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  • Wednesday, October 9, 2024
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  • Tuesday, June 9, 2015

    The Bad Plus Joshua Redman kicks off a tour featuring music from its newly released self-titled debut album. The tour begins with two sets at the Highline Ballroom in NYC Wednesday for the Blue Note Jazz Festival, followed by shows in the US and festival sets across Canada through June. The European leg of the tour begins at the Love Supreme Jazz Festival in England on July 4. The US tour picks up again in October. "Full of genre-blending compositions and crafty rhythms," says The New Yorker, "the record shows that they are jazz outliers who remain primed for adventure."

    Journal Topics: Artist News, On Tour
  • Monday, June 8, 2015

    Emmylou Harris will receive the 2015 Polar Music Prize in a gala ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall on Tuesday. She will be presented the prize by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, along with her fellow laureate, percussionist Evelyn Glennie. The event will be broadcast live on Sweden's TV4, viewable worldwide via TV4 Play. "The music of Emmylou Harris contains the history and topography of the entire American continent," reads the prize citation. "Emmylou Harris makes the world bigger and smaller, more valuable and more beautiful." Previous laureates include Kronos Quartet, Steve Reich, Youssou N'Dour, Björk, Joni Mitchell, and more.

    Journal Topics: Artist News
  • Monday, June 8, 2015

    Olivia Chaney, who is currently touring North America, recently stopped by WNYC in New York City to perform four songs from her debut album, The Longest River, on Soundcheck—"Swimming in the Longest River," "Kings Horses," "Waxwing," and "Cassiopeia"—and talk with host John Schaefer, who notes her "strikingly pure vocal tone." You can hear the show here.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, Radio
  • Monday, June 8, 2015

    John Adams is the subject of a new short video from the BBC Radio 3 series Great Composers with Tom Service, in which Service gives an exuberant primer on the composer. "John Adams is the composer who wants it all—the 'pulse' of the American minimalists and the voluptuous harmonic sensuality of Wagner and Mahler's late Romanticism," Service explains. "Warning: his music is addictive. Have a good time with John Adams!" Watch it here.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, Video
  • Friday, June 5, 2015

    This festival-filled weekend, The Black Keys play three: Governors Ball, Bunbury, and Mountain Jam; Robert Plant is at Mountain Jam and Conor Oberst, Björk at Governors Ball ... John Adams joins Lucinda Childs, Frank Gehry in LA for a new production of their Available Light ... Tyondai Braxton performs HIVE in NYC ... Olivia Chaney tours East Coast ... Jeremy Denk is on A Prairie Home Companion ... Lianne La Havas is on BBC Radio 2 ... Brad Mehldau performs a solo set in Spain ... Randy Newman kicks off tour in Detroit ... and more ...

    Journal Topics: On Tour, Weekend Events
  • Friday, June 5, 2015

    Lianne La Havas sat down to discuss "Unstoppable," the first track off her new album, Blood, due out next month. You can hear the story behind the track in the video here. "Everyone’s summer needs a soundtrack," says the Guardian's Bim Adewunmi. "It is my humble opinion that London-born singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas has delivered just that, in the form of 'Unstoppable.' Have you listened to it? Go listen now, I’ll wait. Isn’t it perfect? I told you so." Lianne La Havas is on BBC Radio 2's Dermot O'Leary Saturday.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, Video
  • Wednesday, June 3, 2015

    Tyondai Braxton performs HIVE, the work that inspired his Nonesuch Records debut album, HIVE1, for a three-night residency at The Kitchen in NYC this Thursday through Saturday, June 4–6. The New Yorker calls the album "a beguiling, introspective new record," noting that the tracks, "which are transfixing, are marked by fragmented percussion grooves that weave in and out of warm analogue soundscapes." HIVE debuted at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC in 2013, created as a live multimedia work that was part architectural installation, part ensemble performance with five musicians seated atop their own oval pods designed by Danish architect Uffe Surland Van Tams.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, On Tour
  • Tuesday, June 2, 2015

    Olivia Chaney kicks off a three-week North American tour featuring music from her debut album, The Longest River, at Roulette in Brooklyn on Wednesday, culminating in a return to NYC for a show at Joe's Pub on June 25. "With an earthiness to her expressive soprano, Chaney is bringing the grand tradition of British folk music into the 21st century," says the New Yorker. "Baez, Collins, Mitchell, Marling," exclaims PopMatters; "the debut folk album by Olivia Chaney shows that she belongs in this company. It's pretty much perfect."

    Journal Topics: Artist News, On Tour
  • Tuesday, June 2, 2015

    Rhiannon Giddens joins Branford Marsalis and Friends for a special North Carolina Symphony benefit concert in Raleigh tonight. On the program, she performs the title track to her new album, Tomorrow Is My Turn, as well as other classic tunes including "La vie en rose." While preparing for the concert, she recorded an intimate guitar-and-vocal version of the song made famous by Edith Piaf on a video you can watch here. Giddens' tour continues next week at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh, one of several festival sets to come, including Bonnaroo and Telluride Bluegrass. She begins a tour of the UK and Europe at the end of the month.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, Video
  • Tuesday, June 2, 2015

    Devendra Banhart and his band toured South America in 2014 with music from his Nonesuch Records debut album, Mala. Artist and filmmaker Adam Tullie was there to capture the trip and has created a short film, set to a selection of Banhart's home demos and one of his poems. "The overall landscape is beyond beautiful, strewn with lush color and tropical flora," says Tullie, with whom Banhart is releasing an art book. "The people reflect this; lively, bright, and full of love." Watch it here.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, Video
  • Tuesday, June 2, 2015

    Sam Amidon made his Mountain Stage debut on NPR last week, now available online at npr.org. Amidon performed two songs from his latest album, Lily-O—"Walkin' Boss" and "Blue Mountains"—and two from his 2013 Nonesuch debut album, Bright Sunny South—"Short Life" and "As I Roved Out." "A gifted multi-instrumentalist, Amidon made a name for himself in his teens as a fiddler," says NPR. "In the years since then, he has stretched comfortably from old-time music into styles ranging from free jazz to alt-folk." Amidon resumes his North American tour in Boston on June 14.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, Radio
  • Monday, June 1, 2015

    Conor Oberst kicks off a spring tour of the United States at 40 Watt in Athens, Georgia, on Wednesday, followed by stops in Wilmington and Boston, all with support from Larkin Poe. The tour continues with a set at The Governors Ball in NYC and late-night show in Williamsburg on Saturday, followed by a late-night Governors Ball After Dark show in Williamsburg; sold-out concerts in Maquoketa, Iowa, his hometown of Omaha, and Lincoln, Nebraska, all with support from The Felice Brothers; and a culminating set at Rock the Garden at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. 

    Journal Topics: Artist News, On Tour