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Music Interviews
1:03 am
Sat September 22, 2012

Kid Koala: All Roads Lead To The Blues

Credit Corinne Merrell / Courtesy of the artist
Kid Koala's new album is titled 12 Bit Blues.
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Originally published on Sat September 22, 2012 9:35 am

Eric San, who goes by the name Kid Koala, plays the blues. But just as Kid Koala isn't a traditional blues name like Blind Lemon Jefferson or Doctor Ross the Harmonica Boss, he isn't a standard blues man.

Kid Koala is a DJ. Big turntables, fast hands, scratching old-fashioned vinyl records — the whole deal. Now, he's taken that DJ equipment and produced a "turntable blues" album titled 12 Bit Blues.

So how did a Canadian DJ discover the blues, exactly? San says it all happened in high school.

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The Record
5:15 pm
Fri September 21, 2012

Universal's Purchase Of EMI Gets Thumbs Up In U.S. And Europe

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The catalog of The Beatles, which was owned by EMI, will be among the assets that the Universal Music Group gets to keep.
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Originally published on Thu October 4, 2012 2:20 pm

And then there were three — record labels, that is. Regulators in the United States and Europe have approved the acquisition of EMI Music by Univeral Music Group. The combined label will own close to 40 percent of the world music market with a trove of acts that includes The Beatles.

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All Songs Considered Blog
4:47 pm
Fri September 21, 2012

Download Quirky Greatness From Alt-J

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Originally published on Fri November 2, 2012 12:55 pm

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Classics in Concert
2:48 pm
Fri September 21, 2012

LA Philharmonic Live: Dudamel Conducts 'The Rite Of Spring,' Sept. 30, 5 p.m. ET

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Credit Greg Grudt/Mathew Imaging / courtesy of the Los Angeles Philharmonic
Conductor Gustavo Dudamel leads his forces through a vibrant opening-weekend performance of Stravinsky, Stucky and Ravel on Sept. 30, 2012.
Credit Greg Grudt/Mathew Imaging for NPR
LA Phil president and CEO Deborah Borda, along with composer Steven Stucky, join the KUSC crew backstage.
Credit Greg Grudt/Mathew Imaging for NPR
Dudamel comes back onstage to receive the audience's cheers at the end of The Rite of Spring.
Credit Greg Grudt/Mathew Imaging for NPR
In a recent interview with NPR's Robert Siegel, Dudamel called Rite "amazing...you discover new colors, you discover, 'Oh look, this is a very traditional harmony,' but then you see the details — and then every time it's different."
Credit Greg Grudt/Mathew Imaging for NPR
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky wrote his first, shimmering Symphony for a joint commission by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic.
Credit Greg Grudt/Mathew Imaging for NPR
2012-13 marks Dudamel's fourth season as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Credit Greg Grudt/Mathew Imaging for NPR
Percussionist Joseph Pereira with his array of mallets for the Rite of Spring.
Credit Greg Grudt/Mathew Imaging for NPR
The winds and brass of the Los Angeles Philharmonic play Stravinsky's strange and exciting colors.
Credit Greg Grudt/Mathew Imaging for NPR.
Composer Steven Stucky is warmly greeted by Dudamel after the performance of his newly written Symphony.
Credit Greg Grudt/Mathew Imaging for NPR
This was the opening program of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's ninth season at the spectacular Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by Frank Gehry.
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Originally published on Thu January 24, 2013 6:52 am

If there were a Guinness World Records entry for "Most Infamous Music Premiere," Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring would almost certainly take the prize. The year was 1913. The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris was packed to the rafters in anticipation of the next ballet from the team that had produced The Firebird and Petrushka.

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Monkey See
2:01 pm
Fri September 21, 2012

Dustin Hoffman Directs Maggie Smith, But How Is His Direction Like Dentistry?

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Director Dustin Hoffman and actress Maggie Smith arrive at the Quartet Premiere at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2012.
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[The films that Team NPR saw at the Toronto International Film Festival will be rolling out in theaters over the next several months, and we'll be reminding you about some of them along the way. One that Bob Mondello enjoyed was Dustin Hoffman's directing debut, Quartet. He attended the gala Toronto premiere and wrote this short postcard about the actors' responses and the audience's reaction to the film, which is currently scheduled to open just after Christmas, on January 4, 2013. — Linda Holmes]

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