Nisha Sriram, 16, CHIREC International School, Hyderabad, India
The singer and songwriter Adrianne Lenker sits in a Brooklyn diner in 2024. “Every pause and breath carries weight,” writes Nisha Sriram, 16, about Lenker’s sixth solo album.Credit...Erinn Springer for The New York Times
If you’re a classical music purist who refuses to listen to anything from this century — no judgment, I’ve been there too. Since then, though, I’ve broadened my horizons. In this list, I offer a handful of contemporary indie music recommendations that convinced me, and will hopefully convince you, that great music didn’t just die with Rachmaninoff.
1. Adrianne Lenker — “Real House”
Music is, as Claude Debussy put it, “the space between the notes,” and no one knows that better than Adrianne Lenker. The opening track of her 2024 album “Bright Future” is stripped down and deceptively simple: just her voice, the pressing of piano keys, and sparse violin. She recalls specific childhood moments she had — braiding willow branches, realizing death, putting down her pet — with painful precision. But when you close your eyes and listen, it is not her life you see; it is your own.
For classical listeners, “Real House" offers a familiar kind of intimacy. Lenker’s phrasing is as natural as spoken thought, and the song feels like a private moment: a woman hunched alone over her instrument, grieving the passage of time. Every pause and breath carries weight, and her acclaimed lyricism is a shining example of how the best compositions — classical or contemporary — can say the most by saying the least.
2. Radiohead — “Burn the Witch”
The opening track of “A Moon Shaped Pool, Burn the Witch” (2016) is one of the most striking songs in the catalog of alt-rock’s most influential band. Built around string arrangements dripping with anxiety, the track sets the tone for an album steeped in tension, loss and beauty. Radiohead first worked on the song 16 years before its release, only completing it when the band’s lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood had the confidence to “let the strings finish it.”
Greenwood is no stranger to classical music — he owns the contemporary classical record label Octatonic, and frequently cites classical composers like Krzysztof Penderecki as strong influencers on his work. This manifests in the track’s percussion, with classical techniques like col legno and pizzicato replacing Radiohead’s typical electronic features to create a jagged, urgent rhythm. This, combined with the track’s standout string arrangements and Thom Yorke’s characteristically despairing lyricism, results in a beautifully well-rounded track both unnerving and hypnotic.
3. The National — “Pink Rabbits”
The National has long mastered the art of slow-burning melancholy, and “Pink Rabbits” is one of their finest examples. A fan favorite from “Trouble Will Find Me” (2013), the song drifts through a haze of remembrance and nostalgia, its pensive chords and swaying rhythm evoking the sense of a quiet unraveling. Frontman Matt Berninger wields his voice as an instrument — manipulating cadence, rubato and timbre much like a violinist shaping a phrase. His delivery stretches and compresses lines as if the melody itself is stumbling, leaning into the track’s slightly disoriented feel.
While the band is firmly rooted as a quintessential Brooklyn indie “dad band,” The National does house some classical influence: Bryce Dessner, classically trained at Yale and a Grammy-winning classical composer, is the band’s guitarist and producer. His instincts are woven into the band’s DNA, shaping the track’s layered melody and dynamic shifts, making “Pink Rabbits” as beautifully technical as it is devastatingly intimate.