In 2012, as part of the John Cage centennial celebrations in San Francisco, the Mexican composer Guillermo Galindo had a mariachi band play Cage’s Variations II. The performance caused the audience some anxiety. I found the video at Sonic Terrains in Latinx Art, a fascinating exhibition at the Vincent Price Art Museum, in East Los Angeles.
Arooj Aftab is a singer and composer based in Brooklyn. She grew up in Saudi Arabia, but her family is from Pakistan. And earlier this year, she made history by becoming the first Pakistani artist to win a Grammy. Her song, “Mohabbat” won the Best Global Music Performance Grammy, and she was nominated for Best New Artist. “Mohabbat” was first released on her 2021 album, Vulture Prince, but it’s been a part of Arooj’s life for a long time. In this episode, she tells the story of how the song was first born, and how it lived with her and evolved over the years before she finally recorded it.
Classical highlights for April: Benjamin Alard furthers his survey of the keyboard works of J.S. Bach with Volume 6, a relatively young conductor, Klaus Mäkelä, joins a long line of Scandinavian conductors doing cycles of Sibelius symphonies, and Jason Vieaux (pictured) continues his exploration of Bach’s works for violin.