Music Features

Tenor Curtis Bannister sings the role of Stan in Beethoven's Fidelio, in a dress rehearsal.

Prison choirs sing in a reboot of Beethoven's opera about unjust incarceration

5:21pm February 19, 2022

by Anastasia Tsioulcas

A New York City opera company created an updated version of Fidelio for the Black Lives Matter era. The performance features singers who are incarcerated in real life.

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Music & Culture

Big Thief spreads its bets

4:00pm February 18, 2022

For a new long-player of an album, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, the four members of Big Thief decided to let the spaces they were recording in help shape the record's creative direction.

"Small," as he was widely known, played a homemade kologo (a 2-string lute)— with dog tags attached to the end for rattles.

Remembering 'Small,' the funeral singer who made joyful music in the face of death

3:41pm February 17, 2022

by Ian Brennan

The Ghanaian singer would vocalize and dance all night long to send off the departed. On the verge of his long awaited first trip to perform abroad, he has died, reportedly of COVID.

Lee Morgan was killed in 1972, tragedy cutting short the life and career of the prolific and celebrated jazz musician. Nearly 50 years later, one fan discovered that Morgan's resting place seemed to have vanished.

Music & Culture

How a jazz legend's resting place was lost and found, 50 years after his tragic death

10:20am February 16, 2022

by Nate Chinen

Though the trumpeter Lee Morgan was killed in 1972, his legacy was well maintained. At least it seemed so, until one fan discovered last year that Morgan's gravesite seemed to have vanished.

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Composer Germaine Franco attends the world premiere of Encanto at Hollywood's El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood in November 2021.

Sure, 'Encanto' has fun songs and a sweet story. But Germaine Franco made it groove

11:51am February 15, 2022

by Tim Greiving

She's the first woman to score a Disney animated feature, and a history-making Oscar nominee. But most importantly, Franco is a drummer, who brings a jam-band attitude to a by-the-book industry.

Music & Culture

Game was her middle name: The world was never ready for Betty Davis

7:00am February 13, 2022

by Oliver Wang

Raucous, outspoken and empowered, Davis, who died last week at 77, always knew what she wanted her music to be — raw — and she took control of her career in an era when few Black women could.

The members of Brassville. From left, back row, standing: Jonathon Neal, MarVelous Brown, Derrick Greene, Adrian Pollard, Nate McDowell; seated on bench: Marcus Chandler and Rashad Sylvester; center, seated on ground: Larry Jenkins, Jr.

Brassville aims to reclaim the deep scope of Nashville music history, stage by stage

8:13am February 12, 2022

by Jewly Hight

A contemporary brass band that grew out of one of Nashville's historically Black universities is helping to expand the lost musical identity of the country capital.

Jacob Collier: A playful approach to creating music

3:59pm February 11, 2022

Grammy winner Jacob Collier has been called a musical phenomenon; his work is full of joy and spontaneity. He makes a case for why we should emphasize play, passion, and curiosity over practice.

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Blue Sprocket Pressing in Harrisonburg, Va. has brought a renewed capacity for manufacturing of vinyl records in the region.

Music & Culture

How Blue Sprocket Pressing put Virginia on the vinyl map

12:35pm February 09, 2022

by Desiré Moses

Central Virginia boasts no shortage of recording studios and venues, but it's a vinyl manufacturing operation in Harrisonburg that's put Virginia' s music scene on the map in a whole new way.

Reconsidering Scott Joplin's 'The Entertainer'

1:03pm February 07, 2022

by Lara Downes

The king of ragtime published his hit tune 120 years ago. Pianist Lara Downes believes the piece helped shape the future of American music.

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