My play started in an epiphany, but it would take me ten years to complete. I had written it off as a failing effort until Roxana Silbert of Hampstead Theatre prompted me to revisit it. Covid intervened, and the production was delayed, leading me to believe it would never be broadcast; nevertheless, BBC Radio 3 […]

I believe it's OK to refer to myself as an outsider artist. It took a long time for me to join the group." Michael Hurley, a freak-folk singer-songwriter and artist of over 60 years, is pondering his place in the world on Thanksgiving Friday. He's phoning from his little house in rural Oregon, nestled amid […]

On the evening of August 9, 1956, a few hundred people crammed into a student union lounge at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, some 130 miles northwest of Chicago, for a musical recital. The launch of the Illiac Suite: String Quartet No 4, composed by a member of the chemistry department, Lejaren Hiller Jr, using […]

Little Simz is a prominent lady in British rap and an MC whose wit matches that of more well-known artists. Both Stormzy and Kendrick Lamar have praised her abilities. However, on the first night of a UK and Ireland tour, she seemed to be less concerned with hefty labels and more concerned with having a […]

Sam Fender's rise from his debut song in 2017 to the top of the album chart with Seventeen Going Under this year is the stuff of legends, but his first arena gig in the area that formed him is something else entirely. The 27-year-old from North Shields enters the stage amid a sea of flags […]

While the rest of the world was watching Tiger King or making bread during the first apparently endless lockdown in 2020, British pop maverick Charli XCX composed, recorded, and released a whole album. How I'm Feeling Now, a joint effort with her fans, condensed the boredom, anger, loss, thankfulness, and frenzy of the time into […]