Peter Xifaras’s new album, “Adagio Grooves”, treats musical history less like a timeline and more like a room where everyone is invited to the same party. Initially, The Budapest Symphony lays out the fine china and polishes the silver, establishing a world of symphonic grace. It’s a sound full of discipline and grand, beautiful spaces—the kind of music that makes you feel you should...

Norway's many fjords are responsible for the birth of a celebrity. Ella Lockert, with her boundless vitality and undoubted skill, has always been a force to be reckoned with from the day she was born. Imagine a little Ella illuminating the stage as the smallest Santa possible in the song "Putti Plutti Pott." Add to that her singing in the children's chorus at the Norwegian Opera,...