Music

Two ways to musically ring in the new year — first Crescendo presents “A Story of Hope In the Voice of the New World” with vocal and instrumental music from Colonial Latin America performed by sopranos Rebecca Palmer and Jayne Segedy, tenor José Ignacio Lagos, and baritone José Sacín, with a folk ensemble directed by Christine Gevert.

The fingerpicking technique in jazz, that unique sound that vibrates from ditching the pick in favor of bare skin thumbs or even fingernails on the taut strings, has been used by plenty of legendary jazz guitarists — just look to Joe Pass’s rendition of “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” the 1929 early swing song that originated in Harlem.

Weihnachts Oratorium or The Christmas Oratorio is an usual piece broken into chapters like an unfolding narrative story.

What spooky silhouette in the shadows of Shakespeare’s stage is conjured by Ludwig van Beethoven’s mournful crescendos and tremolos? The theatrical inspiration for Beethoven’s Piano Trio No. 5 in D Major — nicknamed “The Ghost Trio” by the composer’s Austrian pupil Carl Czerny — varies according to the source.

Decades after Janis Ian “learned the truth at seventeen,” sad girl music has become a genre-spanning library on Spotify.

Donald Sosin is a resident of Salisbury, Conn., and one of the world’s foremost players of scores for silent films.

In recent years, Robert Andrew Parker has been best known locally for his world-famous art, which he generously shares at area fundraising art shows (to the delight and good fortune of his legion of fans).

Litchfield County’s beloved Joint Chiefs continue to perform folk song covers and new compositions throughout the region. Look for them next at The Egremont Barn in Egremont, Mass., on Saturday, Aug. 27.