Journal

  • Tuesday, November 26, 2024
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  • Friday, November 2, 2018

    Nonesuch Records' 1989 recording of Steve Reich's Different Trains, the Grammy Award winner for Best Contemporary Composition, and Electric Counterpoint has returned on vinyl. The album features the first recordings of the two pieces, performed by Kronos Quartet and Pat Metheny, respectively. The vinyl edition is out today, the 30th anniversary of Kronos Quartet's world premiere performance of Different Trains at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. Pitchfork recently called Different Trains a "late-career masterpiece," including the album among the 200 Best Albums of the 1980s. Watch a new mini-documentary about it here.

    Journal Topics: Album Release, Artist News
  • Friday, November 2, 2018

    NPR has named Rhiannon Giddens one of the 25 Most Influential Women Musicians of the 21st Century, as part of its ongoing Turning the Tables project, which had previously included her song "At The Purchaser's Option" among the 200 Greatest Songs By 21st Century Women+. "Throughout her career Giddens has been reaching towards something more imperative than the honors and praise she's received," writes Kaia Kater on NPR Music. "With every performance, she gently enters the listener's mind, whittling away at our fallacy of perception as reality ... Most importantly, Giddens is continuing to make it possible for women of color to claim the space they deserve, and to create whatever kind of art they want within it. This, to me, is a gift."

    Journal Topics: Artist News
  • Friday, November 2, 2018

    Steve Reich premieres new piece with LA Phil; Three Tales performed in Long Beach … Devendra Banhart plays Long Beach too … David Byrne brings American Utopia to Manchester, Amsterdam … Jeremy Denk joins Helsinki Philharmonic … Emmylou Harris speaks at Country Music Hall of Fame … Gabriel Kahane takes Book of Travelers to Texas … Kronos Quartet is in Oslo … Lake Street Dive plays Columbus, Ithaca … Mountain Man takes Magic Ship to Omaha, Denver … Conor Oberst helps Get Out the Vote in Omaha … Mandy Patinkin performs Diaries in Honolulu … Rostam joins musical guest Maggie Rogers on Saturday Night Live ...

    Journal Topics: On Tour, Weekend Events
  • Friday, November 2, 2018

    Punch Brothers bring music from their new album, All Ashore, across the Atlantic for a two-week tour of Europe, starting with a sold-out show at Pumpehuset in Copenhagen on Monday. The tour continues with stops in Prague, Vienna, Geneva, Zurich, Ludwigshafen, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, London, Paris, Hamburg, and Dublin.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, On Tour
  • Friday, November 2, 2018

    Lincoln Center has announced its 2019 American Songbook lineup, and among the performers taking the stage at The Appel Room in New York City for the series early next year are Rostam, Gaby Moreno, Lake Street Dive's Rachael Price, and others. Tickets for the series go on sale to members starting November 7 and to the public on November 15. 

    Journal Topics: Artist News, On Tour
  • Thursday, November 1, 2018

    Pianist Jeremy Denk's new album, c. 1300–c. 2000, is due February 8, 2019. The album spans seven centuries of music by twenty-four different composers, from Guillaume de Machaut to György Ligeti. "A piano recital covering 700 years of music: by most accepted definitions, that ought to be not just an oxymoron but an impossibility," says the Telegraph. "But the usual barriers fall whenever Jeremy Denk is at the keyboard ... Quite exhilarating." Watch a video of Binchois's Triste Plaisir here and pre-order the album to download the piece now.

    Journal Topics: Album Release, Artist News
  • Thursday, November 1, 2018

    Just in time for the 2018 US elections, Peter and Mary Alice Amidon have shared a performance from their 1992 album, I'll Never Forget, in which a nine-year-old Sam Amidon and his brother Stefan sing Faya Rose Touré's song "Vote for Me." The Amidon brothers make the case for the younger set, encouraging those who can vote to do so on behalf of folks too young to. You can hear it here. Sam Amidon's latest album is The Following Mountain; his parents can be heard on the 1978 Nonesuch recording Rivers of Delight with the Word of Mouth Chorus.

    Journal Topics: Artist News
  • Wednesday, October 31, 2018

    Congratulations to Kronos Quartet on receiving the 2018 WOMEX Artist Award. "To become a pioneer in one musical stream requires immense dedication, determination and, of course, prodigious skill and creativity," Jim Hickson writes of "the most important string quartet of their generation" in his introductory note for the WOMEX 2018 delegate guide. "To become such a leader in more than one stream must truly signal that there is some intense genius at work—genius that the Kronos Quartet possess in abundance."

    Journal Topics: Artist News
  • Tuesday, October 30, 2018

    Gaby Moreno and Davíd Garza came together to record a timely-as-ever bilingual take on Paul Simon's "American Tune" for the Hootenanny One Mic Series in Los Angeles. The performance, featuring Moreno's Spanish translation of the lyrics, was filmed for the series' inaugural video, which you can watch here. Moreno and Van Dyke Parks released a recording of David Rudder's song "The Immigrants" in July to support CARECEN and its efforts to empower immigrants.

    Journal Topics: Artist News, Video
  • Friday, October 26, 2018

    Mountain Man performs from Magic Ship in Massachusetts … Sam Amidon, David Byrne continue UK tours … Rhiannon Giddens is in Ireland … Emmylou Harris brings Lantern Tour to US Northeast … Gabriel Kahane joins Andrew Bird, NSO at Kennedy Center … Lake Street Dive tours US Midwest … Mandy Patinkin concludes NYC residency … Robert Plant plays London, Dublin … Chris Thile hosts Live From Here from Nebraska … Rokia Traoré begins NYU artist residency … 

    Journal Topics: On Tour, Weekend Events
  • Friday, October 26, 2018

    Out today, Wilco (the album) (the picture disc) melds the 2009 album's acclaimed music with the whimsy of the original photography, on one vinyl disc. Wilco's seventh studio album "is all about a great band playing great original music on an album filled with great songs," says NPR. The Independent gave five stars to the "magnificent" album.

    Journal Topics: Album Release
  • Thursday, October 25, 2018

    Fleet Foxes have released "Icicle Tusk," a song from the The Fleet Foxes EP in First Collection 2006–2009, their forthcoming special limited-edition collection marking the tenth anniversary of their debut album, due November 9. The song, originally on the band's rare self-titled, self-released EP from April 2006, is included with pre-orders of the special collection and can be heard here.

    Journal Topics: Artist News