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Album du jour: Sam Amidon, “Lily-O”
The son of Vermont traditional music luminaries, Sam Amidon is a born and bred folkie. To judge from how natural-like he plays and sings, Amidon might well have literally grown up with a banjo on his...
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Album du jour: Steve Reich, “Radio Rewrite”
By now, it seems as if every classical musician this side of James Levine has performed a song or two by Radiohead, the influential British band whose very name has become a signifier for all that is...
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Are live musicians always better?
If you want to put a scowl on a musician’s face, bring up the issue of the increasingly frequent use of electronics to replace live musicians in music theater productions. You’d better have your...
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Albums du jour: Aphex Twin & Flying Lotus
Look who’s got a new album out — the man who taught electronica how to energize the mind as much as the limbs. Call it “Braindance” (a term he coined), IDM (“Intelligent Dance Music”) or whatever,...
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Spotify playlist: Twelve more fabulous females
They’re better by the dozen, but one dozen ain’t nearly enough. So, following up on an earlier playlist of twelve fabulous female singers, here are twelve more. Click on their images (in playlist...
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Coming up: A Luminous Choral Mass
In 1902, an 11-year old Swiss lad, the son of a Calvinist minister, attended a performance in his native Geneva of J.S. Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion.” So overcome was the musically and religiously...
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The fall classic and classical music
(QUIZ: Which great classical composer is that on the left of the photo above? Answer at the end of the blog entry.) One of the Boston Globe‘s best-known columnists had a thought-provoking piece on a...
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Album du jour: Scott Walker & Sunn O))), “Soused”
Want some music to scare the bejesus out of the trick or treaters this Halloween? Of course you do. Well, do I ever have the album for the job. And heck, you might even find it haunting your own...
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Albums du jour: The Flaming Lips & Winterpills
Consider the cover album — you know, when musical artists record albums not of originals, but of previously recorded music associated with other artists. This category, of course, includes the vast...
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Where the women are
(Left: An actress whose name I have not been able to find — help! — as Anna Magdalena Bach in the film “Composed by Mrs. Bach.” Right: Annie Clark as St. Vincent.) Have you kept up with the...
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The pianist vs. the critic
And now for the latest bit of excitement to emerge from the ever-frothy world of classical music — a case of artistic integrity, critical judgment and free speech. To which we might add the...
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Coming up: A violin for the angels
This Sunday afternoon at Sweeney Concert Hall, Smith College, Northampton, violinist Rachel Barton Pine and pianist Matthew Hagle will perform a program of three great violin sonatas (Schubert’s in A...
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Thirty years of Jazz à la Mode
Tom Reney no doubt remembers to the second how long it took me to respond to his letter of introduction in 1983. OK, so I dawdled — er, deliberated a little. In retrospect, it was time well invested...
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Album du jour: Vashti Bunyan’s “Heartleap”
About a year apart, close to a half-century ago, two young women entered London studios to record their interpretations of words and music by one of the hot young songwriting teams of the day, Mick...
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Album du jour: Marianne Faithfull’s “Give My Love to London”
“That was the worst NPR story I have heard in a long while. Hearing Faithfull’s music, especially her newer creations, made me want to jam a pair of rusty scissors into my eardrum. I have always...
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Album du jour: Mary Dullea, “Eric Craven: Piano Sonatas 7 • 8 • 9″
In America, we have our “maverick” composers, such as those profiled by conductor Michael Tilson Thomas in a concert series that also spawned one of the best music programs ever done in public radio....
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Album du jour: Deerhoof, “La Isla Bonita”
Some day, hopefully not soon, this old orb or ours will stop spinning. Then and perhaps only then will Deerhoof no longer keep putting out some of the most stimulating sounds in all of American...
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Album du jour: Elena Ruehr, “O’Keeffe Images” (Boston Modern Orchestra...
Elena Ruehr‘s music has it all going — life, line, color, pulse, depth, shade, shape. It’s inviting and welcoming, then once you’re inside, stimulates and entertains (what a concept!) to the last...
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Music of Thanksgiving — please add your own!
Here’s some music of thanks for your Thanksgiving enjoyment. Would you like to share other selections in the same spirit, in any language and genre, with fellow readers? Great! Send me links or...
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Album du jour: Brooklyn Rider, “The Brooklyn Rider Almanac”
In which Brooklyn Rider, the string quartet currently at the forefront of alt-classical music (of which this new album is paradigmatic), performs three-to-nine minute works composed for them by...
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