“Psappha is now closed.” On November 6, Psappha, a contemporary music ensemble based in Manchester, posted a short notice that signaled the end of over 30 years of commissioning, performing, and championing music from the 20th and 21st centuries. On the perennially shaky UK new music scene, organizations are routinely thinned, trimmed and pruned, but […]
Category: Playlist
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A Henry Kissinger Playlist
One of the proudest moments of my life took place at the 2016 Opera News Awards. Seated at the Plaza Hotel for the annual gala, I realized Henry Kissinger’s table was cater-corner to mine. At one point, seeing him get up, I scurried out of my seat under the guise of going to the restroom. […]
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An Edward Said Playlist
Edward Said reigned as the poster child for public intellectuals, having made early waves with his breakout 1978 tract, Orientalism. Just a few weeks after the 20th anniversary of his death from leukemia at the age of 67, his name is being invoked again on all sides of the news cycle. His criticism of both […]
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A Sea Major Playlist
A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of killer whales. Since 2020, pods of orcas have been attacking ships and yachts in European waters. As of about a month ago, more than 500 yachts had been attacked off the Iberian Peninsula alone. This summer, other aquatically-inclined mammals have joined their orca comrades (orca-mrades?), with reports from […]
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Your Classical Music Summer Jam, According to Your Zodiac Sign
Have you been searching for your perfect summer jam? Are you also the kind of person who occasionally, if not frequently, finds “a little truth” in stereotypes about zodiac signs? While I’m skeptical of Astrotalk’s claims that Geminis are Chihuahuas and Scorpios are extra sexually active, I’m not above a trip to an astrologer’s office, […]
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A Kaija Saariaho Playlist
The world lost a bit of its wonder on June 2, when Kaija Saariaho died at the age of 70 following a battle with glioblastoma. Diagnosed with the aggressive brain cancer in early 2021, Saariaho gave no major announcement about her health, nor did she document the two years of treatment that followed. When she […]
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An Alternative Minimalism Playlist
The story of musical minimalism has been told many, many times—and for good reason. Emerging from the New York and San Francisco countercultures of the 1960s and quickly becoming an international phenomenon, minimalism’s hypnotic drones and toe-tapping pulses represent the rare avant-garde idiom that is both experimental and popular. Historians of minimalism have typically focused […]
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A Grace Bumbry Playlist
Inevitably, many of the German obituaries for Grace Bumbry—who died on May 7 at the age of 86—have led with the phrase “Die schwarze Venus,” a reference to her barrier-breaking debut in Bayreuth early in her career. This is understandable (headlines only run so long), but also a shame: It reduces a decades-long career that […]
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An Operatic Coronation Playlist
In Berlin’s Alte Nationalgalerie, there’s a portrait of Emperor Francis I of Austria (1792-1806) that bears a marked resemblance to King Charles III. Unsurprisingly, given how prone royals are to marrying within their own family, the pair are distantly related. At times, working on this playlist, which charts the royal lineage into which Charles officially […]
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A “Dichterliebe” All-Stars Playlist
It’s almost the “wondrous month” of May, and while Berlin has clearly decided that the 2023 vibe is icy weather and police brutality, not birds and blossoms, it’s never too late manifest the tardy appearance of spring. In that spirit, here is a playlist that, taken together, forms an “ultimate” version of Robert Schumann’s “Dichterliebe,” […]