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A composer's meditation on the moment, blown up to immersive proportions

Dancer Calvin "Cal" Hunt during rehearsals for Tyshawn Sorey's Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) at the Park Avenue Armory on Sept. 24, 2022. Laylah Amatullah Barrayn for NPR hide caption

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Laylah Amatullah Barrayn for NPR

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A composer's meditation on the moment, blown up to immersive proportions WRTI

September 27, 2022 • Seven months after it debuted at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Tyshawn Sorey relaunches his work Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) on a monumental new scale in New York's Park Avenue Armory.

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Disco Beethoven Chris Sharron hide caption

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Chris Sharron

Welcome fall with a wide range of new releases, from cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, guitarist Sean Shibe and tenor Jonathan Tetelman to choral music by Cage, a violin concerto by Britten and a farewell to summer by William Grant Still.

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The Alt.Latino Playlist

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Comic book artist Daniel Warren Johnson (Murder Falcon, Extremity) illustrates the music of Viking's Choice. Horns up! Daniel Warren Johnson hide caption

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Daniel Warren Johnson

Viking's Choice

This week: Cheba Wahida's Algerian trance bangers, Cheem's cheeky nu-jock jams, The Veldt's soul-shoegaze, Autonoesis' blackened thrash, Tin-ear's scrappy emo.

NPR

Jazz Night In America: The Playlist WBGO and Jazz At Lincoln Center

A modern jazz survey at ground level, from stone classics to state-of-the-art jams.

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Editors' picks

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Challenging traditional sertanejo, Brazil's Gabeu creates space for queer love

In his queer reworking of sertanejo, Gabeu flips the image of the macho cowboy on its head. Pedro Nekoi for NPR hide caption

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Pedro Nekoi for NPR

Challenging traditional sertanejo, Brazil's Gabeu creates space for queer love songs

Part of a new scene called 'queernejo,' the Latin Grammy-nominated Gabeu is reworking the conservative, macho stylings of sertanejo.

The daily crisis facing touring musicians right now

The Oakland artist Spellling is one of countless musicians this year to have tours disrupted by a band member catching COVID-19, with costly and draining consequences. Illustration by Jackie Lay/Photo by Sharon Lopez/NPR/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Illustration by Jackie Lay/Photo by Sharon Lopez/NPR/Courtesy of the artist

Musicians are back on the road, but every day is a gamble

For bands on tour, one positive COVID test can spell disaster. With audiences increasingly unmasked and institutional support drying up, safety is left mostly to the artists themselves.

Jake Blount's 'The New Faith' is a cautionary, clarifying Afrofuturist tale

Jake Blount's new album, The New Faith, takes spirituals and sacred blues numbers as the source material for an uneasy Afrofuturist story. Tadin Brown /Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Tadin Brown /Courtesy of the artist