The music of this quintessential Nashville songwriter and lifelong independent spirit makes room for the wide range of emotions that careen through people as they stumble and dance through life.Read More
Music
Each a virtuoso in their own right, longtime friends and Wu Fei and Abigail Washburn team up for a tradition-blending debut album of folk music.Read More
Soul singer Allen Stone demonstrated a commitment to the Tiny Desk that we rarely, if ever, see.Read More
The patriarch of the famous musical Marsalis family, Ellis Marsalis was not only a performer but a teacher, a mentor and a coach.Read More
Stefon Harris has been attracting the attention of jazz fans since he released his 1998 debut, but he's less interested in praise than helping his listeners empathize with the world around them.Read More
Known early on for his avant-garde works, the composer's challenging music nevertheless found fans far beyond traditional classical music circles.Read More
On his new album, the rising pianist once called "Iceland's Glenn Gould" offers a dialogue between two radical French composers born nearly 200 years apart.Read More
Yo-Yo Ma has brought joy to listeners for decades with his virtuosic musicianship. Now, he is using his music to offer some comfort to a global audience in the midst of a pandemic that has sparked widespread anxiety and pain.Read More
The Cameroonian musician who became an international star with his song "Soul Makossa" died Tuesday at age 86 in Paris. His music helped fuel disco — and songs by Michael Jackson and Rihanna.Read More
In a time of striving to keep ourselves and our environments pathogen-free, Our Daily Breather seeks guidance on the health of the psyche. Tom Huizenga has been turning to a calming piano performance.Read More
!["This was one of the most memorable [performances]," conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin says of the Philadelphia Orchestra's March 12 concert, played to empty hall. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Orchestra](https://www.nwpb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/20200312_vh-3-c9a7692284640349eb2b64a6172278c5386f8bb3-1140x620.jpg)
The Philadelphia Orchestra has shuttered its doors in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin reflects on their final performance — streamed for people at home.Read More
Bigger artists may count on fan support and labels to carry them through canceled tours, but working musicians — from orchestra members and wedding singers to indie rappers — are looking elsewhere.Read More
Watch the award-winning pianist play a hit by Chopin, a premiere by Thomas Adès and a cherished song by Gershwin dressed in a virtuosic arrangement.Read More
The English composer's supernova hit continues to obscure his jaunty, folk inflected St. Paul's Suite.Read More
An innovative member of the classic John Coltrane Quartet, few musicians have ever exerted as much influence as a sideman, but Tyner also had a long and consequential career leading bands of his own.Read More
Dixie Chicks has never left our consciousness, but it's been quite a long time since they've released an album.Read More
The band from Havana brings its intoxicating mix of Afro-Cuban dance music and 1970s funk-and-soul to the Tiny Desk.Read More
Thomas Adès' Concerto for Piano and Orchestra riffs on the old classics while speaking in the distinctive voice of a 21st century master composer. Read More
"I never behaved aggressively" towards women, the opera star says, while the performers' union that investigated his alleged behavior attempts to ferret out who provided information to the press.Read More
It's not as mean as it might sound (though it does involve a little electrocution) and the results can be both beautiful and, well, eye-opening.Read More
Doctors wanted to ensure they didn't compromise parts of the brain necessary for playing the violin, so they asked their musician patient to play for them mid-operation. Read More
At 25, she mixes the bluesy melisma of Nina Simone and the deep register of Sarah Vaughan — two of her influences — with songwriting as devastating as her delivery.Read More
The NY Philharmonic has commissioned 19 women to create new works to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amendment. It's called Project 19.Read More
The album, recorded in 1982 after Simone had relocated to France, captures the legendary artist reinvigorated and exploratory.Read More
The Atlanta-based band came to NPR in a van packed with a bodhrán (Irish drum), an ngoni (West African harp) a huge gourd, a cello, a baritone guitar and more.Read More
A thoughtful musician from a distinguished family, Peter Serkin interpreted the classics and expanded the repertoire by commissioning new works. He died Saturday, Feb. 1, at his home in Red Hook, N.Y. at age 72.Read More
The eclectic composer joins members of the ACME ensemble for some of his most affecting music, which moves the audience to tears.Read More
The Grammy-winning Pacifica Quartet is known for their advocacy of contemporary music and for their acclaimed performances of complete quartet cycles by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Carter, and Shostakovich. From their home at Indiana University, Bloomington, they visited Moscow, Idaho in January 2020 for a week of concerts, outreach events and master classes.Read More
Olney had a gift for character — creating them in his lyrics, inhabiting them in his performances — and that literarily bent musical talent made him a fixture in Nashville for decades.Read More
A listener's guide for the opera-curious includes a little history, a little trash-talk and some gorgeous singing. Read More
When it comes to the Underground Railroad, everyone knows Harriet Tubman. But a new oratorio sheds light on a different, key figure named William Still. Read More
The saxophonist and composer — an artist who wrote for Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, and who nurtured John Coltrane — died Sunday at age 93.Read More
Watch the celebrated opera star deconstruct old Italian love songs with her signature flair, backed by a crack jazz ensemble.Read More
Dolly Parton, Carla Thomas, Fanny, The Runaways and Salt n Pepa are just some of the women who should be in the Hall by now.Read More
The song is from the Netflix series The Witcher and has inspired enthusiastic remixes and covers. Composers Kathryn Sonya Belousova and Giona Ostinelli discuss their songwriting process.Read More
The irrepressible harpist proves that the instrument can be as tempestuous as a tango, as complex as a Bach fugue and sing as serenely as a church choir.Read More
"We're only immortal for a limited time." Peart, who died on Jan. 7, guided Rush through the decades with a pen, a massive drum kit and an openness towards life's many shades.Read More
"I'm a combination of a perfectionist and a snail," Khushi jokes. It took him 10 years to write Strange Seasons, which he ended up recording in a shed over the course of six years. Read More
As a composer, Guinga's written hits for Brazilian superstars like Elis Regina. As a musician he's set the bar for classical guitarists far beyond his native country.Read More
Spanglish Fly is one of the pioneers of the boogaloo revival scene happening on the East Coast. For about sixteen minutes, they turned the NPR Music offices into the hottest Latin dance club in D.C.Read More
Daniela Medina is a first-grade teacher in the Kennewick School District — at the same school she found herself in at age six when she and her family immigrated to Washington from Mexico in 2001. The Mid-Columbia Mastersingers are holding concerts January 10, 11 and 12 of music by immigrant composers to tell the stories behind the politics. Read More
NPR Music staffers Marissa Lorusso and Tom Huizenga give out superlatives for the best moments in music this past year, including a single breath of operatic singing and an epic guitar solo.Read More
Fiddler Jenee Fleenor is the first woman ever to win the Country Music Association's Musician of the Year Award. Her work is partly responsible for the instrument's resurgence.Read More
Every Christmas Eve at exactly 3 p.m., the Chapel of King's College in Cambridge, England plays A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. The tradition began in 1918, and for decades it's been broadcast on the BBC and around the world. Read More
Made famous by Frank Sinatra — who grew to hate it — "My Way" represents the quintessentially American outlook that nothing in life matters more than living on your own terms.Read More
A woman had become barely verbal, an effect of dementia. Her daughter, an opera singer, decided to try singing Christmas songs with her, and they reconnected.Read More
We celebrate 25 Years of democracy in South Africa by focusing on the trailblazers that stayed during the brutal era of apartheid, featuring Herbie Tsoaeli and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.Read More
Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You" is back at the top of the chart a quarter century after it was first released. So why haven't there been any lasting Christmas songs to take its place?Read More
The Comet is Coming is a force of nature. The British trio's approach to the Tiny Desk was ferocious. Shabaka Hutchings, aka King Shabaka, blew his sax hard while his effects pedal added reverb, expanding not only his sound but altering the office and making it a little eerier.Read More
A new book explores the relation between a few key figures in American classical music and U.S. foreign policy in the 20th century.Read More
