Re-Imagining Santa Claus — From Grasping Kid To Avatar Of Generosity
Composer and librettist Mark Adamo set out to write an emotionally honest opera about the commercialism of the Christmas season.
Music
NPR Music's 10 Favorite Electronic Albums Of 2015
From an American techno traditionalist to an omnivorous Norwegian wanderer, from ambient Canadian soundscapes to the Lisbon club scene, our favorite electronic albums of 2015 cross many borders.
Land Lines: Tiny Desk Concert
The Denver band's mysteriously swirling music isn't jazz or rock, classical or electronica. Instead, it's something singular, new and adventurous.
Zone Out To Zomes In A Blissful Visualization Of Music
Multimedia artist Shannon Collis directs a satisfyingly soothing video for the drone duo's song "Ruminants," in the process truly visualizing its quiet, ever-shifting layers of sound.
KCRW Presents: Raury
Watch the genre-defying Atlanta musician perform "Friends" live in an L.A. studio.
Snowflakes and Troubled Hearts: A New Holiday Song By Nico Muhly
Hear a deceptive take on the winter blues by way of a versatile choir, a young New York composer and a 150-year-old poem by Longfellow.
A Jazz Piano Christmas 2015
Kenny Barron, Fred Hersch, Carmen Staaf and Joey Alexander — a roster whose ages span more than 60 years — play solo renditions of their holiday favorites at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
Heavenly Bodies
This year, a cast of progressive experimentalists, such as Arca, Juliana Huxtable and Elysia Crampton, among others, tackled matters of identity with an imaginative and expansive focus.
'We Make Stuff Every Day': King Krule's Archy Marshall On His New Multi-Media Album
A New Place 2 Drown, out today, is 37 minutes of music, but also an art book and a short documentary made in collaboration with Marshall's brother Jack that lays bare their south London life.
Sense Of Place Minneapolis: Peter Jesperson & Tommy Stinson
Hear interviews with two men who played a role in the story of The Replacements.