Music & Culture

After years spent working as a Nashville sideman, the 33-year-old guitarist is making his name as an instrumental soloist. While his songs lack lyrics, they're not short on backstory.

The ancient spiritual practice of Sufism incorporates all kinds of activities, including music, to achieve a state in which the practitioner loses the ego. Riad Abdel-Gawad creates new Sufi music by translating sacred chants to the violin.

A standout performer at this year's Latin Alternative Music Conference, the 26-year-old singer discusses her noirish debut EP, I Love You Madly.

Recently reissued Brahms and Mozart recordings by the Stuyvesant Quartet convey natural refinement, balance and a kind of inward grace. Fresh Air critic Lloyd Schwartz says they take their place among the most luminous chamber-music performances on record.

Three black musicians — a punk bassist, an L.A. rapper and a part-time guitarist — took on a name with ugly associations to make music that can't be categorized.

Tad Pierson has made a career out of his love for cars and American music. He says there are "fewer and fewer real-deal places to go and hear the real stuff," but it's his job to find and share it — one carload of listeners at a time.

In the cloistered world of classical music recordings, there is great interest in choral music by Catholic nuns these days. On Mater Eucharistiae, the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, are "able to bring other people into that space of prayer when we're singing."

June can sing a duel with the Devil, even as her voice tells you she knows she's already triumphed.

Of course you can make music using a smartphone or tablet. But which apps give you the best results? Which ones are easiest to learn? Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton offer a few suggestions.

Family music comes in a broad range of styles — folk, rock, punk and even polka. But, compared with its popularity among adults, there have been very few R&B and soul music albums for kids. Enter Shine and the Moonbeams.