Fermenting Philip Glass: René Redzepi on Music and Cooking - The New York Times
René Redzepi is the chef and owner of the acclaimed restaurant Noma in Copenhagen. His menus are heavy on local, seasonal, foraged ingredients, as well as the use of fermentation to make things like pine cones edible.
For a conversation with him based around an exchange of pieces of music, I chose the "Water Cadenza" from Tan Dun's "Water Passion" as an amuse-bouche, followed by the first movement of "Cantus Arcticus" by Einojuhani Rautavaara. Redzepi chose Philip Glass's "Floe," from "Glassworks." Here are edited excerpts from the discussion.
I wanted to pick pieces that speak to your sense of adventure when it comes to using ingredients that people haven't considered edible before.
There is something so spontaneous and simple about the "Water Cadenza" that I truly enjoyed. I felt it was something we could actually listen to in the test kitchen. I came to work and had it on my headphones, and it was really upbeat — a positive, energetic song.
First of all, I loved the piece. I thought it was incredibly dramatic, like I was waking up in a jungle somewhere.
Many things that I enjoy in art and design and crafts is when those two fuse: something raw and wild with something ultrarefined and very polished. When those two can meet I generally think that's the future of our society. Becoming a little more wild and listening a little more to the wilderness so that we can be more attuned to it.
The other thing is that it's very local. The birdsong ties it to a specific place and a specific season. And that made me want to ask you about seasons. Music is the art of change over time, and I think you are making an argument for returning food to that context.
It could also connect, as you said, to variety. We need to be better at using it. Eating variety. Listening to variety. And not having everything be the same all the time. It's incredibly boring and it makes us lazy people.
My childhood was spent partly in Denmark and partly in Yugoslavia. When we decided that Denmark would be our permanent home, I was very rootless for many years. As soon as I entered cooking I found myself with something I loved. I fell in love with flavor immediately. But I was still not 100 percent sure if I actually belonged here. I didn't have a sense of belonging anywhere.
The Enduring Appeal of Italian Composers' Dramatic 'Library Music' - The New York Times
One day in the summer of 2011, Lorenzo Fabrizi rode with a friend to an abandoned warehouse far outside of Rome. The custodian of the building, who said he had bought it for around $100, let them inside to look at its contents: 10,000 vinyl LPs, by Fabrizi's estimate. They were welcome to take as many they wanted, the owner said; he was brewing beer in the space and had no use for them.
Fabrizi was just starting his career as an aficionado of rare records. This collection, which had previously belonged to Radio Vaticana (the station owned by the Vatican), was unwanted by pretty much everyone in Italy at the time. But Fabrizi found something he'd never seen before: "library" music — obscure vinyl records containing songs written directly for radio, television or ad placement, in this case the lush, string-laden, funk- and jazz-informed arrangements of classically trained Italian composers.
"There was no interest in this stuff when I started," Fabrizi said recently on a Zoom call from Rome, where he has run the reissue label Sonor Music Editions since 2013. "They had pressed 200, 300, 500, 1,000 copies, but they were not destined for shops or distributors. They were only given to internal circles of music supervisors, journalists and people who worked in television."
Sonor is one of several labels in the last few decades that have resurrected Italian classics from the European library genre (in July, it will release Nico Fidenco's lost soundtrack to the 1977 film "Emmanuelle in America" and Sandro Brugnolini's "Utopia"). From the 1960s well into the 1980s, there was a lot of money to be made in themes: TV and radio producers needed music to accompany opening credits, action or love scenes, game show sequences or advertising. Well-trained composers had access to large ensembles and budgets, and the Italians in particular swung for the fences.
"You listen to a lot of this stuff and you laugh because you're like, this was recorded on extremely expensive gear, and there's no way whatsoever they thought that this theme would work in any movie," said Mike Wallace, a collector in San Diego who produced a compilation of the Italian composer Piero Umiliani's work in 2017. "It's just too out there."
The producer and composer Adrian Younge's recent album "The American Negro" incorporates similar orchestral flourishes over crisp backbeats. "It was like classically trained musicians asked to make modern Black music, but for Europe, so you would have these crazy orchestrations, but it'll still be funky," Younge said. "They had a lot more latitude because they weren't making this music for a particular audience," he added. "So if they needed something dramatic, they could just do the craziest [expletive] and wouldn't have to deal with somebody saying, 'It's not pop enough.'"
The rampant experimentalism of the Italian library catalog also has to be examined in the context of its era. The late 1960s until the early 1980s — known as the "anni di piombo," or "years of lead" — were full of turmoil between left-wing, far-right and neo-fascist protesters in Italy. "It was devastating," Fabrizi said. "There were people shooting in the streets, clashes with police." While these composers were locked away in studios, the fantastical sounds they made were like portals to a different world.
Within that fraught atmosphere, Italy's composers were also keeping an ear on music made by Black Americans. The classic rock of the era was influenced by innovators including Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf and Chuck Berry; boundaries were being pushed by Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus; and funk and R&B were bubbling on labels like Stax and Motown. And then, of course, there were blaxploitation film soundtracks like "Shaft" and "Superfly."
Join Times theater reporter Michael Paulson in conversation with Lin-Manuel Miranda, catch a performance from Shakespeare in the Park and more as we explore signs of hope in a changed city. For a year, the "Offstage" series has followed theater through a shutdown. Now we're looking at its rebound.
YouTube Isn't the Music Villain Anymore - The New York Times
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Those grievances haven't gone away entirely, but they have mostly gone quiet. Why? A big reason is that YouTube figured out ways to generate enough cash to make many people in the music world happy — or at least content enough for now.
The question is whether YouTube has achieved a lasting peace or a temporary one. If it persists, YouTube might have achieved something that few internet companies have: a relatively healthy relationship with an established industry that it simultaneously helps and disrupts.
Let me step back to the years when YouTube was in the music industry's doghouse. The industry powers regularly trotted out a public relations shorthand, the "value gap," for what they said was YouTube's paltry financial contribution to the music industry relative to the popularity of music on the site. They were fond of pointing to figures showing that vinyl records generated more income for the music business than YouTube did.
Mostly, YouTube made musicians, songwriters and record labels money the Google way: It sold advertisements in or adjacent to music-related videos and split the cash with the people and companies behind the songs. The power brokers in the industry said it was peanuts.
The YouTube turnabout may also show that complaining works. The music industry has a fairly successful track record of picking a public enemy No. 1 — Pandora for awhile, Spotify , YouTube, and more recently apps like TikTok and Twitch — and publicly browbeating it or playing one rich company against another to get more money or something else they wanted.
But just maybe, YouTube has shown that it's possible for digital companies to both upend an industry and make it stronger. That's a rarity. Think about the resentment that many news organizations and websites have about Facebook and Google, restaurants' uneasy reliance on food delivery apps and Netflix's awkward marriages with entertainment companies. Maybe time and cash can achieve a measure of peace.
A peek into how the richest Americans aren't like the rest of us: ProPublica got its hands on data on the tax returns for some of America's richest people, including tech billionaires, and identified those who used legal means to pay income taxes that were a tiny fraction of their growing fortunes . Amazon's Jeff Bezos, for example, paid no federal income taxes in 2007 and 2011, and Tesla's Elon Musk did the same in 2018, ProPublica reports.
We want to hear from you. Tell us what you think of this newsletter and what else you'd like us to explore. You can reach us at ontech@nytimes.com.
Louise Carroll: Country music is American music
I believe we tend to like the music we heard as a child, but of course we can develop other musical tastes and the music of our teen years can also influence our musical preferences. I remember reading that when opera singer Beverly Sills (1929-2007) was a baby her mother began playing opera music records. I don't know that just hearing music can make someone a famous singer, but hey, look what happened to Beverly.
My favorite music is bluegrass and folk music. I did not come from a musical family and we didn't have a record player, so my first memory of country music was as a child sitting on the porch swing with my Granny in Wentling's Corners in Clarion County. It was evening and my Uncle Arlie, the only one in the family who played an instrument, was sitting on the edge of the porch, strumming his guitar and singing, "Whispering Pines."
It was the birth of my love for country music, which is really the folk music of our country. I am a big bluegrass fan and my husband, Don, and I attended bluegrass festivals. I saw stars like Bill Monroe. When I get the chance I tell people that I sang with Bill Monroe. It is the truth; I just don't go on to say that so did more than a thousand other people when he invited the audience to sing along. Just saying I sang with Bill Monroe is a far better story.
Bluegrass, country and folk music are American music. In the 1600s, immigrants brought bluegrass to America and it is at the top of my favorite music list. It has been described as the high lonesome sound and there is something about the sound that touches me.
I remember as a child we went to the CIO club on Lawrence Avenue on I think it was Friday nights to hear country music. We got to hear some of the stars of the Wheeling West Virginia Jamboree like Hawkshaw Hawkins, a big favorite of mine, and Big Slim, and Doc and Chickie Williams. In the 1950s we went to drive-In movies and during the intermission, country groups entertained on the roof of the concession stand. Where was I? I think it was Spotlight 88. Who remembers that?
When I was a teenager we went to the Wheeling West Virginia Jamboree on Saturday nights. That was when you paid 25 cents a gallon for gasoline and we could easily fit five or more in the car. Hey, we didn't mind sitting close.
Folk music is another big favorite. I was a Woody Guthrie fan and he enriched our heritage with songs like "This Land is My Land" and "So Long It's Been Good to Know You." I enjoy his son, Arlo, too, and I was a huge fan of Pete Seeger (1919-2011), who did soul-touching music, and not only sang but used his talents to advocate for civil rights, environmental and other important issues.
I try to do something every year that I never did before, and a long time ago I learned to play the guitar and sing and play folk songs. This is not a boast because I didn't do it well and then didn't do it at all, which is probably just as well.
Country music is American music and I believe it still touches people's hearts. I know it is often "Somebody did somebody wrong" music, but you got to admit there's some truth in that.
Get to Know the Many Faces of Kansas City's Music Scene - Rolling Stone
The following is a piece in a four-part series highlighting all that Missouri has to offer in the worlds of food, art, music and adventure. Missouri – or “Mo,” as we refer to her – has no shortage of places to explore, so whatever you’re after, there’s a Mo for every M-O.
The origin story of Knuckleheads reads kind of like a folktale. It all started when owner Frank Hicks moved his collision repair shop from Columbus Park to the East Bottoms back in 1969. Eventually, Hicks bought up more property in the area and converted an old railroad boarding house into a motorcycle shop. While the neighbors weren’t upset by the noise from the choppers (they were already accustomed to all of the trains passing through), Hicks found it tough to attract customers to his industrial district digs. That’s when, in 2001, he set up a small bar for beer and tacos and invited blues musicians and bikers alike to throw street parties there. After a few years, the bar was bringing in more business than the motorcycle shop, and the Knuckleheads we know and love came to be.
“It’s like a mom-and-pop shop,” says Hicks. “We take a special interest in all the artists. We treat ’em like they’re coming to our house.”
Once home to over 50 jazz clubs at its peak in the early-to-mid 20th century, the 18th & Vine District is a must-visit for tourists of all ages. “There’s quite a bit of that Kansas City narrative that just sometimes gets trapped here in town and doesn’t make it nationally the way it should,” says American Jazz Museum executive director Rashida Phillips. “Coming here, I realized there’s a whole portion of jazz history that most folks don’t know of outside of maybe Charlie Parker.”
Established in 1997, the American Jazz Museum is home to exhibits, programs and countless artifacts spanning back over a century in the genre’s tradition. Among those treasures are a Grafton saxophone played by Charlie Parker, handwritten correspondence from John Coltrane, a gown worn by Ella Fitzgerald, and more. On display in the museum’s Changing Gallery this May through July will be a set of rare photographs of Billie Holiday. There’s also the John H. Baker Jazz Film Collection, featuring video footage and still images of early jazz history.
And if that isn’t enough cultural history for you, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is right next door.
Why YouTube Will Overtake Spotify as Music's Bankroller - Rolling Stone
J Balvin at the YouTube Music Artist Lounge at Coachella 2019 on April 14, 2019 in Indio, California.
“ YouTube [has] our music, whether we choose to license them or not… They say they bring users into the licensed ecosystem, but at such a paltry return that they might as well be in the pirate world.” So spoke Martin Mills, co-founder and Chairman of Beggars Group — home to labels including XL Records, 4AD and Matador — in June 2017 .
“YouTube’s growth for [our] business over the past couple of years has outpaced everyone as well as the market itself, and is now well on its way to deliver the potential of its huge audience to the music industry, as these revenue figures now show.” Those are the words of Mills in June 2021 .
That’s $1.2 billion in royalty payouts over the last year, or $100 million a month landing in the pockets of labels, publishers, songwriters, and artists. From cat videos.
Critics of YouTube feel this is still far from enough money. They point to the fact that over two billion YouTube users are consuming music on the platform each month. So, via simple math, Cohen’s $4 billion figure suggests that the music industry is getting just $2 per year from each music listener on YouTube.
Yet there are other interesting ways to slice this. Cohen says that YouTube paid out at least $1.2 billion to rights-holders in the past year from ads on user-generated videos. Spotify’s entire ad-funded business (its “free tier”) generated $842 million in a similar period period, meaning that it paid rights-holders somewhere around $555 million. So Cohen’s cat-video crew is already sending record labels twice the amount of money that Spotify does from its ad-supported business, and that’s not even counting the ad revenue from professional music videos.
Such juxtapositions matter because YouTube now has Spotify in its crosshairs. In revealing the $4 billion figure, Cohen pointedly said YouTube’s aim is to “become the leading revenue generator for the music industry” — a.k.a., overthrowing Spotify, which touts itself as the leading revenue generator for the music business.
Even more formidable for YouTube is the growth of its advertising business, which is not only now a ten-figure annual contributor to the music industry, but is really starting to soar in the post-lockdown environment of 2021. According to recent Alphabet investor filings, YouTube generated $6 billion from ads in the first quarter, up by 49 percent year-on-year . Music rights-holders, meanwhile, are now consistently receiving a sum from YouTube equivalent to 20 percent of the platform’s ad business each year.
If, as expected, YouTube’s ad business generates around $30 billion across calendar 2021, this would result in a cool $6 billion hitting the pockets of record labels and music publishers.
Through Music And Poetry, Valerie June Writes For Dreamers : World Cafe : NPR
When Valerie June enters a room, the air transforms. When she sings, her voice hits like an ocean wave and carries the listener along with it. With power and restraint, she uses her voice to its full effect.
World Cafe's Nashville correspondent Jessie Scott talks to Valerie June about her multimedia works and the change she wants to achieve with them.
Music is returning to summer venues across the country - The Washington Post
I'm not one to tempt fate, so I will not be the one to vocalize or type out any sighs of relief over our apparent return to an unspecified word that begins with "n" and rhymes with "formal."
Things are a little different this summer, maybe a lot. We'll find ourselves outside, sitting some distance from one another and the orchestra. We'll be scattered about various lawns and amphitheaters and terraces in faraway pods and clusters. We'll experience a form of togetherness that in any circumstance other than the latter stages of a pandemic would feel positively luxurious, personal-space-wise.
But if we're all vaccinated, why do we have to do this? you'll call out to me from your square in the grass several yards away, but I'll only half-hear something about you being fascinated and just wave back and say thank you. It'll be a little weird for a while. Best to just focus on the music.
This season, Wolf Trap in Vienna, Va., returns to the scene to celebrate the semicentennial of the Filene Center. On July 1, "Fifty Years Together: A Celebration of Wolf Trap" brings together the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of JoAnn Falletta and a cast of guest artists including Cynthia Erivo, Christine Goerke (herself a Wolf Trap Opera alumna) and pianist Joyce Yang.
For an impromptu summer course on Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, on June 18, Wolf Trap Opera presents his 1780 chamber opera "The Anonymous Lover" with Geoffrey McDonald leading the NSO and Kimille Howard directing a cast including Chanáe Curtis as Léontine and Ricardo Garcia in the role of Valcour. Conductor Jonathon Heyward makes his Wolf Trap debut on July 8 and 9, leading the NSO and guest violinist Francesca Dego in a program of Beethoven (Symphony No. 7) and Bologne — as well as a new work from the NSO's new composer-in-residence, Carlos Simon .
The Filene Center is operating at reduced capacity , with seating arranged in socially distanced "pods" of two to eight guests. For more information and tickets, visit wolftrap.org.
Ending a 16-month performance hiatus, the Boston Symphony Orchestra is back at its Tanglewood outpost July 9 to Aug. 16 for a summer of performances at the Koussevitzky Music Shed . Andris Nelsons leads the BSO in six concerts, opening the season with an all-Beethoven program featuring pianist Emanuel Ax taking on the "Emperor" concerto (No. 5) as well as the overture to "The Creatures of Prometheus" and Symphony No. 5. (They perform Carlos Simon's "Fate Now Conquers" on July 11.)
Tanglewood was recently able to increase capacity from 25 percent to 50 percent, allowing for 2,400 patrons in the Shed and 6,600 on the lawn. Mask-wearing and physical distancing are still recommended, though the latter has been reduced to three feet. For more information and tickets, visit bso.org.
The trusty summer festival, based in Katonah, N.Y., reemerges with a vibrant summer season. On June 24, PUBLIQuartet plays a program titled "What Is American?" featuring works by Jessie Montgomery and Vijay Iyer and reimaginings of pieces by Dvorak and Ornette Coleman. New music fans should start packing their picnic baskets: The Crossing sings "The Forest" on the grounds on July 3; Alarm Will Sound performs John Luther Adams's "Ten Thousand Birds" on July 11; "21 for '21" alumna Jiji performs her "Unbound" program on July 22; So Percussion is joined by beatboxer Dominic Shodekeh Talifero on July 25; and Pekka Kuusisto (another from our Class of '21) joins Nico Muhly for a special duo set on July 29.
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