Music

Matt Haimovitz is 42 and a world-renowned cellist. His mother took him to many concerts as a kid, but nothing in his family history explains where he got his extraordinary talent. And that's typical, says Ellen Winner, a psychology professor at Boston College who has spent much of her career studying prodigies.

After a round of emergency fundraising failed, New York's "People's Opera" is shutting down. Unfortunately, many — including the company's current director and its musicians — saw this coming.

Can the highly publicized band turn its hype into hits? Ken Tucker wants to join the fan club.

Formed in the 1930s during Jim Crow, The Blind Boys of Alabama have been singing gospel for seven decades. For the new album I'll Find a Way, the group has teamed up with a younger artist: Justin Vernon of Bon Iver.

Prism features one of the loudest bands of the bassist's career. The pleasures of the groove here are complex and deep — it's not just about moving feet.

Kicking off a week of stories on Morning Edition about the extraordinarily talented children often known as prodigies, NPR's David Greene spends a few minutes with a preteen musician who has already performed at Carnegie Hall and the White House.

All Things Considered's Audie Cornish speaks with the teenage New Zealand singer about her new album, Pure Heroine. "Royals" is just about the opposite of anything you'd hear from Lorde's pop peers.

Schneider's Burden of Proof is a frequently beautiful, often morose, downcast album. You get the sense that, when he sings about not connecting with someone he loves, he's also singing about not connecting with a bigger audience.

For three years, the jazz musician and his collaborator Mike Ladd have been working with war veterans-turned-poets to bring their words to light. NPR's Arun Rath speaks with Iyer and Iraq veteran Maurice Decaul about the album that resulted, Holding It Down: The Veterans' Dreams Project.

World music DJ Betto Arcos joins host Arun Rath with a stack of records by his favorite new California musicians — all with global influences.