Featured

Doing Bach Badly
When our amateur choir sings Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion, the music’s power overwhelms our mistakes.
Maureen Swinger
Community Snapshot
Dolly Parton Is Magnificent
The beloved Tennessee singer-songwriter gets the joke. Do the rest of us?
Mary Townsend
Essay
Reading the Comments
Fans of 1980s post-punk and new wave find community and catharsis online.
Phil Christman
Essay
The Strange Love of a Strange God
When my father got cancer, we prayed desperately. No answer came. Or did it?
Esther Maria Magnis
Personal History
Go Tell It on the Mountain
Black spirituals aren’t just for Black churches. They should be sung by everyone.
Stephen Michael Newby
Viewpoints
In the Aztec Flower Paradise
For the ancient Nahua poets, the way to the holy runs through beauty.
Joseph Julián González
Monique González
Essay

Insights

In Search of Eternity
Why learn to play music if we’re all going to die?
Eugene Vodolazkin
Fiction
The Fiery Spirit of Song
What could be better than music to encourage the sad, humble the conceited, and mollify the hate-filled?
Hildegard of Bingen
Martin Luther
Eberhard Arnold
Inklings
The Harmony of the World
Since everything natural is compatible with nature, music too is in accord with our human nature.
Gregory of Nyssa
Augustine of Hippo
Inklings
Violas in Sing Sing
It’s never too late to learn an instrument.
Nathan Schram
Doers
Music, Memory, and Alzheimer’s
What can music do for people who suffer from dementia?
Doers
Hosting a Hootenanny
The darkness at the edge of a campfire provides a safety zone for even the most self-conscious singer.
Esther Keiderling
Doers
How to Lullaby
Long before your baby is born, you can start singing lullabies.
Norann Voll
Doers
How to Make Music Accessible
We must build a culture of music-making that welcomes everyone, whether neurodivergent or not.
Doers
How to Raise Musical Children
John Feierabend is reviving the insights of the revered music educator Zoltán Kodály for a new generation.
Doers
Chanting Psalms in the Dark
In the midst of the Covid pandemic, I became blind. That’s when I discovered the power of chant.
Brittany Petruzzi
Doers

Web Exclusives

Adventures in Americanaland
A new book tells the story of a contested genre in which the secular and sacred mingle.
Peter Blair
Music and Morals
The sheer vitality of music spells danger. Or so it often seems.
Dhananjay Jagannathan
The Death and Life of Christian Hardcore
The Christian underground came undone as it rocketed to relevance.
Joseph M. Keegin
Vallenato Comes Home
Refugees from Venezuela are bringing a Colombian music style back to its birthplace.
Does Political Music Change Anything?
Socially oriented music isn’t propaganda. It can still transform us.
Daniel Walden

Arts & Letters

Editors’ Picks: Walk with Me
A review of Kate Clifford Larson’s Walk with Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer
Vivian Gibson
Editors’ Picks
Editors’ Picks: Shakeshafte
A review of Rowan Williams’s Shakeshafte: And Other Plays
Madoc Cairns
Editors’ Picks
Editors’ Picks: The Least of Us
A review Sam Quinones’s The Least of Us: of True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth
Joseph M. Keegin
Editors’ Picks
Poem: “Sunrise and Swag”
The river sings a duet with the mist / as gulls gavotte around the overflow / and peck at City scum…
Jacqueline Saphra
Poetry
Poem: “Poland, 1985”
The tracks of history are not as deeply buried as Poland’s landscape would have you believe.
Jacqueline Saphra
Poetry
Mercedes Sosa
The singer who gave voice to her people’s struggle outlived several tyrants.
Susannah Black Roberts
Forerunners