Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's charity reportedly lost three employees as the foundation undergoes a rebrand. Per a 990 tax form obtained by the outlet, Slevin's salary was $146,000. A spokesperson for Markle, 44, and Harry, 41, denied changes to their staffing, telling the Daily Mail, “Currently, the same full team remains in place. “This move does mean that some staff redundancies are inevitable, particularly with junior admin roles,” the rep continued. “We will not be discussing these personnel details further, other than to say that we are honoured to have worked with incredibly talented and caring people who dedicate themselves to helping others.” Additionally, the Daily Mail reported Saturday that the charity's contributions tanked in 2024, with a reported $5.1 million worth of expenses and donations of $2.1 million. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The charity also hit a rough patch in 2022 when an expense bill of $2,679,537 was more than the $2,005,052 in revenue. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex launched the foundation in 2020, shortly after they quit their royal duties and moved to North America. The charity supports parents of children who are victims of online harm, women's causes and focuses on uplifting communities. On Friday, Markle and Harry announced they were changing the name of their charity from Archewell Foundation to Archewell Philanthropies.

News of his departure circulated on Friday, and just hours before his final show, he confirmed he was leaving with a fond farewell note on Instagram. Yang was with Saturday Night Live for eight seasons, and spent seven as a cast member. He was promoted to the main cast in Season 47. His final sketch, which also closed the show, was a bittersweet, tearful one. Yang played a flight attendant who was fittingly working his final shift at JFK's Delta One Lounge, where he served eggnog from a broken machine to passengers. I'm gonna miss everything about this place. Last night's SNL host Ariana Grande, Yang's co-star in the Wicked movies, joined her friend for his final SNL skit of the night portraying his wife. Another humorous exchange came when Yang said he wanted to go out on top, and Grande joked, “Oh, everyone knows you're a bottom.” For his last show, Yang appeared in nearly every sketch, including during the opening monologue with Grande, a brief take in a Home Alone sketch, and portraying Yoko Ono in a hilarious “Peacock's Random Duet Christmas Spectacular” skit. He also reprised his Trend Forecasters character with Aidy Bryant, which was a Weekend Update highlight. 'SNL' Cold Open: Trump Reveals Why He's Putting His Name on Everything 'SNL' Weekend Update Roasts RFK Jr.'s Look, Trump's Epstein Files Redactions AI Is Inventing Academic Papers That Don't Exist — And They're Being Cited in Real Journals Nick Reiner and the Weight of a Famous Name But it was his final Delta One Lounge skit that won the night. It was hard not to get choked up along with Yang, who got emotional when sharing his love for those he worked with on the show and throughout the sketch. Another touching moment that drew rapturous applause came when he said, “Eggnog is kind of like me — it's not for everyone, but the people who like it are my kind of people.” And I just wanted to enjoy it for a little bit longer. Because they've done so much for me, especially my boss.” His boss turned out to be the musical guest of the night Cher, who told him, “Everyone thought you were a little too gay. Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation.

Saturday Night Live honored the late Rob Reiner with a card that ran just before the curtain call of the Christmas episode hosted by Ariana Grande, NBC sketch program's first show since Reiner and his wife Michele were found dead last Sunday. Reiner is part of Saturday Night Live history. (Reiner also appeared as an audience member in a Season 10 SNL episode.) In their final hours, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, along with their son Nick who is charged with their murder, attended a party hosted by Saturday Night Live alum Conan O'Brien. The event and Nick's interaction with guests, including with fellow SNL alum Bill Hader, have received a lot of coverage following the Reiners' tragic passing. Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Get our latest storiesin the feed of your favorite networks Send us a tip using our annonymous form. Sign up for our breaking news alerts We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services.

Thanks to three-time host Ariana Grande, “Saturday Night Live” proves that it is still wickedly funny and worth watching in its 51st season. The former Nickelodeon star returned to Studio 8H wearing a strapless archival Vivienne Westwood gown to host a very special holiday episode of the sketch comedy show. Her opening monologue included a spoof of Mariah Carey's “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” Fresh off the “Wicked: For Good” press tour, we're sure she was glad to slip into something a little less pink, but still looked festive for the season. In addition to being one of the most buzzed-about entertainers in Hollywood right now, Grande is also known for her uncanny imitations of fellow celebrities. She has previously spoofed Jennifer Cooledge and Celine Dion on SNL, and no doubt has a first-rate Cher impression prepared for this exact occasion. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Earlier this week, Grande was spotted dining with “SNL” executive producer Lorne Michaels in midtown, ahead of her hosting gig. While we can only hope that Grande and Cher share the stage at least once during the evening, we'd be just as thrilled if either stepped out in a vintage Bob Mackie creation. The legendary American fashion and costume designer's iconic looks have recently seen new light, with younger stars like Sabrina Carpenter choosing to wear archival pieces for fun industry events, including the 2025 VMAs and her Grand Ole Opry debut.

The 79-year-old singer took to Instagram on Saturday, December 20, to honor Rob and Michele while addressing an important issue in today's society. Along with images of the Reiners, Minnelli posted a black-and-white photo of herself drinking and smoking, but stressed that the post was not about her. “Hey Kids, This picture is of me yet, not at all about me… it tells a universal story that needs no explanation. “Like everyone I know, our hearts are shattered over the deaths of Rob and Michele Reiner. Minnelli went on to talk about her own experience with SUD, calling it a “dangerous illness.” We are all feeling this great loss,” the singer continued. “The gut-wrenching question is: Could this tragedy have been prevented? Minnelli also admitted that she stayed silent about her own battles, and it only made things worse. “I stayed quiet about my own SUD battles for far too long. Minnelli then highlighted her upcoming memoir, “Kids Wait Till You Hear This,” which tackles the reality of SUD. “Asking for help is strength, not weakness,” Minnelli added. “Join me tonight in praying for the Reiner family. Fans flooded the comment section with positive messages, commending the singer for her honesty about her own experience with substance abuse. One fan wrote, “We are all stunned by this tragic event. Another commented, “This tragic event has left us all heartbroken and stunned. Someone added, “It feels like everyone is a victim in the Reiner tragedy. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

The Saturday Night Live episode closest to Christmas hasn't always been hosted by show alumni. It still isn't anything the show has made official or permanent, but Jimmy Fallon hosting a couple of Christmas shows in the early 2010s seems to have jump-started a tradition. Over the course of a dozen normal Christmas episodes starting with Fallon first taking that slot in December 2011—that 2021 mostly-canceled episode doesn't count—three quarters of them have been hosted by people who used to work at SNL. One that wasn't, the 2022 episode featuring Austin Butler, was preceded by an episode co-hosted by December fixture Martin Short. That Austin Butler episode—actually the only Christmas episode not hosted by a former cast member since 2018!—also served as a mid-season farewell to longtime cast member Cecily Strong. I'm sure these types of things aren't actually planned out particularly far in advance; the nature of the show seems to be to figure out what to do in that same one-week time frame. Yang was an important part of the past seven-and-change seasons, both for visibility (as an Asian-American and openly gay cast member, neither of which yet qualify as a minor detail within what remains a relatively homogenous group) and for being, you know, really damn funny in a way that popped with his specific sensibility more or less from the beginning. (It didn't hurt that he started as a writer, clearly knowing his version of the show's voice before he appeared on camera.) Right now, at the time of his departure, he might be the best-known person in the cast outside of Kenan Thompson, which is a hell of a place to end his run. At the same time, Yang wasn't quite the screentime-dominating presence or decade-long stalwart of some of his immediate predecessors as de facto SNL stars. In retrospect, that makes him look like he had a great sense of when to step back, even though the reality of his precise screen-time levels is probably more luck of the draw and/or some prize sketches getting cut in a crowded cast, as he alluded in his lovely five-to-one farewell piece. Regardless of why, he got more of a two-farewells-and-some-extra-appearances goodbye than an every-sketch-farewell-tour goodbye—and again, whether by design or timing, tasteful restraint or standard SNL machinery, it felt just right. For better or worse, almost every segment was holiday-themed, sometimes paying unexpected dividends. The monologue, for example, was the most cleanly polished of the last few seasons (at least beyond those that were just pro comedians doing stand-up), with Grande singing a full-on parody of “All I Want For Christmas Is You” about her puzzlement over what to buy her cousin's boyfriend as a gift. It was so precise and well-written, in fact, that the audience almost didn't know what to make of it without long pauses for laughter. It felt like a hot crowd all night, though; I'm not sure if the show has produced as many audible “awwws” in a single episode as Yang's farewell sketch did. Not that they were all that bad; more cheap-seats predictable (and lacking in punchy endings) than truly dire, and more easy teamwork for Grande than showcase parts. She was better-served, though, in a dance-class sketch that, as it opened, I assumed would be far worse than it actually was, helped immeasurably by allowing the people taking lessons from two bizarrely overzealous instructors. (Anyone reading this recap without watching the episode might be locked to learn that it was not, in fact, Bowen Yang playing the male instructor opposite Grande, but Marcello Hernández; Yang played their acolyte.) And her facility with music paid off in Yang's touching farewell sketch, featuring him slinging egg nog in a Delta Airlines lounge before breaking into a holiday duet with Grande. So maybe the rest of the episode had to play a little broad and easy, feeling like the show had to earn a little moment of bittersweet reflection and genuine emotion. Kenan's “Black Santa” courtroom riff took a little while to warm up, but it was weirdly worth it: a defiantly strange sketch that got a lot of mileage out of another song parody (amusingly described as a Christmas song, but actually just Cher, and not the terrible Christmas single she was apparently booked to sing), Kenan's goofball energy, and Grande playing her judge role absolutely straight for several minutes just to sell her ridiculously credulous reaction to a burglar/pervert's claim that he could also be Santa Claus. Grande was also a lynchpin of the holiday-duet sketch, because she and James Austin Johnson were actually able to cover a wide and convincing range for the impression-parade format, rather than the one-line niche gimmickry that's come to define them in recent years. (Not to speak ill of the departed, but it's telling that Yang didn't bust out his Charli XCX “impression” one more time here.) The laughs, however, never really arrived, and everything just sat there. A short supply of actual jokes and an over-representation of jokes that are more cutesy best-friends potshots at Che and/or Jost rather than anything in the actual world can both be salvaged. But it's a little alarming when the near-universally beloved Holiday Joke Swap fell flat. It didn't work for me because of what seemed to be a genuine on-air twist: Che apparently got Jost to agree not to do a joke swap this year, then sprung the bit on his co-anchor anyway, leaving Jost with a bunch of jokes designed to humiliate him and no real recourse. The Joke Swap bit has a lot of value for building some genuine unpredictability into the live show; it's not quite improvised, but Che and Jost, to their credit, nudge it in that direction. But unlike his terrific April Fool's prank (where he got the audience to stay stony silent for a bunch of Jost's opening jokes), this variation just felt kind of… bullying? I know that's a ridiculous way to describe anything bad happening to Colin Jost short of him being physically held upside down and shaken until money rains from his pockets. But Che's joke style on these swaps is so predictable, and it's been done so many times, that tricking Jost into doing more of the same feels akin to a frat prank rather than a really inspired bit of comedy—especially when the segment had so few actual news jokes. Spiritually, it's Yang, for his great work over the years. How hard do you think Finn Wolfhard's people lobbied for him to pull double duty as host and musical guest? Also, it's kind of surprising in retrospect that, unless I'm forgetting someone, he's basically the first Stranger Things cast member to parlay that into a hosting gig since David Harbour.

Saturday Night Live paused its year-end Christmas episode on Saturday night (Dec. 20) to pay tribute to Rob Reiner, honoring the filmmaker's early and influential role in the show's history. Just ahead of the episode's goodnights, SNL aired an on-screen tribute card featuring Reiner during his time on the program. The gesture came less than a week after Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead in their Los Angeles home. While Reiner became best known for his work as a director — including This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride and A Few Good Men — his relationship with Saturday Night Live dates back to the show's earliest days. Unlike the show's first two hosts, George Carlin and Paul Simon, Reiner fully participated in sketches throughout the episode, helping establish the host-as-performer format that would become central to SNL's structure. Notably, the episode featured no musical guest; instead, Belushi performed “With a Little Help From My Friends” while impersonating Joe Cocker. Reiner's connection to SNL extended well beyond his hosting duties. Many performers from the SNL universe also appeared in Reiner-directed films over the years, including This Is Spinal Tap, which starred Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer — all closely tied to the show. Saturday's episode was hosted by Ariana Grande with Cher as musical guest. A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry Send us a tip using our anonymous form. A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry Send us a tip using our anonymous form. Billboard is a part of Penske Media Corporation.

Cher closed out the final Saturday Night Live of 2025 with two tracks from her 2023 Christmas album. Her only Christmas album—and 27th overall—also includes a duet with Darlene Love on “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home),” and appearances by Stevie Wonder, Michael Bublé, Tyga and Cyndi Lauper. “They're not ‘Christmas-Christmas' songs, OK?” she told Billboard at the time. 'SNL' Cold Open: Trump Reveals Why He's Putting His Name on Everything 'SNL' Weekend Update Roasts RFK Jr.'s Look, Trump's Epstein Files Redactions AI Is Inventing Academic Papers That Don't Exist — And They're Being Cited in Real Journals Cher's second performance was of “Run Rudolph Run,” written by Chuck Berry in 1958 and credited to Marvin Brodie and Christmas songwriter Johnny Marks for having trademarked the Rudolph character. Fresh off a legal win regarding royalties to Sonny & Cher songs like 1965's “I Got You Babe,” Cher, 79, was recently announced as a recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. She was first nominated for a Grammy 60 years ago. Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation.

During Saturday night's (Dec. 20) Ariana Grande–hosted episode, the show closed with a sketch that doubled as a farewell for Yang, who recently confirmed his departure after more than seven years at SNL. The scene cast Yang as a Delta Sky Club employee working his last shift, quietly aware that something is ending. What followed was a stripped-back rendition of the Eagles' “Please Come Home for Christmas,” with Ariana Grande joining in — and, moments later, Cher stepping into the frame. Earlier in the day, Yang acknowledged his exit in an Instagram post, thanking Grande for how the episode handled his sendoff. “thank you to ari for sending me off in the dreamiest way i could imagine,” he wrote. “I'm grateful for every minute of my time there,” he wrote. i learned that human error can be nothing but correct.” He quickly grew into one of the show's most distinctive voices, earning four Emmy nominations and becoming a central presence during a period of major cast turnover. Alongside his work on the show, Yang has built an increasingly visible film and TV career, moving comfortably between sketch comedy, pop culture commentary and mainstream projects. Musical farewells have quietly become SNL's way of marking meaningful exits. Kristen Wiig was serenaded by Arcade Fire during her final episode in 2012, while Cecily Strong closed her run in 2022 with “Blue Christmas.” Like those moments, Yang's goodbye allowed the show to slow down and acknowledge what was being lost — not just a cast member, but an era. Rather than leaning into jokes, SNL let Yang sing his way out. A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry A daily briefing on what matters in the music industry

With her third hosting stint on Saturday Night Live, Ariana Grande brought much-needed Christmas cheer to Studio 8H, leaving Season 51 of the long-running late-nighter better than she found it through her magical holiday touch. The honorary player showcased why she's a reliable repeat customer, and that's not even mentioning the responsibility she carried to ensure pal and Wicked co-star Bowen Yang had a proper, meaningful send-off. Grande, who has been featured as a musical guest twice (once as part of her double-duty in 2016), sang, parodied and disappeared into characters all through the night, flexing her skillset as a host who's game to try on costumes no matter how ridiculous, impressions no matter how far-fetched. Bowen Yang Signs Off From 'SNL' With Poignant Final Sketch Kicking the night off with a pitch-perfect monologue, Grande addressed the elephant in the room with a tongue-in-cheek joke; when asked if she would resurrect previous SNL sketches, like the beat-to-death Domingo, she said, to audience laughs, “When something is perfect, it doesn't need a sequel … What? That's why I just finished filming Meet the Parents 4.” The two-time Grammy winner also lent her voice to an “All I Want For Christmas Is You” parody, with lyrics like: “I don't know what to get for Christmas / For my cousin's boyfriend Steve / I don't know a thing about him / Only see him on Christmas Eve” and “Is a gift card rude? In a similar vein to Grande's preeminently popular “Castrati” sketch — which she delightfully reincarnated for a brief moment to introduce musical guest Cher‘s second song — “Elf on the Shelf Support Group” married pitiful personas with spot-on comedic timing in what was a standout from tonight. “I wish elves could die,” Grande's Twinkle Butter bellows as she cries Skittle tears, after a reveal shows viewers she's been ripped in half by her owners' new house cat. Everyone's voice is run through what sounds like a helium speech modulator.) Yang plays Kieran Culkin's stand-in, his arms nightmarishly chainsawed off as Ashley Padilla's Catherine O'Hara equivalent lets out a series of horrified shrieks. With “Dancing 101,” Grande and Marcello Hernández play under-qualified yet haughty instructors whose graceless teachings yield one of the night's best lines. The teachers, who have choreographed not one, not two, but three Jardiance commercials believe in the power of dance as literal interpretation, so when Grande spins around and gestures at her veins to indicate she's not vaccinated, the students are curious to know if that's actually the case. “You can't ask me that in RFK's America,” Grande deadpans, before breaking. “Yeah, I guess it never came up,” the Whoville emigre says, before letting her know he doesn't actually have a penis and is not really a human being. They're even expecting, with the Grinch (ahem, Neil) showing off a sonogram. Weekend Update — which notably featured Aidy Bryant's “Trend Forecasters” reunion with Yang — also had its solid lineup of topical jokes: “Well, it's that time of year when everybody is talking about the man who flies through the air to visit children all over the world: Jeffrey Epstein,” co-anchor Colin Jost said. Of the POTUS' lack of inclusion in the unearthed documents, he bemoaned, “Donald Trump was my favorite character in the Epstein files; it's like when House of Cards suddenly stopped starring Kevin Spacey, probably because he had booked a recurring role in the Epstein files.” On RFK's anti-trans stance, Jost added, “And yet RFK is allowed to slowly transition into Wilson the Volleyball [from Cast Away].” Update also gave rookie Kam Patterson a chance to shine as co-host Michael Che's 12-year-old nephew, who's definitely on the naughty list, but not if he has anything to say (or do) about it first. As such, Che took the opportunity to lob more shots at Scarlett Johansson. “New research shows that millions of women leave the workforce due to menopause, which means there's only a couple years left on my gravy train,” Jost read, as the screen flashed with an image of his wife. “My girl already be like, ‘Colin, I'm warm. But don't worry about me, I got a backup; they don't call Wednesday [Jenna Ortega] ‘Hump Day' for nothing.” If last year is any indication, this is sure to generate reactions from the Eleanor the Great director in the coming weeks. Get our Breaking News Alerts and Keep your inbox happy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. Get our latest storiesin the feed of your favorite networks Send us a tip using our annonymous form. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services.

But beneath its mystification lies a compelling story of folk repertoire, Communist propaganda, and the repeated suppression—and reimagining—of cultural identity, distorted by Western commerce and the label that reads: “world music.” In 1986, the British label 4AD—followed by U.S. distributor Nonesuch in 1987—reissued a little-known 1975 anthology of recordings of the Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir licensed from Swiss musicologist Marcel Cellier: Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares. Originally released on Cellier's private Disques Cellier label, the album documented a government-employed ensemble singing modernized versions of Bulgarian village songs. The ensemble was first formed in 1951 by composer Filip Kutev, who reworked monophonic village tunes into multi-part harmonic arrangements that drew from Western choral singing while preserving the ardent throatiness of Bulgarian folk. His scoring, which blended Bulgarian rootsiness with avant-garde, bore traces of Stravinsky's grandeur, Debussy's impressionism, and Schoenberg's atonality, and resulted in a new musical genre called obrabotki (“handling” or “editing”). 1 came packaged in minimalist designs, with abstract artwork and just its title on the jacket. Nonesuch's naïve depiction of Bulgarian dress against a star-filled sky instilled an astro-romantic sensibility. Neither album included translations of the lyrics, photos of the ensemble, nor any reference to who they were as people at all: no indication of age, location, or musical training. Without any historical detail to orient these voices, their singing possesses a kind of beauty that swells into terror, like the vaguely unsettling feeling of setting foot in a cathedral. They are pinched into a bright, almost surgical nasality or burst loose into grand, sideways arcs, flaring out in a feral yelp. The roots of these songs, though, are more prosaic. In Bulgaria, village music was typically sung by peasants while tending to agriculture and husbandry; at weddings; and to express national pride. Their singing was not conventionally melodic by Western standards, but rather summed up by the word “izvika”: to cry out. They also used the word “buchi” to describe their own tonal quality—the same word Bulgarians use for the sound of cow's lowing. Most fundamental to Bulgarian village music was its relationship between melody and drone. Within this narrow range, the singers created an airless intimacy where adjacent tones clanged sharply against one another. Like notes crowded on a staff, the ensemble sat closely together when they sang. When Kate Bush later sang with them, in 1989, they even held one another. It was not by accident that these folk ensembles were mostly women. In Communist Bulgaria, women were commonly associated with nationalism, imagined as the functional caretakers of tradition. These women became an instrument of cultural policy and national identity when the Bulgarian Communist Party came to power in 1946. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, the party redirected massive state resources toward reshaping folk music into a polished, modernized national symbol, staging folklore as proof of unity and continuity. It was a project hinged on purification, intended to cleanse Bulgaria's national image of the Ottoman rule that had spanned five centuries and brought violence, Islamization, and bloody uprisings. The state pushed Bulgarian folk music toward Western classical ideas of counterpoint and harmony while systematically erasing Turkish and Romani traces, even though those communities comprised around 15 percent of the population. But even in Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Middle Eastern makams press audibly against Byzantine chant and Western diatonic systems. The Communist Party tried, but failed, to root national sound in an imagined, uncontaminated past. But every claim to authenticity implies the existence of the inauthentic, and here that boundary was drawn in racial and ethnic terms, cleansing a plural inheritance into a single, state-approved voice. Conservatory-trained composers—virtually all of them male—wrote and arranged songs for them, and professional choreographers paired asymmetrical dances to match the sporadic meters of the music. What had once been an amateur, homegrown tradition was now being polished into an artfully curated version of authenticity. In 1951, Kutev recruited the best singers from the kolektivi he could find, putting them through an arduous audition process, before they were forced to move away from their families to live in undesirable conditions in Sofia and assigned relentless schedules. Kutev's ensemble was the largest and most visible of some 15 similarly state-sponsored ensembles that began sprouting up around the more populous regions of Bulgaria. In their songs, typical Bulgarian vocal techniques could be heard: atzane (hiccuping), provikvane (shouting), and tresene (voice shaking). (And may also explain why the country reliably produces world-class beatboxers.) The women proved exceptionally gifted and adaptive, quickly transitioning from practicing their craft in their villages to professional settings. While composers like Kutev received royalties each time their arrangement was played on the radio (which was all the time), the singers received none, only a paltry state salary. In 1952, a year after the ensemble's formation, Cellier, the Swiss ethnomusicologist, traveled to Bulgaria to find music for his label. Cellier, who in 1969 would release pan flutist Gheorghe Zamfir on his label Disques Cellier, proved instrumental in opening Western access to Eastern European music during the Cold War. In Bulgaria, he contacted composer Georgi Minchev, who had arranged several of the ensemble's songs; Minchev, in turn, brought in additional specialists to help Cellier sift through the Radio Sofia archives in search of the strongest material for his Bulgarian folk-music anthology. Cellier sourced around 80 percent of his material from those archives (though Nonesuch still misattributes the recordings entirely to Cellier on its website), obtaining the masters from the National Radio for a small price. Over 20 years later, he finally released a selection of songs from the Bulgarian ensemble as Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares. He also registered the trademark “Le Mystère,” which granted him proprietorship of the name and obligated any subsequent user to pay him royalties. It was Bauhaus' Peter Murphy who discovered them via an Australian dancer friend and first introduced Watts-Russell to the ensemble, playing him “Prïtourïtze Planinata,” though Murphy knew neither the title of the song nor who sang it. Watts-Russell tracked down a copy of the Disques Cellier version in a record shop in Charing Cross and got in touch with Cellier about licensing the record for 4AD. The music fit in well with 4AD's roster at the time, which boasted two of alternative rock's most incredible voices: Dead Can Dance's Lisa Gerrard and Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser, both of whom sang in their own respective idioglossia, shaking the limits of language. This order of priority ran contrary to the ensemble themselves. The highest notes are struck at full force. Particularly on songs like “Stani Mi, Maytcho” and “Messetschinko Lio Greïlivko,” repetition is a powerful force. Just as it's incorrect to say the Bulgarian singers' voices are a pure transmutation of the ancient, we could say the same of Fraser's voice, long treated as an indecipherable marvel. Listen, and you'll hear how closely her vocal dialect sometimes mirrors the Bulgarian language. In a 2017 interview, she said that after Watts-Russell passed her the cassette in the mid-'80s, she learned it inside and out. Likewise, Gerrard attempted to sing using the ultra glottal Bulgarian technique in one of Dead Can Dance's best-known songs, “The Host of Seraphim.” She had the throat for it, though she later said, “I nearly broke my voice trying.” With its narrow melodic range, and Gerrard's voice more stinging than ever, the performance was clearly inspired by Bulgarian singing, though few have noted it. Dead Can Dance's music, in its invocations of exotic bygone cultures and an idealized Middle Ages, is threaded with a sense of ritualistic mysticism—the same kind that European and American record labels transplanted onto Le Mystère for the benefit of Western audiences. In England and America, the formal arrival of “world music” as a discrete marketing category aligned almost perfectly with the international emergence of the Bulgarian choir, with both phenomena effectively coalescing in 1987. The term itself was invented by British label execs Roger Armstrong and Ben Mandelson in the mid-1980s as a loose industry shorthand for vastly different sounds, from lambada to Paul Simon's Graceland to King Sunny Adé's Juju Music. As Simon Frith observed, “world music” relied heavily on discourses of exploration and discovery, as though obscurity itself conferred aesthetic value, and trafficked in seductive contradictions: ancient yet novel, strange yet familiar. “Their music is hundreds of years old, with dense, medieval-sounding harmonies,” wrote The Washington Post's Dana Thomas. Time's Jay Cocks, who began his review, “Score one for mystery,” erroneously stated that it was the first set of music ever recorded by the choir. One journalist at a small local paper in St. Louis referred to it as “the most beautiful music on the planet.” Such a breathless rave was warranted. Across Le Mystère, the ensemble layers tight, syncopated harmonies that jolt the soloist forward or fan out around her prismatically in a velvety drone. The sound is chastening, both exacting and unstoppable. At times, it is scarcely believable that these are human voices. On “Schopska Pesen,” the ensemble's diaphonic chant sounds exactly like an instrument made of wood and horsehair and expressly designed to sound reedy. Naturally, the choir won over many famous fans, including Linda Ronstadt. “I thought about going to Bulgaria to find them, but I didn't know whether I'd have to go out to a wheat field and see people standing there with sickles in their hands or whether they would be playing at a gig in a club,” she told the LA Times ahead of the choir's sold-out stop in L.A., as part of their first sold-out U.S. tour in 1988. In 1989, Kate Bush featured the Trio Bulgarka—three singers from Le Mystère who had branched off and rebranded—on her sixth album, The Sensual World. (On her previous album, Hounds of Love, she spliced a choral section from the Georgian folk song “Tsintskaro” into “Hello Earth.”) She first heard the choir through her brother Paddy, who she says was “interested in ethnic music,” and soon flew to Bulgaria to meet them herself. Their voices became a proxy for Bush's return to femininity. After several albums working only with male collaborators and writing hetero-optimistic music driven by male muses, The Sensual World was her attempt to locate her own femininity, something the trio helped ferment. Into the 1990s, Western markets reframed the ensemble's songs as feminist acts of freedom, turning their voices toward their own cultural fantasies—like Xena Warrior Princess. After Gaga documented her struggle with fibromyalgia, “Kaval sviri” played as Gaga was lifted into the air during her Super Bowl performance, a perilous stunt meant to signal her courage and valor. Today, choir members recruited during the 1950s and 1960s are now retiring on insufficient pensions. Watts-Russell wasn't—and still isn't to this day—much concerned with who these women were, what they were singing about, or where they are now. Although they sing as though the Earth had found its tongue and breath, the keepers of their music are still intent upon attributing this power to mystery rather than the women themselves. Pitchfork may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast.

Richard Branson's beloved wife, Joan Templeman, died on November 25, and the Virgin Group founder has continued to pay tribute to her on social media and celebrate the beautiful life she lived. On Saturday, December 20, he shared several photos of himself and Templeman again, marking what would have been their wedding anniversary. Templeman turned 80 in July 2025, and just four months later, she passed away. When she died, Branson announced her passing in an Instagram post, informing his followers that she was his “best friend” and partner for over five decades. Branson made another Instagram post on December 20, celebrating their time together and sharing three recent photos from Templeman's 80th birthday. “I still remember mine and Joan's wedding like it was yesterday. “Beautiful moments like this will last forever,” a comment reads. “Joan is definitely with you in spirit, just look for the signs.” “You look like two kids Sharing secrets – I love it!,” another person shared. What a beautiful way to remember loved ones,” “Sweet memories heal. The love shared between Branson and Templeman was so beautiful to witness, and she will be dearly missed by all who knew her. Branson is understandably heartbroken and devastated by his wife's passing, but he has found some solace in the outpouring of love that fans and friends have shared. “Thank you to everyone who has shared such kind messages about Joan,” he wrote in an Instagram post on December 8. “Our whole family are so touched by the outpouring of love. I feel so fortunate to have met her all those years ago. She was just a joy to be around – as so many of your messages reiterated.” Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.