This Is Your Brain on Music
The power of a playlist can affect productivity and happiness
By Aspen Matis
Columbia University psychiatry professor Galina Mindlin, MD, PhD, studies neuron connections and how such brain links can be strengthened by listening to the right music. Her new book, Your Playlist Can Change Your Life (co-authored by Joseph Cardillo and Don DuRousseau), distills her brain-training findings into playlists for the mood you want to be in. Read more
Serious or Just Playing Around?
Either way, guitar and piano are the most popular instruments to learn
“Why do people love music? That’s an age-old question,” said Richard Russell, the associate director of the Mannes College the New School for Music Extension Division. “It speaks to something in the soul. People have a calling for it.”
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A Verdi Opera in Arty Hands
The Met does La traviata, and the Manhattan School does a Hoiby opera, plus other sleepers
The Metropolitan Opera has a new production of La traviata, though it is not really new: It is simply new to New York. This production, by the German director Willy Decker, debuted in Salzburg in 2005. The principal singers were Anna Netrebko (Violetta), Rolando Villazón (Alfredo) and Thomas Hampson (Germont). It was the sensation of the summer, maybe even the sensation of the year. The following summer, someone involved in that production said to me, “There was an awful lot of hype surrounding that show, wasn’t there?” I said, “Maybe. But I have to tell you: I have never been more moved in a theater.” Read more
New Sounds at Ecstatic Music Festival
It’s being billed as The Ecstatic Music Festival, but it might be more apt to call it a euphoric marathon. Running through March 28 at Merkin Concert Hall at the Kaufman Center and featuring 150 composers, songwriters and performers working together, this celebration of the area between classical and popular music is nothing if not sprawling. Read more
Summer Guide 2010: Music
SummerStage
SummerStage turns 25 this year, and like any true twentysomething it’s going all out to celebrate, as the Central Park summer staple expands to all five boroughs. See free shows from The xx, St. Vincent, Public Enemy and Jay Electronica, while others from Pavement, The Flaming Lips and Hot Chips will cost you.
June 1 through Aug. 29, various locations, 212-360-2756; Free. Read more
Everything you always wanted to know about New York Indie Music
Feel like you’ve fallen woefully out of the New York underground music loop? Was the last live concert you saw The Spin Doctors circa 1995? NYCMusicShow (on channel 25 for most cable providers) hopes to rectify that by focusing on the burgeoning music scene in all five boroughs. On its May 16th premiere the show profiles local musicians such as Jessica 6, Earl Greyhound and Naturally 7.
“It’s the only TV show I’m aware of that focuses exclusively on independent music,” explained David Schumacher, NYCMusicShow producer.
Read more about the new program here.
Indie Rock Invades Bar East Ale House
By Megan Finnegan
Last year, music promoter Lee Sobel defied neighborhood stereotypes by bringing indie rock—something more associated with the downtown and Brooklyn scene—to the Upper East Side. This year, with more than triple the number of bands, Sobel will do it again at the second annual Upper East Side Music Festival, presented by Sobel’s LoFi Entertainment. More than 100 bands will play throughout February at Bar East Ale House, culminating in a final round in March and an ultimate winner, though Sobel stresses the festival atmosphere more than the competition. Each of the relatively unknown bands will take a cut of the $10-a-head ticket sales for the night they perform. Read more
Al Fresco Opera
By Kevin Filipski
As the summer festival closest to Manhattan—it’s 45 minutes by car (traffic willing), train or bus—Caramoor is the place to go to hear wonderful music in an idyllic outdoor setting of gorgeously landscaped gardens. For the past dozen years, musicologist turned conductor Will Crutchfield has been leading the acclaimed Bel Canto at Caramoor series there, presenting revivals of 19th-century Italian operas by Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini, all sung by artists at home in this repertoire. Read more
Voigt Preps for a ‘Vocal Challenge’
By Kevin Filipski
Soprano Deborah Voigt has risen to the top of the opera world by singing the parts of the demanding, dramatic heroines in the operas of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss.
So is taking on the title role in Alceste, a baroque work by Christoph Willibald Gluck that will be performed by The Collegiate Chorale on May 26, a true departure for her?
“That would be absolutely correct!” the Upper West Side resident laughs in response. “I learned this role nearly 20 years ago when I understudied for Jessye Norman at The Lyric Opera of Chicago. She seemed to be sick every day, but she never got quite ill enough to cancel, so I never sang the part.” Read more
IT’S STILL HER PARTY
By Betty Ming Liu
Back in 1963, 16-year-old pop sensation Lesley Gore topped the charts with “It’s My Party.” So whatever happened to the chirpy strawberry blonde with the beehive hairdo?
How about this storyline: the nice, multi-tasking Jewish girl from affluent Tenafly, N.J., went on to graduate from Sarah Lawrence College (major: English and American Literature) and rack up another two dozen or so hits. When that gig waned, she turned to acting in summer stock, singing on the club circuit and discovering that she’s gay. Read more
