John Schaefer

On Wednesday, March 16 at 7:30 p.m., Q2 and New Sounds Live team up to bring you a live audio Webcast from Merkin Concert Hall hosted by WNYC's John Schaefer. Part of the inaugural Ec...

John Schaefer wonders if anyone goes to a Lady Gaga concert for the words.

Tonight at 7:30 p.m., Q2 brings you a live audio Web cast from Merkin Concert Hall hosted by WNYC's John Schaefer. The evening features the eight-piece, high-octane ensemble Newsp...

John Schaefer asks, what IS a concept album anyway?

John Schaefer reacts to the Grammys' surprises.

On Thursday, February 10 at 7:30 p.m., Q2 and New Sounds Live team up once again to bring you a live Web cast from Merkin Concert Hall with WNYC host, John Schaefer. Part of the ina...

John Schaefer says the White Stripes don't owe us anything else.

I encountered Milton Babbitt’s music before I ever met the man.  Given the uncompromising intellectual rigor of his music (a nice way of saying that it made my brain hurt), I expected Mr. Babbitt to be some kind of monster.  Instead, the first time I met him, he looked at me and determined, correctly, that I had a cold, and said, “hello, would you like some Vitamin C?”  Now, I didn’t particularly believe that a Vitamin C pill would do much for me,  but I took one, mostly out of relief that Babbitt hadn’t yelled at me (I’d already published some things which championed the emerging “downtown” composers who were pushing back at the academic nature of Babbitt’s music).

John Schaefer finds that tinnitus isn't just ringing in the ears...

The start of the Ear Wars...

Pop pushed world music to the fore - but jazzers like Charles Lloyd got there first.

John Schaefer finds that making a Classical Top 10 is HARD!

One memory of the Palladium that cuts through the fog...

John Schaefer dislikes all its recordings, but still thinks Silent Night is a great song.

John Schaefer likes these film scores, even though he hasn't seen the films.

Ray Davies of the Kinks has an op-ed piece in today’s New York Times, right under the piece by Yoko Ono.  Yoko’s article is nice, but Ray’s article is a brave and honest reaction to John Lennon’s music.  “He had become a hit-and-miss solo performer,” he writes; and he recalls his reaction to Double Fantasy, the last album Lennon would live to release: “I had heard some of the album on the radio and had not been particularly struck by anything so far…”