New music
How ambient is changing classical music.
The permanent revisions of Peter Eötvös.
The sounds of the composer and artist’s “obsessive aesthetic fence-straddling.”
Unsuk Chin suffers for her art.
An Interview with Laurie Anderson
Classical music in the world’s next superpower.
An interview with Alvin Lucier.
Political art
There is no absolution in art or life. A dispatch from Bayreuth.
How did the repertoire become so narrow?
The provocations of Frederic Rzewski.
The radical commitment of Pablo Casals.
On Tippet Rise, a classical music festival on Native American land.
Is Donaueschingen censoring work that criticizes Israel?
The Black tenors who’ve taken on the role of Otello.
Weird and wonderful
A satire, a lawsuit, and a thin-skinned violinist.
Bang on a Can, “Arthur,” and the avant-garde music meme factory.
In search of the musical occult.
Unpacking the Instagram score-studying aesthetic.
And wound up hating Mozart.
On “Somnium” and hypnagogic hallucinations.
Investigating classical music on the London Underground.
Music the profession
A complaint about Daniel Barenboim’s behavior, and the Staatsoper reaction.
How the artist manager Xenia Evangelista converts hope into cash.
How the artist manager Xenia Evangelista converts hope into cash.
How the artist manager Xenia Evangelista converts hope into cash.
How the artist manager Xenia Evangelista converts hope into cash.
What’s next for Barenboim and the Staatsoper?
A Chinese promoter on whether his country can save classical music.
Opera
There is no absolution in art or life. A dispatch from Bayreuth.
Is the prevalence of suicide in opera harmful or healing?
The surprising progressivism of Paul Dukas.
Anna Netrebko’s defense of blackface.
Opera owes its heritage to the Middle East. Why do we silence this legacy?
What would singers do without them?
Do we still need Bayreuth?
Soloists and conductors
Alan Gilbert starts fresh.
Paul Lewis makes his Berlin Philharmonic debut.
The intensity of Daniil Trifonov.
An interview with Jaap van Zweden.
Jessica Cottis is always leading.
A profile of the conductor.
Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic have had enough.
Women and non-binary composers
The sounds of the composer and artist’s “obsessive aesthetic fence-straddling.”
Unsuk Chin suffers for her art.
An Interview with Laurie Anderson
An interview with the composer Betsy Jolas.
An interview with the composer Ashley Fure.
Meredith Monk translates biological process into a new language.
On Borealis, an experimental festival for music.
Personal essay
There is no absolution in art or life. A dispatch from Bayreuth.
Is the prevalence of suicide in opera harmful or healing?
A music critic listens with depression.
On listening to music while airborne.
Remembering Klaus Huber.
The artistic director of a Jewish orchestra discovers a genre’s roots.
When the concert stage becomes a trigger for trauma, and what to do about it.
Strings
Where did classical music’s most famous label go wrong?
Roberto González-Monjas and his painstaking preparation.
Alina Ibragimova wants it darker.
An interview with the cellist Steven Isserlis.
Why studies questioning the Stradivarius myth are so persuasive.
An interview with the new JACK Quartet cellist Jay Campbell.
What one octogenarian performer’s experience reveals about getting old in the music business.
The voice
The sounds of the composer and artist’s “obsessive aesthetic fence-straddling.”
Censorship, political correctness, and the legacy of “America’s Troubadour.”
Saul Williams’s words to music.
Mark Padmore wants attention and intention.
An interview with an opera casting director.
On politics and solace in Schubert’s “Winterreise.”
Rethinking the voice with contemporary music.
Early music
Alina Rotaru wants to change the notes.
Pierre Hantaï teaches himself.
Alexei Lubimov is looking for adventure.
Christophe Rousset wants to help the repertoire.
William Christie has questions for himself.
Suzanne Farrin’s subtractive composition.
An interview with Jean Rondeau.
Queer
The novelist Garth Greenwell on singing, literature, and the physicality of language.
On the sexual politics of musical metaphors.
“The Gender Agenda,” a musical gameshow by Philip Venables.
Ione completes an opera by her late partner Pauline Oliveros.
On the New York premiere of “Three Way.”
A call for clarity in calls for scores.
Musicians and listeners respond to our survey.
Literature and film
The novelist Garth Greenwell on singing, literature, and the physicality of language.
Daniel Mendelsohn on music.
Issue #96 focuses on process.
Wolfgang Hildesheimer’s 40-year-old essay is the most modern music book of the year.
Teju Cole’s musical obsessions.
What music says about the history of colonialism in Brazil.
Oscar Edelstein’s curiosity and defiance.
Illness
Is the prevalence of suicide in opera harmful or healing?
A music critic listens with depression.
What one octogenarian performer’s experience reveals about getting old in the music business.
When the concert stage becomes a trigger for trauma, and what to do about it.
A new release of a pivotal Julius Eastman work.
The prevailing 19th-century attitudes towards injury and disability in classical music harm musicians and those around them.
Improvisation with family as a cure for orchestral burnout.
Music under Putin
Russian classical music’s money machine.
How Teodor Currentzis became a Russian sex symbol.
On the impact of Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Behind the hype of Teodor Currentzis.
The liberation of the Syrian city of Palmyra from ISIS by Russian forces called for a celebration. But this was no ordinary open air concert.
Faced with a hostile government, new, improvised music in Russia is flourishing on the fringe.
Perfect Pitch
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Musicology
Susan McClary wants to debate the music.
An interview with the journalist and musicologist William Robin on “a scene without a name.”