter-day cousin of both those instruments. ANTHONY TOMMASINILouisiana Philharmonic OrchestraMarch 12 at 8 p.m.; lpomusic.com; available through September.There are two Copland works on this program: “Appalachian Spring” and the Clarinet Concerto. But the bigger news is the performance of Courtney Bryan’s violin concerto “Syzygy,” featuring Jennifer Koh as soloist. The Louisiana players have a longstanding connection with Bryan’s music; having performed her orchestral work “Rejoice,” they’ve also named this composer-pianist a “creative partner.” So they may well have a feel for her take on Americana, which often includes elements of spirituals and the blues. (Bryan’s “Blessed,” a commission for Opera Philadelphia’s online channel, is also streaming from Feb. 26.) SETH COLTER WALLSThe mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey performs Kurt Weill at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.Credit…Victor Llorente for The New York TimesKate LindseyMarch 14 at 2 p.m.; teatroallascala.org, as well as YouTube and Facebook; available through March 21.One of my favorite albums in recent years has been “Thousands of Miles,” a program mostly of Kurt Weill songs performed by the mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey and the pianist Baptiste Trotignon with cabaret-like cool; Lindsey brings to these works both the radiant lyricism of Teresa Stratas and the raw Sprechstimme of Lotte Lenya, two iconic Weill interpreters. That album is the basis for this recital with Trotignon at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, where Lindsey will also appear in March for a double bill of Weill’s “The Seven Deadly Sins” and “Mahagonny-Songspiel,” conducted by Riccardo Chailly and streaming on RaiPlay on March 18. JOSHUA BARONEMitsuko UchidaMarch 18 at 10 p.m.; calperformances.org; available through June 16.For Mitsuko Uchida, Schubert’s piano works have been a lifelong work in progress, which is why, years after she recorded the bulk of them, they are still well worth hearing anew — lately, in online recitals. From Wigmore Hall in London she recently streamed the Sonata in C (D. 840) for the Cleveland Orchestra. Next is this program for Cal Performances, featuring the forlorn yet tender Impromptu in A flat (D. 935); the famous Impromptu in C minor (D. 899), with its spare, enigmatic opening march embellished through chords and variations; and the Sonata in G (D. 894), a font of serenity that’s as good a spiritual balm as anything right now. JOSHUA BARONESarah CahillMarch 20 at 10:30 p.m.; YouTube; available indefinitely.A champion of American music and living composers, this pianist is also known as host of the popular program Revolutions Per Minutes on KALW in San Francisco. This recital, presented by the Community School of Music and Arts in Mountain View, Calif., is a celebration of the 19th Amendment, and includes works by female composers from the 18th century to the present day, among them Clara Schumann, Amy Beach, Margaret Bonds and Vitezslava Kapralova. ANTHONY TOMMASINICaramoor will stream a recital by the bass-baritone Dashon Burton, left.Credit…Hiroyuki Ito for The New York TimesDashon BurtonMarch 21 at 3 p.m.; caramoor.org; available until March 23.Known as a member of the contemporary vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth as much as for trumpeting performances in Handel’s “Messiah,” this burnished-tone bass-baritone appears in recital with the pianist David Fung under the auspices of Caramoor. The program includes Schumann’s “Dichterliebe” as well as spirituals and works by Dowland, Margaret Bonds, Florence Price and William Bolcom. ZACHARY WOOLFELouisville OrchestraMarch 27 at 7:30 p.m.; louisvilleorchestra.vhx.tv; available until May 23.The exuberance of this ensemble and its young music director, Teddy Abrams, is captured in its name for its streaming series: Louisville Orchestra Virtual Edition, or LOVE. Installments explore Classical and folk styles, and, on March 27, the legacy of Black traditions. Abrams conducts from the keyboard in Ravel’s jazz-influenced Piano Concerto in G, and the local rapper, activist, teacher and Louisville Metro Council member Jecorey Arthur performs. ZACHARY WOOLFEAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More