Music
This first-rate performance highlights the special attractions of the “half-serious” operatic genre.
Forty years down the line, looking both backward and forward with its latest formation, Gang of Four still knew how to live a bit dangerously.
Boston’s 15-year-old Guerilla Opera releases a recording of a fresh take on the old Grimm Brothers tale, to haunting, ritualistic music for four singers and four players.
With their shifting textures and compositional variety, the relatively short pieces show the ways — in this case mostly gentle and lyrical — five musicians can fruitfully interact.
If you are not familiar with Wadada Leo Smith as an artist or as a thinker, you could start with The Chicago Symphonies and know that you are engaging with some of his finest work.
Frank Zappa didn’t like being interviewed, but he sure enjoyed having a chat.
Conductor Klaus Mäkelä may be young, but, on the merits of this set, he sure seems to be the real deal. Buckle up: this ought to be an exciting career.
Regardless of what’s to come, Ants From Up There represents a dizzying creative apex for Black Country, New Road.
Both experimental and welcoming, the double album proves more spontaneous in feel and expansive in style than past Big Thief outings.
It has been a long time since I last felt this passionately about a new artist as I do about The Beths.
Cultural Commentary: Death by Incorporation — Why Do Bean-Counters Run Arts Boards?