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    Alf Clausen, Who Gave ‘The Simpsons’ Its Musical Identity, Dies at 84

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    He created the music for hundreds of episodes over 27 seasons, spanning jazz, rock, blues and musicals. He won two Emmys and was nominated for 28 more.Alf Clausen, a composer and arranger whose songs, interludes and closing credits for hundreds of episodes of “The Simpsons” were so central to the animated sitcom’s success that its creator, Matt Groening, often called him the show’s “secret weapon,” died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 84.His daughter, Kaarin Clausen, said the cause was progressive supranuclear palsy, a brain disorder similar to Parkinson’s disease.Mr. Clausen worked on every episode of “The Simpsons” across 27 seasons, from 1990 to 2017.He did not compose the show’s memorable opening theme — that was Danny Elfman — but he was responsible for everything else, including classic musical numbers like “Who Needs the Kwik-E Mart,” “We Do (The Stonecutters’ Song),” “We Put the Spring in Springfield” and “You’re Checking In.”Mr. Clausen won Emmys for the last two songs, in 1997 and 1998. He was nominated for 19 more awards for “The Simpsons,” and was nominated nine other times for earlier work.When Mr. Groening first approached Mr. Clausen to work on the show, he demurred. He wanted to work on dramas; cartoons and comedy did not interest him.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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      At 85, Composer Annea Lockwood Is Far From Done Listening

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      Lockwood, a composer who spins music from the sounds of the natural world, is sharing with and learning from a new generation of artists.Outside Annea Lockwood’s house you could hear the sounds of a gentle breeze, rustling the leaves of her tree-lined driveway and swinging the wind chimes in her backyard. Every so often birds would interject with a bit of song over the rumble of a car down the road.“This neighborhood is a lovely, peaceful little place,” Lockwood said one morning last month. “But it has a very radical background.”Lockwood, 85, a composer of insatiable curiosity and a singular ear for the music of the natural world, lives about an hour north of Manhattan, on street named after Baron de Hirsch, a 19th-century philanthropist who sponsored the resettlement of persecuted Russian Jews. Her house was originally built for the Mohegan Colony, a community with anarchist roots. Not far away, toward the Hudson River, people attending a Paul Robeson concert were once attacked in what came to be known as the Peekskill Riots.“So this is an area with a right-wing town and a left-wing colony,” Lockwood said. “Fascinating, isn’t it?”For the last 50 years, Lockwood has lived and worked here in Crompond, N.Y., in a house that she shared with her partner, the composer Ruth Anderson, until her death in 2019. But Lockwood also spends a lot of time outdoors, especially in recent collaborations with a younger generation of musicians that have taken her on adventures along rivers like the Columbia and the Elwha.For Lockwood, listening is a way to connect with the nonhuman world. “I am seeking ways to recognize that we are part of that world, not dominant and not separate,” she said. Brian Karlsson for The New York TimesWe 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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      5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Ella Fitzgerald

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      Ella Fitzgerald, “the First Lady of Song,” had a voice so nuanced that it conveyed vast emotions within the contexts of jazz and soul with unparalleled grace and dignity.Born April 25, 1917, in Newport News, Va., she grew up in Yonkers, N.Y., working odd jobs — including one as a runner for local gamblers — then, as a teenager, she’d go to Harlem and catch shows at the Apollo. There, in 1934, she won a chance to compete in Amateur Night, and only decided to sing (she was going to dance initially) after a dance group, the Edwards Sisters, did such a great job that she needed to switch gears. Fitzgerald wowed the crowd, and from that moment, her career was set. “I knew I wanted to sing before people the rest of my life,” she once said.Ella Fitzgerald’s masterful use of scatting has been copied by vocalists the world over.National Jazz Archive/Heritage Images, via Getty ImagesBy the mid-1930s, as the frontwoman of Chick Webb’s big band, Fitzgerald started experimenting with her voice, using it as an additional horn in the group in the emerging style that became known as scatting. To this day, her masterful use of it is copied by vocalists the world over. At 21, Fitzgerald became a star with her sprightly version of “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” which sold more than one million copies. Over the next decades, she was a fixture in jazz and entertainment, touring and performing with pretty much everyone of note while cementing her own status as a cornerstone in music.Fitzgerald’s stature has only grown since then. Here are 16 songs chosen by musicians, authors, curators and scholars who admire the singer’s contributions to art and culture. Find playlists embedded below, and don’t forget to leave your own favorites in the comments.◆ ◆ ◆‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’Valerie June, musician and authorOnce Cupid’s arrow strikes, falling in love is the easy part. Staying in love is where we get one chance in a lifetime to conjure the best of ourselves with the only true love of our lives. I write this with joy in my soul and sadness in my heart as I dedicate this Ella Fitzgerald song, “Dream a Little Dream of Me,” to my brother and his wife, Rae Marie Hockett. You see, Rae Marie and Jason were high school sweethearts. I wasn’t initially sure if they were a fling or forever. But until death do us part was truly their love story. Last month, Rae passed away suddenly from heart issues at 45. Her life was short but full of love and sweetness. It was like a dream, and their passion tells the tale of longevity and beauty, as we never know how long we get to spend with those we love. Artists like Ella and Count Basie are the forces that hold us together with songs. Once the curtain closes, it might feel like a dream, but every time we hear the song, it reminds us that every moment is real. While my heart beautifully breaks with grief and loss, “Dream a Little Dream of Me” is from Ella to Rae Marie. Love true, love hard, love and let go — it will come back to you.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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      Guy Klucevsek, Multi-Genre Accordion Virtuoso, Is Dead at 78

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      He elevated his instrument’s often-maligned reputation with deft musicianship, and by writing and commissioning a wide range of music.Guy Klucevsek, a masterly accordion player who developed an eclectic body of work for his beloved, if sometimes mocked, instrument that expanded its repertoire well beyond polkas and other traditional fare, died on May 22 at his home on Staten Island. He was 78.His wife and only immediate survivor, Jan (Gibson) Klucevsek, said the cause was pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer.Praise for Mr. Klucevsek (pronounced kloo-SEV-ek) typically noted that he had elevated the profile of the accordion beyond the realms of beer halls and “The Lawrence Welk Show.”Writing in The Village Voice in 2015 about a series of performances by Mr. Klucevsek in the East Village, Richard Gehr noted that, “having mastered the instrument in virtually all of its classical, modern, jazz and international manifestations,” Mr. Klucevsek “has extended it into another dimension altogether.”Mr. Klucevsek performed with the dancer Claire Porter at the Kitchen in Manhattan in 2000.Hiroyuki Ito/Getty ImagesHe recorded more than 20 albums, composed dozens of pieces and commissioned others, in multiple genres. He accompanied the performance artist Laurie Anderson on her 1994 album, “Bright Red,” and collaborated with the dancer Maureen Fleming on “B. Madonna,” a 2013 multimedia piece based on the myth of Persephone.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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      Yasunao Tone Dead: Experimental Composer and Fluxus Artist Was 90

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      A Japanese-born multimedia artist whose associates included John Cage and Yoko Ono, he pushed digital music past its breaking point.Yasunao Tone, an experimental composer and multimedia artist associated with the Fluxus movement who used manipulations of digital technology to turn digital technology against itself, including a 48-minute exercise in aural endurance made up of squawks and bleeps from a mangled compact disc, died on May 12 in Manhattan. He was 90.His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by Artists Space, a New York contemporary art nonprofit that presented a retrospective of his career in 2023.Before moving to New York City in the early 1970s, Mr. Tone, a native of Tokyo, was a founding member of Group Ongaku, a groundbreaking free-improvisation ensemble, and of Team Random, an early computer art collective.He became an influential figure in the Japanese wing of Fluxus, the loose-knit avant-garde movement that began in the early 1960s, whose members included John Cage, the experimental composer; Nam June Paik, the video art pioneer; and Yoko Ono, the conceptual artist. All of those artists influenced his work.Mr. Tone, left, performing in 1976 with Suzanne Fletcher.via the Estate of Yasunao ToneWhatever the medium, the guiding principle of Fluxus was to “promote a revolutionary flood and tide in art, promote living art, anti-art,” as its founder, the artist George Maciunas, once put it.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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      South by Southwest London Has Its Own Musical Touch

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      The festival, which has a long association with music, presents an opportunity for London acts to perform on a bigger stage.When South by Southwest first began in Austin, Texas, in 1987, the Shoreditch neighborhood in East London was still filled with empty warehouses. But it was beginning to attract a wave of artists who would help it eventually become synonymous with music and culture.Almost 40 years later, this area will be the site of South by Southwest London, the organization’s first foray into Europe. And for some of the London-born musicians who are performing, it’s a huge opportunity that also reflects the area’s reputation and artistic cachet.“It’s super exciting that it’s now finally arriving on home soil,” said Joel Bailey, an R&B and soul artist from Southwest London whose stage name is BAELY. He continued: “London’s got so many different hubs of, kind of like pockets of creative spaces and Shoreditch is definitely one of them. It’s thriving.”Jojo Orme, who performs as Heartworms, was born in London and said she briefly lived in Shoreditch. “They just have the fingers on the pulse there. It’s always beating,” she said, adding that “so many people love to travel to Shoreditch for a show because it’s always a good time.”Jojo Orme, who performs as Heartworms, said people flock to shows in vibrant Shoreditch, the festival’s home base. “They just have the fingers on the pulse there.”@kate.samsara.photographySouth by Southwest London, which begins on Monday and runs through June 7, will feature performances by more than 500 artists across about 30 venues as part of its music festival. It will also include a film and conference series, just like the flagship festival in Austin. An Asia-Pacific branch of the event started in Sydney in 2023.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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      It’s Still South by Southwest, but This Time It’s in London

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      The music, tech and film festival, long known for being in Austin, Texas, expands to Europe for the first time.The artist known as Beeple set a record in 2021 when a work of his — a collage of 5,000 images that existed only as a digital file — sold for $69.3 million in a Christie’s auction.Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, is one of the artists participating in the inaugural edition of South by Southwest London, the music, film and tech festival. This time, he is presenting “The Tree of Knowledge,” a critique of the human addiction to smartphones.“People don’t fully recognize how much their phone is stressing them out,” and how much they’re “dialing up the noise,” Beeple said in a phone interview. “They could make the choice to dial down the noise, and just put their phone down, and exist in a much more calm state in which technology still exists.”The work is a refrigerator-size box containing a giant tree (recreated via projection mapping), with screens on all sides, and a large dial. When viewers turn the dial, the box is covered with live news, stock prices and data, illustrating the information overload faced by humanity.“The Tree of Knowledge” by Beeple (Mike Winklemann) is designed to address humans’ addiction to smart phones. It features four video screens arranged in rectangular pillars with imagery generated from a variety of real-time data.Tree of Knowledge/Beeple Studios The owner of the Tree of Knowledge can control the work further by pressing a “choose violence” button, which initiates a violent state for several minutes before destroying the tree. The tree regenerates when the violence ends.Beeple Studios“The Tree of Knowledge” encapsulates the spirit of South by Southwest London, which begins on Monday and runs through June 7. The event will feature a diverse group of speakers, including the ABBA singer-songwriter Bjorn Ulvaeus, the actor Idris Elba, the wellness and meditation expert Deepak Chopra, the primatologist Jane Goodall and the comedian Katherine Ryan. There will also be voices from the technology world, including Demis Hassabis, co-founder of Google’s DeepMind lab and co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry; and Alex Kendall, the chief executive of Wayve, a developer of artificial intelligence systems for self-driving cars.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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      As ‘Pretty Little Baby’ Goes Viral, Connie Francis Is Joining TikTok

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      With a forgotten song becoming an unlikely hit, the 87-year-old singer is happy to be back in the spotlight.Sixty-four years ago, Connie Francis recorded “Pretty Little Baby” as one of dozens of songs in a marathon recording session that yielded three albums within two weeks. It did not, at the time, feel like a song that had the makings of a hit, so it landed on the B-side of the 1962 single “I’m Gonna Be Warm This Winter” that was released in Britain. Since then, it was more or less overlooked.Then came TikTok and its canny ability to resurrect decades-old songs for a new generation.Over the last few weeks, “Pretty Little Baby” has been trending on the social media app — it has been featured as the sound in more than 600,000 TikTok posts and soared to top spots in Spotify’s Viral 50 global and U.S. lists — bolstered by celebrities and influencers, like Nara Smith, Kylie Jenner, and Kim Kardashian and her daughter North, who have posted videos of themselves lip-syncing to it.The ABBA singer Agnetha Fältskog used the song for a clip on TikTok in which she said Ms. Francis had long been her favorite singer. And the Broadway actress Gracie Lawrence, who is currently playing Ms. Francis in “Just in Time” — a play about Bobby Darin, Ms. Francis’s onetime romantic partner — also posted a video of herself lip-syncing to it, in her 1960s costume and hair.The song’s current popularity is an unexpected twist to Ms. Francis’s long and illustrious career. In 1960, she became the first female singer to top the Billboard Hot 100 and, by the time she was 26 years old, she had sold 42 million records and had two more singles top the Billboard charts. But this particular song, which she recorded in seven different languages, remained so obscure that Ms. Francis, 87, told People magazine that she had forgotten ever recording it.Amid the frenzy of the unexpected attention, Ms. Francis is trying to figure out how to turn this sudden attention into opportunities for herself. She and her publicist, Ron Roberts, enlisted Mr. Roberts’s son to help them set up a TikTok account for her and, in a phone interview on Thursday, she said she had been mulling the idea of emerging from retirement to do some kind of show in the next few months.This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.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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      Ute Lemper Still Sings Songs of Rebellion. The Stakes Are Still High.

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      The German-born cabaret performer’s latest album celebrates the 125th anniversary of Kurt Weill’s birth, yoking classics to the language of today’s music.“Welcome to Weimar — to the year 2025,” Ute Lemper announced.The German-born singer and actress was greeting friends and colleagues who had squeezed into the Birdsong Society’s small headquarters by Gramercy Park to hear her perform songs from her latest album, which celebrates Kurt Weill, a composer Lemper has championed for four decades.Sliding into the album’s title number, “Pirate Jenny,” Lemper got even closer to a listener who had been standing just a few feet away, fixing him with a snarling grin. Featured in “The Threepenny Opera,” the most celebrated of Weill’s noted collaborations with the playwright Bertolt Brecht, the tune has been covered by artists from Nina Simone to Judy Collins. It’s also the only standard written from the perspective of a hotel maid waiting for a ship of pirates to arrive and, at her behest, murder all the guests.“It’s a song about revolution and rebellion,” Lemper explained in an interview before the event. The singer is less intimidating in conversation than she is when channeling bloodlust. She’ll turn 62 in July, and with her long, lean frame and impossibly high cheekbones, she still projects the cool beauty of a runway model.Lemper was perceived as something of a rebel herself, at least in her native country, when Decca Records released “Ute Lemper Sings Kurt Weill” in 1988. The album, which evolved from “a little fringe record I made in Berlin” a couple of years earlier, earned Lemper an international fan base — with one notable exception.“The Germans hated it,” Lemper recalled. “They weren’t interested in speaking about the past.” Decca’s chief executive at the time, Roland Kommerell, German himself, had started a project dedicated to bringing back music that had been banned under the Nazis, including classical symphonies and Weimar-era cabaret songs — music composed by Jews who were persecuted or, like Weill, forced into exile.“It was a huge chapter to rip open; it was still bleeding at the time,” Lemper said. “And suddenly, I was in the position to have to respond to hundreds of journalists about this music. I became almost the representative of my generation, the Cold War generation, in Germany.”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