Norm Chambers, the Seattle-based musician behind projects such as Panabrite, Jürgen Müller, Spiral Index and N Chambers, has died aged 50.
A friend of the artist Pete Prezzano, co-founder of Chicago label Love All Day which released several of Chambers’ albums, revealed in 2019 he was suffering from a rare form of sinus cancer, setting up a crowdfunder to pay for his care and treatment.
An update on the page announced his death on Monday, writing: “With great sadness I must report that around 1:30 PM today our dear friend Norm Chambers passed away at home, surrounded by his loved ones.
“Norm was a brilliant composer, sound designer and musician. He was an ardent, lifelong record collector, DJ and listener. Norm was also a talented graphic artist and designer. He was a true outdoorsman—enjoying hiking, cross-country skiing and camping. He adored his dogs. Above all, Norm was an ever-loving partner to his wonderful wife Kayoko.”
Chambers grew up in Salt Lake City before later settling in Seattle. He was a prolific musician who released numerous albums across his various aliases, and was a member of the groups Soft Mirage, with Christian Richer, and Water Bureau, with Daryl Groestch.
He was revered for the experimental and ambient sounds he was able to produce from analog instruments, as well as being an illustrator who often designed the artwork for his releases.
Panabrite was first and most prolific project, releasing his debut album ‘Paramount Hexagon’ in 2009.
One album, 2011’s ‘Science of the Sea’ under his Jürgen Müller alias, was presented as an archival find from the early ‘80s made by a German scientist and self-taught composer who had been studying oceans.and made music symbolic of his love of marine life.
Prezzano’s announcement concludes: “It was Norm’s music, and records more generally that brought me to know him some 15 years ago. I’m deeply and truly grateful for having made that connection. He relentlessly pursued new pathways and forms in sound, but did it in such a relaxed and unassuming way. It will always serve as a model to me on how to approach art and life in general. Even as he faced serious health issues, he continued to do what he loved with good humor and grace, and he never gave up. Everyone loved Norm’s early music, but he was never satisfied to go on repeating himself; always searching for unknown and fascinating terrain. I’ve learned so much from him, and am proud to have called him my friend.
“From the bottom of my heart and on behalf of Norm and his family, I thank you all for your support. I loved Norm very much and I know you did too.”
The drama in Opera San Antonio’s staging of “Pagliacci” this week isn’t contained to the stage.
The Classical Music Institute, an educational and performance group based at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, has been placed on the American Federation of Musicians’ International Unfair List at the request of the union’s San Antonio chapter. That means that union members are advised against working for Classical Music Institute, which is providing an orchestra for the Opera San Antonio performance.
The move represents an escalation of a dispute between the American Federation of Musicians’ Local 23 and CMI that first became public at a Commissioners Court meeting last month. At the meeting, union representatives spoke out against a grant that CMI received from the county to enable it to provide music for performances by the opera and Ballet San Antonio.
“The wages and conditions offered for the work by CMI to professional musicians are substandard and therefore unacceptable to the union in San Antonio,” said Raymond Hair, president of the national union. “Furthermore they do not pay any benefits — they don’t pay into the AFM pension fund, which is a feature of that kind of work.”
READ MORE: CMI receives $300,000 grant from Bexar County during contentious meeting
Classical Music Institute officials did not respond to specific questions about the impact of being placed on the unfair list, but they did release a statement.
“The Classical Music Institute’s $300,000 grant from the Bexar County Commissioners Court to provide classical music for Ballet San Antonio and Operal San Antonio allows these valuable organizations and artists to showcase their passion and talent, enriching our city,” the statement reads. “Let the curtain rise for the performing arts this season. Let’s work together, not separate, to elevate our classical musicians.”
Rehearsals are taking place this week for “Pagliacci,” which is to open Thursday at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts.
The union sent musicians who had contracted to play for CMI an email Sunday notifying them of its concerns. It warned them that if they played “Pagliacci,” they might face picket lines as well as financial penalties from their local unions.
Richard Oppenheim, president of Local 23, said some musicians pulled out of the production after they learned that CMI was on the union’s unfair list.
E. Loren Meeker, general and artistic director for Opera San Antonio, said in a statement that the opera will go on.
“We are very pleased that CMI, a fellow resident company of the Tobin Center, has made an incremental step to become a full orchestra, and hopeful that the attempts to keep it from playing for (Opera San Antonio) are not successful,” she said. “We don’t want the performing arts in our city to be dictated by one group trying to have a monopoly. We are resolved that these efforts will not prevent Opera San Antonio … from bringing the great music and theater of Pagliacci to our community.”
RELATED: SA Philharmonic buys assets of defunct San Antonio Symphony
The San Antonio Symphony, which folded in June following a strike by musicians and decades of financial turmoil, had played in many productions by the opera and the ballet in the past. The former symphony musicians have resumed performing independently as the San Antonio Philharmonic.
Staff writer Jacob Beltran contributed to this report.
“Let me sing you the songs you are longing to hear,” Patrick Haggerty offered fondly during his waltz-time ballad “All Disillusions Behind” on Lavender Country’s second album Blackberry Rose. He was singing to a lover — “It’s kinda corny,” he winced and chuckled during a promotional documentary — but by then, he was also addressing an audience he once doubted he’d ever have.
When he died at age 78 on Monday — Lavender Country’s official Instagram account confirmed that he died of complications related to a stroke, “surrounded by his kids and lifelong husband, JB” — Haggerty was celebrated as a pioneering elder by LGBTQ+ artists, activists and fans who stake their claims to roots, country and folk music. But it was just in the last half-dozen years or so that Lavender Country’s debut — the self-titled, 10-song set he and his original bandmates made back in 1973 — enjoyed wide recognition as the first openly gay country album.
Making those kinds of claims to firstness is a complicated thing. As a number of history-revising scholars, including Nadine Hubbs and Ryan Lee Cartwright, have noted in their work, and as queer, banjo-playing songwriter and thought leader Justin Hiltner makes clear virtually every time he speaks on the record, “queerness in these rootsy, country, and rural spaces is nothing new.” But the arc of Haggerty’s career, the chance to witness a warmly uncompromising and incisively charismatic figure revive the life-endangering truth-telling he did during the Stonewall era while occupying the spotlight in a lavender-hued snap shirt the final eight years of his life — that was monumental.
The many interviewers who asked Haggerty what he thought about gaining new generations of musical followers in recent years often received a playfully pungent response. “For years I was by myself,” he told Billboard in 2021. “Now I have an entourage of country performers who think I’m their grandpappy or something.” He also tended to scoff at the question “Why country?” as though it ought to be self-evident that a boy who grew up in a Hank Williams-loving, dairy-farming household in Washington state and went on to become an openly gay and politically radicalized man would reach for country songwriting as a tool of agitation.
Haggerty made clear that his wasn’t the story of a country hopeful who tried to break into the business. He was acutely aware that songwriting advocating for a Marxist and intersectional vision of gay liberation would be unmarketable in almost any genre in the late ’70s. What enabled him and his musical co-conspirators Michael Carr, Eve Morris and Robert Hammerstrom to make that first Lavender Country album, and press 1,000 copies of it, was the grassroots funding they received from Gay Community Social Services of Seattle, where they lived. That’s also how they secured a P.O. Box, placed ads in the back of magazines and commenced a modest mail-order business.
In a promotional clip for a re-release of the album decades later, Haggerty scoffed at the notion that he was fazed by any controversy his version of country generated. What he cared about was the queer folks who bought the LP in secret and listened in tearful appreciation as he merrily and explicitly took down straight, white, cis toxic masculinity (“Cryin’ These C***sucking Tears”), decried how the forces of capitalism divided and conquered working-class activist coalitions and delayed gay liberation (“Back in the Closet Again”), immortalized the pleasure and anonymity of a cruising encounter (“I Can’t Shake the Stranger Out of You”) and imagined a welcoming queer utopia where there would be no policing of gender performance (“Lavender Country”). Haggerty was writerly and purposeful about his outrage and outrageousness, drawing on the traditions of protest folk and high camp. Over shambling, spirited, piano-driven and fiddle-accented country-rock, he hit his notes head on, needling listeners with his penetrating wit. His rough, reedy timbre made no concessions to uptown, cosmopolitan expression, but he certainly knew how to ham it up.
After half a decade of performing in the Pacific Northwest, Haggerty felt marginalized in his own political movement, too radical for the gay rights coalitions forming with Democrats. He set the band aside and moved on with his life’s work: co-parenting, marriage, campaigning for local and state office, working for quality of care and policy change for AIDS patients.
The first Lavender Country album fell out of print and into obscurity, until a crate-digger uploaded “Tears” to YouTube and the indie label Paradise of Bachelors reissued the full-length in 2014. After it became available more widely than it had ever been, performers making their ways down a variety of paths latched onto Haggerty’s songs and story. High-profile drag queen Trixie Mattel wanted to duet. Masked crooner Orville Peck offered an opening slot. At a number of queer country showcases, Haggerty was both honored guest and headliner. When Blackberry Rose, the second Lavender Country album, saw a wide release by Don Giovanni records in 2022, musicians who saw themselves as working in that broad lineage — like Mya Byrne, Paisley Fields, Lizzie No, Jett Holden, Mali Obomsawin and Austin Lucas — collaborated with Haggerty, some providing backing on the record and others joining Lavender Country on a package tour this past spring.
For Haggerty, though, any interaction with the music industry itself remained fraught. His mind was still fixed on the movement. “You’re supposed to stand on my shoulders and move forward,” he insisted to the online magazine Country Queer, “because that’s what’s going to be required of you to see the Revolution through.”
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
The Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen joined San Francisco Symphony as music director in 2021, following tenures with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Cody Pickens
From an early age, Esa-Pekka Salonen knew music was his destiny. Yet he never dreamed that one day he’d be an internationally renowned composer and conductor.
Born in Helsinki, Finland, to a businessman father and homemaker mother, Salonen took up the French horn, studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and began conducting when his band of young musicians was in need of one. He clearly had a knack for it.
Salonen’s big break came in 1983 when he stepped in, with just a few days’ notice, for Michael Tilson Thomas to conduct Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with the Philharmonia in London. Salonen was only 25 years old at the time, but it was evident from that performance that the young Finn with the long hair was destined for greatness.
In 1992, Salonen moved his family to Los Angeles, where he became music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. During his tenure, which lasted until 2009, he was instrumental in opening the Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by legendary architect Frank Gehry. In 2008, Salonen returned to Europe and the Philharmonia, serving as its principal conductor and artistic advisor before becoming music director of the San Francisco Symphony in the 2020–21 season, succeeding Tilson Thomas.
On a recent afternoon, Salonen and I sat in his stark office at Davies Symphony Hall, where we talked about conducting, composing and the relational nature of music.
So, what exactly does a conductor do? The conductor has multiple functions. On some level, he or she is like a team coach, who gives his or her players — musicians — certain strategies, certain methods, certain concepts and hopefully inspires them. I think that’s 90 percent of it really.
In many cases the musicians have played these pieces many times before, but knowing is not the same thing as having a concept. A conductor has a concept and then he or she, during the rehearsals, realizes that concept. In some cases it can be a very precise, rigid concept. In some cases it can be more like, “OK, let’s have a creative dialogue about things.”
Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen and architect Frank Gehry, who worked together in Los Angeles during the construction of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, attended the opening of San Francisco Symphony’s 2022–2023 season at Davies Symphony Hall.
Devlin Shand for Drew Altizer Photography
Has your style of conducting evolved over the years? The whole process of conducting, the mechanics of conducting, is about optimizing. Trying to create a gestural vocabulary that very clearly conveys what goes on in my mind, musically. So over the years, partly consciously, partly intuitively, I’ve learned how to do it simply. How to keep things together and how to give people enough flexibility and freedom, and yet steer it. And that balance is very hard to find, also because orchestras are different. That’s why, personally, I like the idea of working with the same group for a long time and intensely, hundreds and thousands of hours, and then you get to a point where things seem to be happening by osmosis, which to me is the ideal leadership. So you’re not controlling, it’s more like you create a flow and everybody becomes part of it.
How would you describe your relationship with the players? When I speak to young conductors about conducting, often the very first thing I say is, “Don’t forget that you’re conducting people. You’re not conducting the second clarinet. You’re not conducting the first trombone. You’re conducting a person who plays that instrument.” Very hard to explain this, but sometimes when people, young people, want to become conductors, they think that this is some kind of a mythological thing, this maestro thing and the images of Herbert von Karajan with the silver hair staring into the horizon and being godlike. None of that is necessary and even true.
How did you begin conducting? When I started studying conducting, we had a group of young composers at the time called Ears Open. Many of those then-young composers are now very well known, some internationally even. We felt that no “real” conductors were interested in our music, so we decided to start an association that would perform new music by young composers. And we needed a conductor, and I had maybe the most experience of performing music, because I was a French horn player and I played in the Helsinki orchestras as a sub. So I became the conductor of the group. …
My pal played the violin, and another pal played piano, percussion, and I conducted, because somebody had to do it. I grew up in an environment where conducting was just one activity among other musical activities. No better, no worse. I, not for a second, thought of myself as being more important than, say, a friend who played the viola or the flute. It was just a different function. I’m deeply grateful for that experience because it has helped me later in life in terms of how I communicate with musicians, because my function is to keep things going. Not dictate, but enable, give them tools to achieve a certain result.
That takes a certain leadership skill. Leadership, absolutely, but my starting point is still the same as it was then. … Everybody is an integral part of this rather reckless thing that a symphony orchestra can be. I don’t like formality particularly. I think if people want to call me maestro, that’s OK, because my name is so difficult to pronounce for non-Finnish speakers. Basically “maestro” is a teacher. That’s the original meaning of the word.
It sounds like your initial experience conducting has kept you grounded. It’s hard to say from within how grounded I am, but the very fact that I’ve gotten this far without major catastrophe, I must be doing something right. Which is not to say that there wouldn’t be room for improvement, and that’s the fun part actually, because I’m nearing an age where many other people are planning their retirement and slowing down and enjoying life. My feeling is, I’m just starting. We have opened the [2022–23] season, which is the first real season after the lockdown with my new orchestra. We’re finally in business, and we’re finally playing all this repertoire that we were supposed to be playing two and a half years ago.
Salonen conducts Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with SF Symphony during its 2022 Opening Night Gala Concert.
Drew Altizer
Where did your love of music come from? I have no idea. I don’t come from a musical family. My dad was a businessman and my mom was mostly at home. [My mom] claims that when I was very little, I reacted strongly to music. She wanted me to start taking piano lessons when I was 4 years old, and I refused. She was wise enough not to force it. Then, a few years went by and I just heard something on the radio and became aware of this thing called music, and all of a sudden it just hit me. I cannot really remember what happened, because we create these narratives later on in life that fit the bigger narrative. But nevertheless, I moved from primary school to an experimental school where they had a lot of emphasis on the arts. Almost every kid played something, so it was just normal, like breathing. I started playing instruments, started with the recorder.
As they all do. That’s the real test. If you still love music after a semester in the plastic recorder group, then something’s going on. Then I played the trumpet, and I changed to the French horn, which became my main instrument. Then I started taking the piano lessons that I should’ve been taking several years earlier. When I was about 11, I kind of knew that this was it. There was nothing else in the world that would excite me as much. I had an idea then — which I’m happy to say was correct — that it’s endless. It’s like you are never finished. You are never ready. There are always things to learn.
And that appealed to you? I just remember this sense of vastness. … You’re hiking and all of a sudden you come to this amazing vista like a canyon and mountains, and it seems endless and limitless and totally fascinating. And also, in a positive way, beyond your grasp, uncontainable, which of course is a good thing for something that becomes your life’s work. There’s never a moment when you think, “OK, done.”
That’s a very profound thought for a little boy. Obviously I wouldn’t have been able to verbalize it, but it was just a sense I’m never going to get tired of this. There were lots of things I got bored with, but not this.
You are also a composer. When did you start writing music? Composing came very naturally. I heard some contemporary classical pieces randomly on the radio when I was maybe 11 and I thought, “OK, if music can sound like this, then I have to be able to write it myself.” So I started studying music theory, but I had no career thoughts.
Salonen presenting at the Apple Distinguished Educators conference in Amsterdam in July 2015.
Courtesy of Esa-Pekka Salonen
I’ve heard you say when you left Europe and came to the States, you experienced a new freedom in your writing, that you were liberated. How so? After [World War II], there was a movement in European classical music, the very strict modernist movement led by people like [Karlheinz] Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez. It became mainstream in a funny way. The rules were very strict, and the list of things that were taboo was long. I had this dichotomy. Obviously I went with the way I was taught and trained, but the music that I loved to conduct was this very rich, sonorous, powerful music with pulse and sweeping melodies, like Stravinsky, Mahler, Bruckner. Somehow I couldn’t combine the two. They were two different worlds. Composing became very difficult, because I felt I wasn’t expressing the true me, whatever that is. Then when I moved to L.A. back in the early ’90s, all of a sudden I felt, “OK, I’m far enough away from Europe and all these gurus and rigid aesthetics.”
Wow. So you really did find yourself in California? Yes, I did. I mean, positively. I came with the weight of the European tradition. … Shakespeare’s the greatest dramatist, Beethoven’s the greatest symphonist, Michelangelo is the greatest sculptor. And I’m going to this country and sharing all this. To my credit, I was smart enough to figure out in California that, “OK, as a matter of fact, I have a lot to learn from these people.” And the questions! When I spoke about the complexities and construction and the theory behind a piece of music, people said, “Yeah, that’s all great, but what am I supposed to be feeling? What does it tell me?” And I’m like, “What are you talking about?”
Was that an issue with your orchestra when you were with the Los Angeles Philharmonic? I was very young to be in that position to start with. I had very little experience of the U.S. culture and ways and habits and so on. I was very afraid of being somehow tarnished in this whole Hollywood thing, which now I would be happy to be tarnished a little more.
I heard, in the ’90s, you turned down being named one ofPeoplemagazine’s 50 sexiest people on earth. Yeah, but now if somebody asked the same question, I would say, “Yeah, happy to be in.” Maybe it was the right thing to do, because I was very worried about my integrity, especially in L.A. I mean, it would’ve been easier here [in San Francisco] for a young person, but L.A. … This entertainment business is so omnipresent, and it’s also ruthless. You’re riding the wave for a while and then nothing. Emptiness and so on. I think I did find a way to navigate all that.
You were instrumental in helping open Frank Gehry’s iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A. I was living in Los Angeles at the time, and I know that was no easy feat. The initial gift from Lillian Disney came, I think, in ’86 or ’87. I was a music director designate from ’89, so I was part of the process from then. I would say there were at least 10 times when we all thought that the project was dead in the water. And, of course, the riots happened and it seemed to be a completely wrong time to be discussing a new concert hall in downtown L.A. But then the critical mass was reached at some point. There were enough influential, enthusiastic people who saw the potential and the importance, and then it really got going again.
Esa-Pekka Salonen on a summer 2019 respite and at the grill in Aix-En-Provence, France.
Courtesy of Esa-Pekka Salonen
What was it like when it opened? I had a few moments before the actual opening, when I knew that something extraordinary was about to happen. There was the very first time Frank [Gehry] and I listened to music in the hall, played by the concertmaster of the L.A. Philharmonic, just one violin. And there was no stage yet. It was just a gaping hole. It was a hard-hat area still, so Frank and I, we sat in the balcony, far back. We were so nervous, we had a couple vodkas before the moment, and then the sound of violin started kind of floating in the space and we knew, “OK, it works.”
Let me take you back to another performance. By all accounts, you stepped onto the international stage when you were called upon to take over for an indisposed Michael Tilson Thomas at the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1983. Correct.
You’re in London and 25 years old. Tell me about that performance. First of all, I’m quite a rational guy, but I think that there’s some kind of beautiful fate that I replaced Michael, and then several decades later, I end up being his successor [at SF Symphony]. He said the same thing himself — things seem to be intertwined.
I certainly believe in destiny. That was still a time when I wasn’t planning to have any kind of conducting career. I was conducting because I liked it and conducting was needed and it seemed to come fairly naturally to me. Not that I felt that I was a master conductor by any means. It just felt like a natural way to interact with other musicians. I had a manager at the time who calls me, and it was kind of early, and says, “So how about Mahler’s Three with the Philharmonia Orchestra?” I thought he was joking, and I used language that I will not repeat here. He called again two hours later and said, “I wasn’t joking, and maybe you feel a little better about it and this is a serious question. So do you want to do it?” So I called the manager of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and they sent the score from the Finnish radio library for me to look at, and I leafed through it and I thought, “OK, well, nothing to lose, I’ll do it.”
That’s amazing. I had three days to prepare or something like that. I didn’t sleep much. Then I flew to London, did one day of rehearsal and then the concert. So it was all very compact. But I wasn’t nervous because I thought, there are two possible outcomes: Either it goes well or it doesn’t. If it goes well, fine. If it doesn’t, at least I could tell my grandchildren that I conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra once and I’ll just carry on. The orchestra was wonderful; they were super-supportive and good-natured and warm. And then it’s a cliché, but my life did change overnight. All of a sudden, telexes were ticking away.
Years later, you became the principal conductor and artistic advisor of that very orchestra. What was your proudest accomplishment there? Very hard to say, because there’s no concrete monument like the Disney Hall. I tried to reimagine the season because the sheer volume of cultural life in London is insane. Every night there are at least 15 concerts happening and five symphony orchestras. So the white-noise level is so strong that you need ways to cut through it rather than just put on a concert with some kind of normal program. I tried to create themes that would focus on either a composer or a certain historic period or a place, such as Paris. I found that method quite successful in London, in terms of creating a profound identity.
What brought you to San Francisco? First of all, I had already decided to step down in London because I thought the Philharmonia is a great orchestra, London is a super-exciting city and all that, but the schedule of a London orchestra is very tough. Constantly on the road, and for years I had the feeling that I wasn’t living anywhere. My marriage fell apart, and I was really, I wouldn’t say drifting, but I didn’t feel I had an anchor.
So I decided to maybe just spend more time in Finland or something like that, and then the [San Francisco] Symphony came calling. We started talking and I thought, “OK, this is a very, very good orchestra conducted by a friend of mine and a colleague I admire a lot.” Michael was one of my heroes since the very beginning. So there was that. And it’s back to California. … I thought this is a place where ideas have been born, and some of the most astonishing success stories in terms of innovation happen. And I thought maybe if a symphony orchestra would be the equivalent of some of these other innovative aspects of this town, it would be deeply satisfying and also super-exciting. And I would be closer to my kids.
Did you come in with a grand vision, or were you willing to just let things unfold? We had quite extensive plans, and then the pandemic happened. So, my last season in London and my first season here didn’t happen, which was the weirdest thing. No proper send-off, but also no proper welcome.
It’s unfortunate on both sides. We went back to the drawing board, obviously. And last season, which was the first season of public concerts, was still a bit like a hybrid. The audiences were not completely back, and also the programming was hybrid. We all feel that now these [recent] weeks have been the real opening, and we are finally getting going, and there are all kinds of exciting plans in the pipeline.
It’s inevitable that people will make comparisons between MTT and you. How will things be different under your direction? It’s very hard to say, because obviously we are very different people, and we are very different musicians, and yet there’s a lot that unites us. I mean, if I were to choose one conductor from the older generation with whom I share many ideas, it would be Michael, and also I’ve learned a lot from him. So, we’re very similar in spirit, I think; very different in execution.
If you weren’t conducting and composing, what would you be doing with your life? I have no idea. I really don’t. I mean, I like the arts generally. I read a lot. I like the visual arts. I love theater, cinema and basically everything. So maybe I would be doing something else. Film maybe.
What inspires you to create? That’s a very hard question because there’s no one thing that it can be. Nature, for sure, especially the sea. It can be something I read. It can be something I see, like a painting, and sometimes it’s this thing which is very difficult to define, like [an] encounter with otherness. Like getting a glimpse to another culture or a completely different way of thinking or something that is completely unexpected and intense, and that encounter sets some things in motion, maybe long afterwards.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Here check out the list of K-pop bands who will complete their 7 years of journey in the K-pop music Industry
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K-pop Bands are very popular all around the world. People are fond of the unique music genre, encouraging many singers to adopt K-pop music as their career. At the same time, BTS is the most famous boys’ band in the world. At the same time, Blackpink is the most famous girl band. So BTS has been impressing the world over the decade. And so here we share a list of K-pop Bands who will be completing 7 years in the industry.
1) Blackpink: The most popular girl band Blackpink made their debut on August 8, 2016. They made their debut under the banner YG Entertainment. Since then, the four members have stayed with the group and will complete 7 years in the industry next year.
2)NCT 127: This is one of the three units of the NCT boy band. The band made its debut under SM Entertainment’s banner on July 7, 2016. This is the first unit to mark its debut. This band will also complete its 7-year journey in 2023.
3)MOMOLAND: The girl band debuted on November 10, 2016. The original band had seven members but added two more to the group. But they have lost three members, and now six members are left.
4)ASTRO: ASTRO made its debut on February 23, 2016. The members are constant since the start and are entertaining the audience.
Thank you for reading the article with care. Please share your experiences with us. Follow IWMBuzz.com for more such updates.
Featuring a cover of Echo and the Bunnymen’s Lips Like Sugar which contains all of the salacious murky atmosphere of the original, it is safe to say that Siggy’s comeback album, 25th Century, arrived with a proto-punk bang.
After making their debut in 1999 with the album, Harlow’s Girl,which carried a Crampsy sense of killer off-kilter volition, 25th Century had a lot to live up to, but the rhythmic pulse is strong across the 10 singles which traverse the themes of hope, fury, and the rank psychic pathology of the 21st century.
The gothy Echo and the Bunnymen vibes carry across more than just the cover, along with hints of Television and bites of Splitter-Esque punk. But for me, the highlight had to be the title single, which truly embraces the stifled with strange nature of the 21st century while throwing back to the time when guitarists knew how to lick right into your soul. “If there’s going to be a 25th century there has to be 21st century morality” is a lyric I will never forget.
25th Century is now available to stream on Spotify.
Foreign Family Collective signee obli celebrates the delivery of his latest release on ODESZA’s famed electronic imprint. Out now, “Deeper” is a fine exemplification of obli’s flourishing sonic profile that exudes an air of simplicity and contains many dynamics.
Opening with soft-synth piano chords and breakbeat percussion, obli starts his latest track “Deeper” off with a warm and inviting atmosphere. Blending arpeggiating melodies across the lead-in, a soulful vocal sample draws listeners in ahead of a deep percussive, yet ambient display of obli’s production proficiencies in contemporary electronic music.
Produced with intention surrounding the spontaneity of music creation, “Deeper” is the first track off of a forthcoming Foreign Family Collective EP that’s centered around initial inspiration. Where musicians can often mold an initial feeling that inspires a track, obli has set forth to preserve that emotion in hopes that listeners will share the same feeling.
A true multi-instrumentalist with a tenure working with top names in the business, Chris Null has spent years of his career touring with the likes of Sonny Moore a.k.a Skrillex, and playing guitar for GRAMMY® Award-nominated superstar Julia Michaels.
His origins in alternative, indie, electronic, rock and pop music have set the foundation for him to build his current solo-project obli. Inspired by the likes of Four Tet, Bonobo, and Joy Orbison, he obli accesses a cinematic level of emotion as he layers vocal samples above the living and breathing soundscapes he handcrafted.
With more new music on the horizon, obli’s latest release “Deeper” foreshadows a new era of music soon to come on ODESZA’s Foreign Family Collective imprint.
Diane Worthey has spent about 30 years teaching children of all ages the violin and viola, with about 12 years of that as part of the University of Idaho Preparatory Division. Now she is the soon to be author of two published children’s books.
Worthey has a new book coming out Nov. 22 titled “Rise Up with a Song: The true story of Ethel Smith, Suffragette Composer.” Worthey will have pre-launch parties Nov. 18 and 20 on the Palouse.
Writing was not always something she imagined she would do. Worthey said her first love was music, beginning with listening to classical music, then playing the piano and eventually the violin.
Worthey performs with the Washington-Idaho Symphony, the Palouse String Quartet and the Harmonia String Trio when not writing or teaching. She has lived in Pullman since 2001.
It was 2020 when she added the title of published author to her resume, with her first children’s book, “In One Ear and Out The Other: The Amazing Life of Antonia Brico,” about the first woman to conduct the Berlin and New York Philharmonic orchestras. Worthey has a personal connection to Brico — as a teenager she would play in Brico’s orchestra.
Worthey has partnered with Bookpeople of Moscow for a virtual book launch at 10 a.m. Nov. 18 via Zoom. The link will be available at bookpeopleofmosscow.com/events a week before the event.
An in-person event is scheduled for 2-3 p.m. Nov. 20 at Community Congregational United Church of Christ, at 525 NE Campus St., in Pullman. Copies will be available for sale through BookPeople of Moscow during the event and Worthey will be available to sign copies.
After reading from the book, there will be a high tea and participants are welcome to come dressed in early-20th century period costumes. To make a reservation for the tea, visit pullmanucc.org.
“I’m publishing books that focus on themes and music and specifically highlighting women who have been underrepresented in history,” Worthey said.
Stepping into the traditional publishing route was in part for help with finding an illustrator, Worthey said, and for her books to have a wider reach. She started small with researching how to publish books and joining a critique group.
“We meet twice a month on Mondays during the lunch hour at One World Cafe. So, my book was born in a way at One World Cafe,” Worthey said.
She would go on to send out agent letters until Penny Candy Books said they would publish her first book. She said her training as a musician keeps her spirits up while sending out her books because she sees it as practice.
“I’m trying to keep it fun because I started doing it because I saw a need for classical music and then I saw these women are missing from that history,” Worthey said.
The CMA Awards are coming up on November 9th and over the years we’ve seen so many legendary performances, moments, and honors that have gone far in defining the genre, many of them involving the great Alan Jackson.
There’s the iconic rendition of “When The World Stopped Turning” right after 9/11, him walking out while Beyoncé was performing, protesting the treatment of George Jones, and his and George Strait’s middle finger to Country Radio, just to name a few.
The awards this year will once again be dominated by the Georgia native because Alan is being given the Willie Nelson Lifetime Achievement award, an honor that is undoubtedly deserved, if not overdue.
He will be just 8th recipient of the award which was created in 2012 and named after the great Willie Nelson, who is still crushing it at 89 years old.
That got me thinking of the 2016 CMAs, which celebrated both the 50th anniversary of the show itself and the honoring of Dolly Parton with the 4th Lifetime Achievement award.
There were so many great moments during that show, however, the opening performance was the one for the history books.
Executive producer Robert Deaton made the decision that the focus would be on celebrating the rich history of the genre rather than attempting to push new singles, and that shift was very evident in the opening performance, which featured 12 of the genre’s most iconic and defining songs.
Vince Gill and Ben Haggard, youngest son of the great Merle, kicked it off with “Mama Tried”. Brad Paisley and Roy Clark came next with the Buck Owen’s classic “Tiger By The Tail” and Carrie Underwood followed with Tammy Wynette’s absolutely iconic anthem “Stand By Your Man”.
This is where the performance shifted from modern stars doing covers to legends playing their own.
Charley Pride came out with “Kiss An Angel Good Morning”, then Alabama with “Mountain Music”, Charlie Daniels with “Devil Went Down To Georgia”, Reba with “Fancy”, Dwight Yoakam with “Guitars, Cadillacs”, Clint Black with “Killin’ Time”, Ricky Skaggs with “Country Boy”, and Alan Jackson with “Don’t Rock The Jukebox” before the entire performing crew joined together to honor Randy Travis with “Forever and Ever, Amen”.
This was right after his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame and about three years after his debilitating stroke, but he was still able to croon out that iconic last “Amen” at the end, which sent the crowd wild.
I mean, come on, talk about a legendary lineup of performers, all sharing the stage together, to honor the genre they all love and that had done so much for them and their fans.
That’s really what these shows should be about, not the fluffy pile of blah we’ve been force fed recently.
Hats off to everyone that participated in this incredible opener. It’ll probably never be matched, especially since losing Charley Pride and Charlie Daniels, along with the worsening health conditions of Alan Jackson and Randy Travis.
We need to enjoy these legends while we still have them. This upcoming ceremony will be worth watching if for no other reason than to support Alan Jackson.
The Huntsville Festival of the Arts is pleased to announce the “Huntsville Festival of Music” which will take place on March 2-5, 2023.
This program is modeled on the Kiwanis Music Festival’s mission to “encourage young and all age groups to know and love the arts and foster the values of self-discipline, teamwork and excellence”.
The Festival is under the direction of Alana Nuedling, Carol Gibson, Gerri Mar and Kyung-A Lee. After a two-year postponement due to the COVID Pandemic, the organizing committee is thrilled to finally share this event with the community.
The goals are simple: celebrate the great talents, build stronger communities and provide the tools to create a better future for those who participate. The festival will consist of competitive and non-competitive classes taking place on March 2 & 3. Participants will perform and receive coaching led by qualified adjudicators/teachers and will be awarded with a participation certificate or an award certificate for the top three marks.
There will be an opportunity to perform on the stage of Algonquin Theatre at the end of the Festival, for the gala concert ‘Concert of the Stars’. Participants for this event will be chosen on merit (winner of each class) and special consideration. The Concert of the Stars will be held on March 5, 2023.
The Festival classes will take place on March 2nd – 3th, 2023 in 3 locations within downtown Huntsville:
