Four examples of music that take a decidedly
different spin on the holidays. by Corbin Smith

Over the years, the recording industry has managed to create Christmas music for every mood. Thousands of sad piano takes on "The Christmas Song" (Chestnuts Roasting Over an Open Fire), the pure pop joy of Mariah Carey belting out “All I want for Christmas is you,” the simple, light brain damage you get from a loud, irritating version of “Sleigh Ride.” But what about when you are in a VERY particular mood? When the season has transported you into one of life’s bizarre gutters, left you in such a particular place where you need a very particular sort of Christmas music to haul you out of it? For you, for this, I offer this guide to Christmas music for truly any mood. 

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For when you and your fellow teenage orphans—residents of a foster home owned by kindly old women in deep with the bank— just pulled off the Christmas Eve heist of the century to pay her mortgage and are tipping back a big ol’ glass of hot cider while looking over Portland: Bob Dylan, Christmas in the Heart

A few years back, Bob Dylan, our truest and most loving uncle, made a Christmas album. Surface analysis: it’s weird he did that. Deeper analysis: it’s not actually weird, because Bob admires folk music and the Great American Songbook, and Christmas music is a canon built from both. Even deeper analysis: it’s still pretty weird, because it’s weird to listen to Bob Dylan unleashing his signature late career Warm Croak on Christmas songs you’ve been inundated with your entire life.

But when you get past the sheer novelty of King Gravel intoning “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” a song made famous by Judy Garland, you remember that, oh yeah, Bob Dylan is one of history’s greatest musicians, and offers a wealth of feeling, warmth and energy—even (especially) when he’s pursuing a strange muse. His “Must Be Santa,” anchored by a loud accordion and augmented by a rechristening of the reindeer as post-war presidents, is pure jalopy shit—a sound of the Christmas gathering flying apart at the seams as candy-ridden children roam through the hallway and shove each other into toilets. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” is a standard ‘50s pop music take, lifted into something transcendent by Bob’s presence behind the microphone. “Winter Wonderland” and “Christmas Island” presents an alternate world Dylan, one more into vibing and tipping back, as opposed to an artist with an endless appetite for work and startling discipline.

The best song on here is Bob’s version of “Do You Hear What I Hear.” He is, after all, an old wise man now, wandering through deserts, handing out gifts. His intonation on “A child, a child/Sleeping in the night/He will bring us goodness and light,” is struck through with a warmth and sincerity that you don’t associate with Trickster Bob. Is it a performance of awe, trying to capture a world that still had some sense of the divine? Is it a true wonder in the potential of the child, a hope for the future? Is it just a straightforward exaltation of Christ himself? You can never really know with Bob, of course, but it stirs.

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Courtesy Hallmark

For when your company—an international logistics concern—sent you on a last minute overseas business trip over Christmas, and you stroll the streets alone and alienated on Christmas Eve, until you walk into a fancy cocktail bar and lock eyes with another disaffected expat at the bar: Duke Ellington, The Nutcracker Suite

Did you know that Duke isn’t his real name? You see, when Duke Ellington was a child, everyone who lived in his neighborhood thought he seemed like minor royalty, and just started calling him Duke as a result. That was how smooth this man was, folks. But it would not have meant much if the Duke was not also a world historic musical genius. A bandleader, composer, a thinker, whose work brought a formal precision and imagination to jazz that changed the enterprise forever, transmuting it from an outgrowth of blues into the great American musical form.

One of the ways that Duke built this new form was taking forays into classical music, breaking apart or injecting the classical canon with improvisation and swing time, or likewise, taking the forms of classical music and overlaying them with original compositions informed by his lifetime as an orchestra leader working in a jazz idiom. In Duke’s hands, genre distinctions, of dance music or concert music, become wobbly, fall off the boat, drown in the ocean of his genius, and are reborn into an object of pure American greatness. 

In 1960, Duke, riding a popular revival as newfangled bebop artists codified his importance in their own development, worked with Billy Strayhorn—his longtime arranging partner—to break apart Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker suite, perhaps the most famous piece of dance music ever composed, and reforge it into this album, which takes Pytor’s famous melodies and remakes them into nine swing numbers. 

“The Dance of The Sugar Plum Fairy,” all ethereal glockenspiels in the ballet, becomes “Sugar Rum Cherry,” a terribly horny reforging that asks a question that would not occur to you otherwise: What if I kind of want to fuck the Sugar Plum Fairy? “The Nutcracker March” is now “Peanut Brittle Brigade,” a New Orleans parade of nutcracker men. “Chinoiserie,” the Duke’s version of “The Chinese Dance,” loosens up the source material to the point where it sounds like something someone might actually dance to as opposed to the Tchaikovsky original, bloodless to the point of making its subject seem alien.

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Courtesy Sony Legacy

For when you’re driving home from your family’s yearly Christmas gathering—which was good, for the most part, but your Aunt Shelly got WAY too blitzed on eggnog and hot toddies and vomm’d in the backyard: Wynton Marsalis, Crescent City Christmas Card

There’s a lot to know about Wynton Marsalis, the trumpeter, band leader, and academic, who has long represented a kind of traditionalist approach to jazz performance and composition that can maybe seem a little square. And while I personally don’t know a lot about Marsalis, I do know about this album, a suite of Christmas standards he released in 1989. A lot of it is fairly standard jazz takes on Christmas classics: a trumpet playing a slightly off-kilter rendition of “Winter Wonderland,” a brassy vocal take on “Sleigh Ride,” “Carol of the Bells” with the forward momentum of the death chant replaced by laconic swing music jamming, and “Jingle Bells,” with a li’l woodblock that brings horse evocations to the party. 

But some of it is insane—insane in a way that makes you wonder what Wynton is trying to get out. Take this album’s version of “Silent Night”: a standard female vocal, trilling and ethereal, but set to a backdrop of woozy, uncertain horns, that give the thing a vaguely creepy vibe. What does it mean to set a hymn of the infant Christ in front of trumpets that suggest a danger lurking on the horizon? Is it an evocation of Herod’s men in the field, looking for the child so he may butcher any competition for his spot at the top of Israel’s local government? Is it broadcasting uncertainty about the future of this child’s life, over the fanaticism he would come to embrace, the horror of his violent death? Is it a way of juxtaposing the sentimental story of Jesus’ birth with the world of unease and terror that would form in his wake? 

Why would someone make a version of “Little Drummer Boy” that seems to intentionally bury the drums in the mix? Trumpeter’s jealousy? What does a laid back swing version of “We Three Kings” mean? That the kings were cool? Were they cool? I have never thought about it, really. By insisting that he press as much jazz shit as possible into these standards, Wynton runs up against the idea of these things as content about Christmas and into the idea of them as forms.

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Courtesy CD Baby

For when she took the kids home after their mandatory Christmas Eve visit and you have wandered out into the cold night, purchased a six pack of Rolling Rock and a bottle of Mad Dog, and—two brewskies and five sips of fortified in—you plop down in the arched, gothic-style doorway of a neighborhood church, and just sit there, sipping and watching the rain come in, wondering when and how it all went so wrong: Benjamin Britten, Ceremony of Carols

20th Century British Composer Benjamin Britten was a sad man who made beautiful music. Ceremony of Carols is a song cycle for boys choir and solo harp, written on a boat coming back to England during the middle of World War II, when U-Boats were scouring the ocean, looking to send boats full of British guys plunging into the icy ocean. It takes a bunch of old Christmas and Baby Jesus related poems in various languages, sets them to music, and goes at it hard as hell. It’s beautiful, it’s faintly sad, it’s everything you need for a Christmas where the disappointments of the year fight against the idea of a wee babe, born in a barn, bringing hope into the world. NOT FOR LIGHT LISTENING, but essential for any soul slipping into darkness. 

Event Begins: Thursday, November 14, 2024 7:00pm
Location: Earl V. Moore Building
Organized By: School of Music, Theatre & Dance

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The Departments of Chamber Music and Piano present this Belgian piano/violin duo in a master class, coaching U-M students on the performance of piano chamber music.

GUEST ARTIST BIOS

One of the leading Belgian violinists, JOLENTE De MAEYER, has brought her virtuosity and passionate interpretations to diverse global audiences. She is recognized as an exceptionally gifted artist, reflected in the numerous awards and effusive reviews she has received for both her live performances and recordings.

Prizewinner of several international competitions in Portugal (Cardona Competition), Russia (Liana Issakadze Competition) and London (Benjamin Britten Competition), the international career of Jolente started with a successful participation at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. Performances with all major Belgian orchestras and concert tours in Europe and the United States followed. She made her debut in Florida, Vermont, California, Washington DC and Canada in 2017. This was followed by an extensive tour in South Africa. Future engagements include concert tours in Europe, Canada, United States and China.

Her recordings include concerti by Saint-Saëns and Vieuxtemps with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Liège with Christian Arming, awarded an ‘Editors Choice’ from Diapason, and the CD *Kreutzer Sonata* with duo partner Nikolaas Kende, awarded a ‘Gold Label’ from Klassiek Centraal.

After an invitation from Yehudi Menuhin when she was 14 years old, Jolente studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School near London. She continued her studies in London, Berlin and Waterloo where she graduated in the class of Augustin Dumay in 2013.

Since 2018 Jolente is professor violin at the Conservatory of Tilburg, the Netherlands and since 2021 also at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp. Jolente has given masterclasses in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Texas and California.


“Poet in every inch of his fingers” - *Le Progres*

NIKOLAAS KENDE has been praised for his poetic playing and honest, passionate musicality. Critics have honored his sensitive and visionary musicianship and his flawless skills always serving the music. Both as soloist and chamber musician he is a highly demanded pianist on international concert stages.

A winner of several competitions, including the Cantabile, EPTA, Vriendenkrans Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Tenuto competitions, Nikolaas started performing in all major halls in Belgium and the Netherlands. Highlights included the performances of the piano concertos by Brahms, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann and Bartok with Brussels Philharmonic, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, National Radio Orchestra Romania, among others.

After a concert at the Festival de Dansa y Musica Granada in 2019 *Ideal* wrote: "This promising pianist caresses the keyboard, expressive with colors and tender with the melody and all the degrees of affection that typify the romantic soul."

Besides being a regular guest at the Festival of Flanders, he has also performed at festivals in Italy (Ravello, Rome, Bari), France (Menton, Montpellier, Vexin), Portugal (Coimbra), Germany (Görlitz, Munich, Bad Berleburg) , Austria (Salzburg), Ireland (Westport), UK (Cotswolds), Czech Republic (Prague), Spain (Zaragoza, Madrid).

Nikolaas made his debut in America in 2009 with the 1st piano concerto of Brahms. This debut was well received in the press, “One could almost imagine a young Brahms at the keyboard doing precisely the same thing: more intent on communicating his piece than dazzling listeners with his performance.” Since then he has returned to America annually and has toured in Texas (Houston, Austin, San Antonio), California (San Francisco, Fresno, LA) and Vermont, Florida, California, Texas, Washington DC and New York. In 2019 amongst others his debut for the 'Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts' in Chicago. He also performed in the Netherlands Antilles, Canada and South Africa, where several tours followed.

In 2018 he made his debut in China with recitals in Bejijng, Harbin, Chongqing and Chengdu. Concerts in Shanghai, Xi'An, Yangzhou and Guangzhou followed in 2019. Also for the next seasons, concerts are planned in North America, Canada, South Africa and China.

As a chamber music partner he was a member of the Narziss und Goldmund trio and the Rubens Ensemble. His duo with violinist Jolente De Maeyer, which exists for almost 20 years, is often praised in the press for its exceptional synergy and harmony. The duo's debut CD *Kreutzer Sonata* was released by Warner and won a Golden Label from Klassiek Centraal for best chamber music album of 2016. De Standaard wrote about this: "You want to listen to this captivating recital album again immediately after the last track." In 2020 their next CD *Remains* was released by Evil Penguin Records.

Nikolaas studied in Antwerp with his parents, Heidi Hendrickx and Levente Kende, in Amsterdam with Jan Wijn and in Munich and Fiesole with Elisso Virsaladze. In addition he studied with such artists as Murray Perahia, Aldo Ciccolini and Radu Lupu.

In 2015, Nikolaas was appointed professor of piano at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp. He has given masterclasses in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Texas, California and China.

Event Begins: Thursday, November 14, 2024 1:20pm
Location: Lurie Ann & Robert H. Tower
Organized By: School of Music, Theatre & Dance

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Adam Lenhart performs a 30 minute recital on the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Carillon, an instrument of 60 bells with the lowest bell (bourdon) weighing 6 tons. The program celebrates the life, legacy & music of Selena Quintanilla Pérez (1971-1995) as part of Lenhart's American Women Concert Series.

Thirty-minute recitals are performed on the Lurie Carillon every weekday that classes are in session. During these recitals, visitors may take the elevator to level 2 to view the largest bells, or to level 3 to see the carillonist performing. (Visitors subject to acrophobia are recommended to visit level 2 only.) An optional spiral stairway between levels 2 and 3 allows for up-close views of some of the largest bells.

Springfield Chamber Music Society in Light Air by Sally Caldwell Fisher is a(n) Limited Edition. The Edition is Limited to pcs

"It rocks! But it doesn't rock too hard." HBO has revealed the trailer for Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary, premiering on Max later this month. Get ready for a voyage through soft rock history! It's the next creation in HBO's top notch Music Box series of docs about music history - there were 4 feature docs that debuted last year and this next one is part of the "season" coming up in 2024-2025. Yacht Rock chronicles the rise of the smooth West Coast sound pioneered by artists like Steely Dan, Toto, & Michael McDonald, exploring its widespread influence. The film includes soulful insight from many musical artists including Kenny Loggins, Christopher Cross, Michael McDonald (Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers), Steve Porcaro (Toto), Steve Lukather (Toto), David Paich (Toto), Prince Paul (De La Soul), Brian Robert Jones (Vampire Weekend), Thundercat, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson (The Roots), Mac DeMarco and more; "Yacht Rock" web series creator J.D. Ryznar & host Steve Huey; comedian Fred Armisen; music producers, journalists, scholars, and rock critics. Before video killed the radio star, smooth rock ruled the airwaves. This looks so groovy - enjoy. First official trailer (+ poster) for Garret Price's doc Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary, from […]

Ever looked at your smartphone charging port and thought: "Hey, that'd make a great mouthpiece for a digital flute of some kind?" Well, an Italian company has done one better by creating a USB-C-powered MIDI controller with a mouthpiece users can blow into. When paired with a companion app, your mobile device turns into pretty much any popular

Jacques Audiard's gaudy, star-studded Cannes winner, "Emilia Pérez," is stirring and surprisingly philosophical. Review.

Amazon Music – In full lyrics mode, allows you to jump backwards or forwards in the song by tapping the verse you want to go to.

Bandcamp – Elevator music plays when you are logging in, and dings when finished.

/via Kyle Decker

In this episode of _Making Contact_, we sit down with Kev Choice, a classically trained pianist, rapper, composer, and educator, who has reshaped the Bay Area music scene. Raised in […]

The post Making Contact: Love, Growth, and the Power of Music appeared first on KKFI.

It’s a sonic map of New Orleans music from the recording studios and nightclubs to jazz parades. Songs about life on Basin Street and Bourbon Street, to Rampart Street and […]

The post American Routes: A Music Map of New Orleans Lives – with Creole Jazz Singer John Boutté appeared first on KKFI.

Jungle music was found in countless games from the early 90s. This article goes over what jungle is, where it comes from, and why it was the perfect match for PlayStation & Nintendo 64 games.

The series features Naseeruddin Shah, Atul Kulkarni, Sheeba Chaddha, Rajesh Tailang, Kunaal Roy Kapur

Zuck wasn't content with just ruining social media.

The Nintendo Music app lets you listen to dozens of hours of music from games like Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong.

Everything old is new again. Turntable Labs just launched Hangout, a social music platform that’s eerily similar to that champion of 2010s internet, Turntable.fm. The app is available as a web client or via an app for Android and iOS. It allows users to play virtual DJ, with over 100 million songs to choose from.

It not only functions like the old-school Turntable.fm. It even looks the same. There’s a stage, record players and cartoon avatars that sort of look like characters from South Park. I started my own room just to check things out and am pleasantly surprised at the sheer number of songs here that I actually like.

Turntable Labs

This is because those 100 million songs have been secured through partnerships with Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. The catalog also pulls from Merlin, which represents a vast array of indie labels and rights holders.

The company likens the experience to “gathering around a jukebox or listening to albums with friends.” It seems that way to me, as someone I don’t know just jumped in my room and started playing their own stuff. To that end, folks take turns playing DJ. There looks to be room for five people at the same time to play a game of round robin with their favorite songs.

The robust catalog is one major difference from Turntable.fm. The platform didn’t have agreements in place with labels, instead relying on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and a partnership with ASCAP. This forced a number of rules on users as to how many people could be in a room at once and how many songs could be played each hour. It looks like those rules are now dunzo.

Turntable.fm originally went dark all the way back in 2013, before showing signs of renewed life in 2021. This could be a fun retro throwback to an age when we actually got our music recommendations from people, and not algorithms.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/turntable-labs-just-launched-a-new-social-music-platform-called-hangout-172013909.html?src=rss

The new musical starring Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez is a convoluted misfire.

Actor Ayushmann Khurrana, who is all set to enthrall fans with his music tour in the U.S., shared that the concert feels like a homecoming for him, as he used to perform in musicals during college.

The first concert on November 15 will feature tunes from Tamil and Hindi films, followed by tributes to Coldplay, Mozart, Queen, and Abba in the upcoming months

Behind the Music: Taylor Swift

Filed under: Europe, Austria, News

Last night's live production of The Sound of Music on NBC got more flak than Maria did for being an unsolvable problem nun. The acting was bad, the costumes St. Pauli-esque and the mountains... gasp! They were fake!

No. It's all wrong. Those fake mountains.The captain is a vampire. And there's only one Julie Andrews. Two minutes was enough #SoundofMusic

- Paola (@Paopalinaa) December 6, 2013

But there was one winner in last night's performance: the city of Salzburg, Austria. Home of the Von Trapps, setting of the original movie and now site of thousands of Edelweiss-blasting tour buses and gazebo-worshipping 16-going-on-17-year-olds, Salzburg enjoyed a flurry of love last night.

Continue reading And the Winner of Sound of Music Live Is...

And the Winner of Sound of Music Live Is... originally appeared on Gadling on Fri, 06 Dec 2013 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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bmj;387/nov12_10/q2481/FAF1faJulia and Malcolm Donaldsondonaldson20241111.f1Malcolm Donaldson was a distinguished paediatric endocrinologist with a string of research publications to his name—but he was also happy to play second fiddle (almost literally) to his wife Julia, the celebrated author of much loved children’s books, including The Gruffalo and Room on the Broom.Malcolm, a talented musician and performer, accompanied his wife as she toured festivals, schools, and libraries in the UK and around the world. Together they performed the stories, with Malcolm acting characters ranging from an accident prone dragon to a comic cattle thief. His star role, in the words of Julia’s literary agent, was “a particularly suave fox” in The Gruffalo.Malcolm met Julia Shields when they were students at the University of Bristol and they married in 1972. Donaldson went on to work in Brighton, London, and Lyon, France, before moving back to Bristol to be a senior registrar in paediatrics. Six...

A children’s music programme helps Syrian mothers identify their skills and how to use them for Christ, even before they become believers.

Cartagena, Colombia :: An orchestra, bands and a choir join Logos Hope's crew to tell the story of creation in a special musical event.

Offering concerts in private settings in Tienen, Belgium, proves effective in connecting with youth.

Following its Cannes-winning run, French director Jacques Audiard talks about how ‘Emilia Pérez’ reshapes the musical genre, with its lead star’s dazzling spectacle of contradiction and rebirth

The feverish Cannes-winning spectacle dazzles with audacity but stumbles under the weight of its own ambition