Category: Music

  • ‘Stereophonic,’ a New Play About Making Music, to Open on Broadway

    Written by David Adjmi and featuring songs by Will Butler, the drama follows five musicians making an album in the 1970s.

  • ‘Stereophonic,’ a New Play About Making Music, to Open on Broadway

    Written by David Adjmi and featuring songs by Will Butler, the drama follows five musicians making an album in the early 1970s.

  • At 70, the Composer Georg Friedrich Haas Encourages Self-Discovery

    One of Haas’s former students reflects on his time with a teacher who had lessons to offer in music, doubt and influence.

  • Phantom Artists Stole Their Songs. They Couldn’t Get Them Back.

    Bad Dog, a group from D.C., was forced to take a crash course in streaming fraud, a shadowy realm that costs musicians $2 billion a year.

  • Jay Clayton, Vocal Innovator in Jazz and Beyond, Dies at 82

    She sparred with avant-garde instrumentalists and used electronics to alter and extend her vocal palette. She was also at home in more conventional settings.

  • Phill Niblock, Dedicated Avant-Gardist of Music and Film, Dies at 90

    Making music with no melody or rhythm and films with no plot, he became a darling of New York’s experimental underground.

  • Hilary Hahn Announced as Avery Fisher Prize Winner at Philharmonic Concert

    The star violinist’s appearance as artist in residence included an announcement that she had received the $100,000 Avery Fisher Prize.

  • Franz Welser-Möst to Leave the Cleveland Orchestra

    Franz Welser-Möst, the Cleveland Orchestra’s music director since 2002, is beginning to wind down his career.

  • An Opera Superfan’s Surprise Gift: $1.7 Million for the Arts

    Lois Kirschenbaum, who died in 2021, made the donations to cultural groups from unexpectedly large life savings.

  • Alice Parker, Composer Who Heard Music in Poetry, Dies at 98

    A master of American choral music, she wrote arrangements of hymns, folk songs and spirituals used in concert halls and churches countrywide.

  • The EGOT Winner Behind Sondheim’s Signature Sound

    For Jonathan Tunick, an early love of “Tubby the Tuba” led to a career as an orchestrator. He talks about his Sondheim partnership, and creating a sound that “can hint at unspoken secrets.”

  • “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” by Beyoncé

    Reviewed by Ramona Prioleau

    Shot entirely in black and white, the 2009 music video for “Single Ladies” by Beyoncé is without a doubt one of the most recognizable pop music images of the last 20 years. Featuring Beyoncé accompanied by two dancers, the video is a 3:00 minute masterpiece. The entire length of it is one extended, choreographed dance number, performed to perfection by Knowles, Ebony Williams, and Ashley Everett. The video was directed by Jake Nava and choreographed by Frank Gatson Jr. and JaQuel Knight, who incorporated J-Setting choreography to the video, a style of dance popularized in the late 1970s by African-Americans in the Jackson, Mississippi area.

    The video focuses on Sasha Fierce, Beyoncé’s sensual and more aggressive onstage alter-ego. Wearing high heels and an all black leotard, Knowles performs the choreography with sharp and aggressive passion. She and her backup dancers’ movements are precisive, exacting and powerful. There are moments of grace interspersed in between, but the majority of “Single Ladies” choreography is powerful and commanding.

    This is greatly enhanced by the video’s editing as well. The first half of the video is shot in long, full takes, but the second half is energetic and decisive in its editing. The camera cuts on the dancers’ swiping movements, and the colors are inverted and accented in dramatic ways. All of the art then—the song, the video, the editing—heats up near the end. It grows more and more quick, more and more full, more and more invigorating.

    It all culminates in a video that feels a lot longer than 3 minutes and 18 seconds. Make no mistake though—there’s more talent and care in this single music video than there is in 100 others combined. It’s so iconic and so ubiquitous for a reason. It’s striking, undeniably impressive, and impossible to look away from. It’s one of the best music videos of recent years, and likely of all time.M

    January 2024