Music News

Gabriel Kahane's new album, Book of Travelers, was conceived on a two-week train ride across America.

Music & Culture

Strangers On A Train: How Gabriel Kahane's Travels Inspired An Album Of Empathy

7:22pm August 28, 2018

Kahane's new album, Book of Travelers is inspired by a two-week train trip the composer took across America. Kahane discusses the album and performs a few of the songs in NPR's studio.

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Michael Jackson waves to photographers during a 1996 press conference in Paris. The first posthumous album by the King of Pop, who died in 2009, has been trailed by controversy since its 2010 release.

Music & Culture

The Strange Story Of Those Supposedly Fake Michael Jackson Songs

7:08pm August 27, 2018

by Andrew Flanagan

Last week, you couldn't escape headlines saying Sony Music had "admitted" to releasing songs under Michael Jackson's name that the pop icon hadn't actually sung himself. That's not quite the case.

Dee Snider (center) with the rest of Twisted Sister in 1984.

Music & Culture

Don't Get It Twisted: 'We're Not Gonna Take It' Can Be Anyone's Protest Song

12:31pm August 27, 2018

by Rachel Martin

Talk about ironic: Twisted Sister's 1984 anthem to bucking authority has since been adopted by religious entities, teachers and even politicians, each bending it to their own definition.

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Composer George Walker takes a bow at a performance of his Pulitzer winning piece, Lilacs, in California in1996.

Music & Culture

George Walker, Trailblazing American Composer, Dies At 96

10:17pm August 24, 2018

by Tom Huizenga

The composer, whose music fused many styles with a singular voice, constantly broke new ground. He was the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize for music.

Mark David Chapman, the man who killed John Lennon, is serving a 20-years-to-life sentence in the Wende Correctional Facility in western New York.

John Lennon's Killer Is Denied Parole For A 10th Time

5:19pm August 24, 2018

by Sasha Ingber

A New York State Board of Parole panel said that by murdering a person "beloved by millions," Mark David Chapman "demonstrated a callous disregard for the sanctity of human life."

Leonard Bernstein conducting at London's Royal Festival Hall in 1963.

Music & Culture

The Complex Life Of Leonard Bernstein, A Once-In-A-Century Talent

12:07pm August 24, 2018

by Jeff Lunden

Born 100 years ago on Aug. 25, 1918, Bernstein was a larger-than-life character — on stage as a conductor, at the piano as a composer, on TV as an educator and in a sometimes tangled personal life.

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Jocelyn Pook (left) and conductor Harvey Brough (right) during the recording sessions for Eyes Wide Shut.

Music & Culture

'A Tone Of Melancholy': How Jocelyn Pook's Music Captures Pain

7:33pm August 22, 2018

by Tim Greiving

Jocelyn Pook has written award-winning music for the theater, dance and the concert stage. Her work can be heard right now in cinemas on the score to 'The Wife' and in households in the Netflix series 'The Staircase.'

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David Daniels, seen here at the Opera News Awards in New York City in 2013, has been accused of drugging and raping a young opera singer.

Music & Culture

Opera Singer David Daniels Accused Of Rape

7:19pm August 22, 2018

by Anastasia Tsioulcas

The celebrated artist and his husband, Scott Walters, are accused of drugging and raping a young singer in Houston, Texas, in May 2010.

A supporter holds a poster of musician-turned-politician Robert Kyagulanyi, better known as Bobi Wine, in a suburb of Kampala on June 29, 2017. Wine was imprisoned and allegedly tortured following a demonstration against Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni,

Femi Kuti, Brian Eno And 86 Others Sign Letter Supporting Ugandan Opposition Leader

5:53pm August 22, 2018

by Andrew Flanagan

Following the arrest of Ugandan politician and musician Bobi Wine, an extensive list of artists, politicians and activists have called for his release.

Wayne Kramer, Rock Legend And Failed Outlaw, Assembles A Supergroup In The Rearview

9:38am August 22, 2018

by Alex Pappademas

Now 70 years old, Wayne Kramer — co-founder of the short-lived, influential Detroit rock band The MC5 — reflects on life as an artist, near-revolutionary, bumbling outlaw and prison reform advocate.