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Ellen Kempner and her band document a fraught transition from childhood to adulthood — and do a great job, in part because they're still living through the process.

How will the varieties of food grown today survive climate change? A vast global seed bank under a frozen mountain in Norway may have answers. Also, what's in kid's lunches? There's a revolution coming in the way kids eat at school: local, sustainable, seasonal and even educational food.

NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and host Guy Raz spin an eclectic mix of new classical releases.

Two years after a media controversy that sent him retreating from the spotlight, Mayer has a new album and is beginning to resurface. But a new obstacle has arisen in the meantime — a health condition that may keep him from performing for months to come.

Choral composer Eric Whitacre recruited vocalists from 58 countries via YouTube to sing his work. Whitacre's Virtual Choir 2.0, featuring his piece "Sleep," makes its debut Thursday night.

The singer left behind a number of song fragments, now collected and cleaned up on a new album.

Like his father, John, Lennon prefers collaboration. That spirit comes through in his two new albums — one improvisational and the other a film soundtrack. Long resistant to the idea, Lennon is becoming more like his parents in another way: He's taken up a cause.

Her complex legacy after 500 years as a survivor and, to some, a traitor is explored in festivals and a major museum exhibition.

The creative force behind the band Sparklehorse took his own life Saturday in Knoxville, Tenn. He was 47. Linkous' often pretty melodies contrasted with lyrics that were sometimes dark. He deliberately distorted his vocal tracks in a way that made them sound both right in the listener's ear, and as if they were coming from some faraway place.

For three years, the jazz musician and his collaborator Mike Ladd have been working with war veterans-turned-poets to bring their words to light. NPR's Arun Rath speaks with Iyer and Iraq veteran Maurice Decaul about the album that resulted, Holding It Down: The Veterans' Dreams Project.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in as Sri Lanka's interim president until Parliament elects a successor to Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who resigned after mass protests forced him from office.

Beck has spent the years since 2008 on side projects. On the occasion of a new studio release, Beck discusses the value of creative playtime and why great music careers often start with a stumble.

In music from Giuseppe Verdi to Jennifer Higdon, celebrate the sound of the venturesome Atlanta Symphony Orchestra while it's silenced by a bitter labor dispute.

The vice president addressed Democratic state legislators before visiting service members at MacDill Air Force Base.

Beck's latest creation is more than a mere sequel to 2002's brooding masterpiece, Sea Change. It provides a glimpse of new frontiers in letting go and moving on.

One-time bluegrass prodigies reunite with an album that plays to each musician's strengths. As always, Sara Watkins, Sean Watkins and Chris Thile balance their virtuosity with joyfulness and spunk.

González's songs are slight little creations, with minimal words encapsulating big ideas and breezy pop melodies disguising weighty notions about life's endlessly refracting illusions.

Performing as White Fence, Tim Presley steers toward the gentle pomp of late-'60s psychedelic pop, rock and folk. Along the way, he writes to the canon from which he performs and bends it to his will.

Four years ago, singer-songwriter Conor O'Brien released a critically acclaimed album with his band, The Immediate. That band has since broken up, but O'Brien is receiving praise once again -- this time for Villagers. He's the man behind the compelling lyrics and carefully crafted arrangements of Becoming a Jackal, which was recently nominated for Britain's Mercury Prize.

The New York Times calls Stephen Sondheim the "greatest and perhaps best-known artist in American musical theater." Sondheim composed the music and lyrics for, among others, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods and Company. He joins Fresh Air to discuss his career in musical theater.

What defined Nat King Cole's greatness, and his groundbreaking success, wasn't his piano playing; it was his voice.

From the swirling sounds of 18th-century Ottoman court music to hypnotic, modern chants from Kiev, NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz spin an extra-wide assortment of new classical music.

From the soaring voice of a young soprano on the rise to the turbulent sounds of the Berlin Philharmonic in full cry, NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz spin new classical recordings from young musicians and composers.

The seminal Scottish folk guitarist, singer, and composer passed early Wednesday morning after a battle with lung cancer.

Authorities and residents in Florida were keeping a cautious eye on Tropical Storm Ian in the Caribbean on Sunday, expected to continue gaining strength and become a major hurricane.