New music
An Interview with Laurie Anderson
Classical music in the world’s next superpower.
An interview with the composer Betsy Jolas.
The decline of one of America’s great composers.
A concert protests the weaponization of atonal music.
What happened to an entire generation of promising composers?
What happened to an entire generation of promising composers?
Political art
Talking music with Marina Abramović.
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.
On the sexual politics of musical metaphors.
Analyzing an aural document of terror.
Censorship, political correctness, and the legacy of “America’s Troubadour.”
Weird and wonderful
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.
A satire, a lawsuit, and a thin-skinned violinist.
Opera
What would singers do without them?
Do we still need Bayreuth?
The Black tenors who’ve taken on the role of Otello.
Transcendence and frustration, at the Aix-en-Provence Festival.
Allan Clayton focuses on interaction.
Matthias Goerne looks for symbiosis.
George Benjamin on his third opera, “Lessons in Love and Violence.”
Soloists and conductors
Barenboim is a great musician and humanist. So why are so many people afraid of him?
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.
Listening to Simon Rattle’s goodbye concert in Berlin.
Music the profession
Barenboim is a great musician and humanist. So why are so many people afraid of him?
A Chinese promoter on whether his country can save classical music.
Artist managers are routinely subject to sexual harassment and economic exploitation.
Artist managers are routinely subject to sexual harassment and economic exploitation.
Artist managers are routinely subject to sexual harassment and economic exploitation.
Artist managers are routinely subject to sexual harassment and economic exploitation.
Is a popular perfect pitch course a revelation or a scam?
Women and non-binary composers
An Interview with Laurie Anderson
An interview with the composer Betsy Jolas.
Patricia Alessandrini finds identity in sound.
An interview with the composer Ashley Fure.
Meredith Monk translates biological process into a new language.
On Borealis, an experimental festival for music.
A corrective to the 2018 Oscars Original Score shortlist.
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.
Personal essay
A music critic listens with depression.
On listening to music while airborne.
Remembering Klaus Huber.
Is the prevalence of suicide in opera harmful or healing?
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.
The solace of John Cage’s speaking and writing.
The voice
Censorship, political correctness, and the legacy of “America’s Troubadour.”
Saul Williams’s words to music.
Mark Padmore wants attention and intention.
On politics and solace in Schubert’s “Winterreise.”
Rethinking the voice with contemporary music.
A new choral work by Michael Gordon.
A new production of Robert Ashley’s “Dust.”
Early music
Alina Rotaru wants to change the notes.
Pierre Hantaï teaches himself.
Keith and Robert Hill search for the real sound of the 18th century.
Alexei Lubimov is looking for adventure.
Christophe Rousset wants to help the repertoire.
William Christie has questions for himself.
Suzanne Farrin’s subtractive composition.
Queer
The novelist Garth Greenwell on singing, literature, and the physicality of language.
On the sexual politics of musical metaphors.
Politics, aesthetics, and the deconstruction of binaries.
“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.
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
A music critic listens with depression.
Is the prevalence of suicide in opera harmful or healing?
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.”