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This week on Open Air Currents, a fun summer release by G Love, Andrew Bird waxes philosophical on Inside Problems, a new release from Canadian folk duo Mama’s Broke and Adrian Quesada’s new album of boleros.
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Vijay Gupta was a 19-year-old violin prodigy when he joined the LA Philharmonic. Now he runs Street Symphony, an organization bringing music to clinics, jails and homeless shelters on Skid Row.
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Georgetown University owes its survival to slavery. A new album by Carlos Simon, an assistant professor at the school, unflinchingly confronts that legacy.
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Ukraine's National Opera was built to celebrate Russian opera at the height of the imperial era. Performances were suspended after the war began but have recently re-started.
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The pandemic was especially tough for up-and-coming musicians from smaller cities and towns. But for at least one country rocker from the rural Northwest, it may have leveled the playing field.
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Hawkins, who died in March, won 15 Grammys and became a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2021.
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There's been an avalanche of great new music to sort through these last few weeks. Time to play a little catch-up here on ‘Currents’ including a special introduction to the new release from the Tedeschi Trucks Band, which, forgive me, is a total monster.
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Composers Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels have brought a true story to the opera stage: the life of Omar Ibn Said, a Senegalese Muslim scholar who was enslaved and brought to the Carolinas.
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NPR's Scott Simon talks to Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche about their new album Cruel Country, and about writing songs with uncomfortable truths.
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The singer-songwriter had a tough couple of years, losing both parents while balancing new love. The experience fueled the country-leaning balance of her new album, Big Time.
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A certain anti-authoritarian anthem linked to the punk rock pioneers and the British monarch, is being re-released as Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her platinum jubilee.
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The artist's debut album Preacher's Daughter drives deep into the heart of gothic Americana.
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Fletcher assumed a low-profile in the group, but was a uniting figure and often the tiebreaking vote in the squabbles of his more famous bandmates.
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On a new album, the classical stars revisit the concerto Williams composed specifically for Ma, as well as some of Williams' most affecting film scores.