Thulasi Seshan sits down with Ryan Alexander, founder and director of Project Poetic Justice, a program that facilitates composing opportunities to DC Jail residents.

Thulasi Seshan reviews Sonic Pavilion Redux, an Experimental Sound Studio's Audible Gallery exhibit that ran from Dec. 5 – Feb. 1.

Federico Llach was raised in Argentina, where he trained as both a jazz performer and a classical composer, but his artistic practice has evolved and expanded from its early foundations in Buenos Aires. Llach has enthusiastically embraced electronic music, with a particular love for synthesizers and samplers. Many of his compositions blend electronic soundscapes with … Continued

Thulasi Seshan chats with Seth Boustead about The CheckOut, Chicago's newest music venue from Access Contemporary Music.

Thulasi Seshan reviews Family Junket at Chicago's Constellation, featuring an opening performance by Akenya, on May 10.

A salute to “Beethoven’s Wig,” the sing-along albums that soundtracked a generation of listeners’ first classical encounters.

Thulasi Seshan sits down with Kronos Quartet members Gabriela Díaz and Ayane Kozasa about joining the legendary group and exciting new projects.

Thulasi Seshan asks a range of musicians about their attitude to clapping, coughing, eating, and being attentive in the concert hall.

A South Asian palm leaf manuscript turns up at the Newberry Library—and intrigues scholars around the world.

Ireland and Scotland are not the only places the mighty Roman Empire failed to vanquish.

The Chicago-based Ensemble Dal Niente bills itself as “the industry leader in commissioning and performing cutting-edge contemporary music from around the globe.” So my expectations were quite high on Oct. 13 at Constellation when I went to hear them…

I’ve never understood what I’m supposed to do at the beach. Should I swim and embrace frivolity? Should I immerse myself in the beauty of light and sound? Or should I just ‘relax’—whatever on earth that means? I end up swinging back and forth between…

Reena Esmail’s sweeping, passionate compositions take elements of Hindustani music, elements of Western classical music, and fuse them together to create something entirely new. As an Indian American composer, she acknowledges that she is a rarity in…

♨️ Get 13 months for the price of 12 ♨️ 🎼 Subscribe 🎼 🛒 VAN Shop 🛒 Posted inEssay Whose purpose does it serve when we treat great musicians of the past like saints? by Thulasi Seshan April 11, 2024 Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new…

Their lives were far from boring—yet you’ll find little mention of them in any basic history class. We remember the titans of the ancient world because of their legendary accomplishments; Alexander conquered Persia, Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon,…

Classical musicians of color search for belonging in a homogeneous world

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the modern-day discovery of the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun (more commonly referred to as King Tut). Around 1907, the British Earl of Carnarvon sponsored a British archeologist named Howard Carter to…

You might think you have a good grasp on the night sky. You can find Polaris, you’re familiar with Orion; you’ve checked out the Pleiades, and you’ve stared up at the Summer Triangle. To be perfectly clear: a constellation isn’t a “real” thing, in…

America has forever been trying to live up to its founding creed, to the hope of President Washington that “this land might become a safe and agreeable Asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.” In…

Welcome to another Gilmore Women bonus newsletter (for paid subscribers)! Thank you so much for your support of this newsletter — it means the world to us that we have found such a community here to give the careful attention to this show that we…