Music Features

Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote pastoral music during profoundly turbulent times.

Music & Culture

Celebrating the 150th birthday of British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams

9:53am October 12, 2022

by Melinda Whiting

Collecting traditional tunes from all over the British Isles, Vaughan Williams famously produced gently modal folksong fantasies evoking England's "green and pleasant land."

Louis Cole leads collaborators through a deadpan dance medley in the video for "I'm Tight."

Music & Culture

What is viral jazz?

6:00am October 12, 2022

by Nate Chinen

Hard to define, for one thing. But in our disorienting digital age, these image-savvy, genre-fluid, proficient yet irreverent artists can seem like the only ones who've gleefully cracked the code.

Music & Culture

Encore: Eric Gales on reclaiming his place as a blues guitar icon

4:19pm October 10, 2022

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly spoke with guitarist and singer Eric Gales about reclaiming a career stalled by drug addiction and prison time.

Lucrecia Dalt has become one of modern music's most fascinating chameleons.

Music & Culture

On '¡Ay!', the tropical music of Lucrecia Dalt's childhood becomes avant-garde sci-fi

5:18am October 10, 2022

by Lewis Gordon

On her surreal, sci-fi and decidedly romantic new album ¡Ay!, the Colombian, Berlin-based electronic artist crafts an alien narrative drawing inspiration from the genres of her youth.

The band Hacía la Victoria, Spanish for "Onward to Victory," after rehearsal in Santiago, Chile, on Aug. 31. All of the musicians in the band sustained serious eye injuries during clashes with police who used tear gas and shotguns against anti-government protesters in 2019. From left: Camilo Galvez, Vicente Pascal, Sergio Concha, Gustavo Gatica, Cesar Galloso, Andrés López, Miles Camus.

World News

For Chileans blinded in police violence, making music has become one path to healing

5:01am October 10, 2022

by John Otis

All members of Hacía la Victoria ("Onward to Victory") sustained eye injuries during clashes with police in anti-government protests in 2019. Their lyrics focus on police brutality and their own pain.

That Loretta Lynn sang about women's struggles while masterfully projecting the image of an uncorrupted country girl made her all the more convincing as an artist.

Music & Culture

Personifying a country ideal, Loretta Lynn tackled sexism through a complicated lens

4:02pm October 09, 2022

by Amanda Marie Martinez

Rather than extol Lynn in ways she rejected, we should appreciate the agency with which she so impressively crafted her identity in country music.

Composer and trumpeter Etienne Charles, in a portrait taken inside the newly renovated David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center.

Revisiting San Juan Hill, the neighborhood destroyed to make way for Lincoln Center

4:17pm October 07, 2022

by Anastasia Tsioulcas

In New York City, the area dominated by Lincoln Center was formerly home to Black and Puerto Rican communities. Etienne Charles' new musical work addresses that difficult past.

The new interior of David Geffen Hall, during a New York Philharmonic tuning session.

Stripped to the bones: Why a new NYC concert hall sounds so much better

1:50pm October 07, 2022

by Jeff Lunden

The new David Geffen Hall in Lincoln Center, home of the New York Philharmonic, opens this week. And while the outside is the same, everything inside has changed.

Component System is a record that makes a case for the past as a continuously changing and evolving presence, not a trapped-in-amber escape route.

Music & Culture

Open Mike Eagle makes himself a mixtape

4:21pm October 05, 2022

by Nate Patrin

The referential artist discusses hip-hop's repurposing spirit, reconciling zonal versions of himself, making sense of rap's "golden era" and his new album, Component System with the Auto Reverse.

Unreleased in its entirety until now, Brazilian singer-songwriter Joyce Moreno's Natureza is a snapshot of the artist on her own terms.

Music & Culture

Unreleased for decades, Joyce Moreno's 'Natureza' is a snapshot of newfound freedom

5:01am October 04, 2022

by Andy Beta

Recorded with Claus Ogerman, Natureza could have made the Brazilian singer-songwriter an international star. Now released, the long lost album captures a turning point in her approach to music.