When President Donald Trump fired the Kennedy Center’s longtime president and chairman in February and installed himself as chairman, two musicians who had been artistic advisers to the center and the National Symphony Orchestra, opera star Renée Fleming and rock pianist Ben Folds, resigned, and one fourth of the orchestra’s subscribers canceled their subscriptions in protest.  

But Gianandrea Noseda, the orchestra’s director and one of the world’s most sought-after conductors, stayed on, extending his contract in March by four years, and will serve as music director and principal conductor until 2031, the orchestra’s centennial year. He says he has more to accomplish with the NSO, and for the most part he has received praise for providing stability during a time of upheaval.  

“I respect people who think differently,” says Noseda, an admirer of the late, politically active Leonard Bernstein, who composed the music for the opening of the Kennedy Center in 1971 and was known to court controversy. “But today is not the time to make speeches. I have responsibilities.” 

Noseda is music director of another orchestra, though, and one that is purposely political – or, more specifically, geopolitical. That ensemble is the Pan-Caucasian Youth Orchestra, or PCYO, made up of 80 young musicians from three Caucasus nations, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and five neighboring countries, Ukraine, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Moldova. The PCYO performs every September in Georgia, as a central element of a music festival in Tsinandali, about 65 miles from the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. Georgia is considered a safe, hospitable country, but the region is rife with conflict, and the traditional enmity between, say, Turkey and Armenia, seems utterly irrelevant when young people from those countries make music together. Thus, the PCYO is not merely an orchestra, but a peace project. 

The festival attracts world-class soloists and chamber ensembles from all over the world – this year, pianists Sir András Schiff and Nikolai Lugansky, cellist Misha Maisky, and the Jerusalem Quartet were among the performers. Many of these A-list artists come to support the humanitarian mission of the festival, and are invariably impressed with the level of playing of the orchestra. Noseda has been music director of the PCYO since its inception in 2019. Because of COVID, the ensemble was suspended in 2020 and 2021. In five seasons at the helm, Noseda has helped mold the PCYO into a professional-level orchestra, a feat all the more remarkable considering it is open to musicians from only a handful of countries. 

Billboard caught up with Noseda at the Tsinandali Festival, held this year between Sept. 4 and 14, and spoke to him and members of the PYCO about music and coexistence. 

The PYCO concerts this season featured symphonies of Shostakovich, Beethoven, Mahler and Brahms, and concertos of Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Beethoven and Dvořák, with Lugansky, Maisky, violinist Marc Bouchkov, pianist Behzod Abduraimov and cellist Pablo Ferrández as soloists. The Brahms symphony – No. 3 in F major – was originally slated to be guest-conducted by Kent Nagano, but Nagano had to cancel for health reasons, and Noseda stepped in, late in the game. He was impressed with the results. “From the quality of the rehearsal, I thought I knew what to expect,” Noseda says, “but the performance went even beyond my expectations.” The concert, in the festival’s 1,200-seat seat covered amphitheater, drew a standing ovation. 

Musicians in the PCYO are between the ages of 18 and 28. A half-dozen members – violinists Ailin Akyner from Kazakhstan; Grigori Ambartsumian from Ukraine; Ece Canay from Turkey; and Dominic-Lucian Drutac from Moldova; along with cellist Lale Efendiev from Turkey; and double-bassist Alexander Vasilioglo from Moldova — gathered in a practice room for an interview with Billboard. The musicians spoke adoringly of Noseda, who, they say, has all their names committed to memory, despite the considerable turnover – 30 percent of the musicians this year were newcomers. “It’s like he’s looking through the eyes of every single orchestra member,” says Canay. 

Noseda is by no means the sole reason for the achievements of the PCYO. The young artists receive coaching from a staff made up almost entirely of first chair players at major orchestras. Italian conductor Claudio Vandelli travels from city to city throughout the region to audition prospective new members. Vandelli, who is quite possibly the most astute talent scout in the business, also selects the young orchestral musicians who perform at the midsummer festival in Verbier, Switzerland, from around 1,500 applicants per annum. He estimates he hears around 300 applicants each year for the PCYO, but that orchestra is officially open to eight countries (Uzbekistan may next year become the ninth), whereas the young artists at Verbier represent at least 60 different nationalities. Vandelli says occasional exceptions are made for the PCYO, to fill some key slots – this season, for instance, one of the bassoonists was a young woman from Spain. And every year one or more Russians have been discreetly invited to participate. 

Asked whether there was any political tension within the PYCO, the six members in the interview panel were unanimous: never. “We are all aware of the mission here,” Canay says. Some musicians carry scars of war. Ambartsumian, the Ukrainian violinist, says he lives in Dusseldorf with his mother and brother, and has not seen his father, who remains in Ukraine, for three years. On the day of the Russian invasion, he says, “we were awakened at 5 in the morning by explosions. A bomb destroyed our neighbor’s house next door. Even after I moved [to Germany], I couldn’t sleep calmly for months. Any sound – a ring, a clock – could trigger me.” 

“Sometimes I would like to talk about these kind of things with my friends here,” says Efendiev, the Turkish cellist, “but, like Grigori, they might have PTSD, and I want to be respectful.” 

The historic Tsinandali estate, where the festival takes place – a bucolic 12 acres of parkland that the French novelist Alexandre Dumas compared to paradise – seems the perfect refuge for young people from countries in conflict. Georgia has a long history of invasions over the millennia – most recently in 2008, when Russia seized 20% of Georgian land in a five-day war – but the country is peace-loving, and maintains a warm and tolerant spirit. Here, Muslims, Jews, Catholics and Orthodox Christians coexist. Mosques and synagogues are meters away from one another. 

Georgia has been free of armed conflict since 2008, but there is anxiety about further Russian intervention. Between last year’s festival and this year’s edition, the pro-Russian anti-West political party, Georgian Dream, won a general election that was criticized for irregularities by international observers. Following the election, negotiations by Georgia to join the European Union were suspended, despite the initiative’s popularity. Throughout Tbilisi, the street signs and names of establishments are in Georgian and English, and pro-EU graffiti is omnipresent. On October 4, Georgian Dream solidified its power by sweeping local elections. Tens of thousands of Georgians rallied in Tbilisi to protest the results, and police used water cannons to push back protesters who tried to storm the presidential palace. 

Georgian Dream was a topic of private conversation at this year’s festival, but only once did the controversy bubble to the surface. Hungarian-born pianist András Schiff, known for political outspokenness – he has refused to perform in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine – gave a solo recital on September 6 at the festival’s 600-seat chamber music hall. He apologized for speaking to the audience in English, but said he cannot converse in Georgian, then added, “I could speak to you in Russian, but I might get into trouble.” The comment was greeted by some members of the audience with applause. 

Though some Georgians are anxious about the future, George Ramishvili, founder and chairman of Silk Road Group, a media conglomerate, conveys nothing but optimism. Ramishvili is the principal architect of the Tsinandali Festival.  He has already made large investments – the amphitheater, chamber hall, and a hotel with practice rooms for the PCYO were all his doing – and his next project on the Tsinandali estate is a $5 million indoor concert hall, designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. On Sept. 15, the day after the festival ended, Ramishvili presided over the opening of another Silk Road property, the Telegraph, a new luxury hotel in Tbilisi, complete with a jazz club and a rooftop “Rolling Stone” bar. To mark the opening, Nik West performed on the rooftop and the Stanley Clarke Trio gave a concert at the jazz club. 

Noseda also exudes optimism, and says of the festival, “we are already planning the next three years.” To underscore that the PCYO mission of coexistence is working, he confirmed the juiciest bit of gossip at this year’s festival – namely, that two PCYO musicians, one Russian and the other Ukrainian, had become romantically involved. “Isn’t that beautiful?” he says. “That is the way the world should work.”

Call it the calm before the Taylor Swift storm. The first three quarters of this year — which span Dec. 31, 2024, through Oct. 2, 2025 — effectively function as a report card for the record business before the inevitable takeover of the superstar’s Life of a Showgirl album, which came out Friday (Oct. 3). The album immediately sold 2.7 million copies on its first day, which would already make it the second-biggest album of the year to date — but that’s not under discussion just yet. 

Even without the new Swift release, her label home REPUBLIC — which encompasses Republic Records, Island Records, Mercury Records, Big Loud and indie distributor Imperial — is still leading the pack for the year so far, with a 13.60% three-quarter current market share, powered by huge albums from Morgan Wallen, Sabrina Carpenter and The Weeknd, among others. It’s a jump from the industry-leading 12.69% current share Republic enjoyed at midyear, though down from the Swift-powered 15.21% it posted through three quarters in 2024, when her The Tortured Poets Department album spent 17 of its eventual 19 weeks atop the Billboard 200.  

Keeping Republic high pre-Showgirl are the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack and continued gains from Big Loud (2.71%, up from 1.42%) and Island (2.68%, up from 2.15%). The former was driven by Wallen’s continued success, the latter a remarkable jump considering that 2024 was a big breakout year with Carpenter and Chappell Roan. Clearly, the label continued firing on all cylinders. 

In second once again is Interscope Geffen A&M (IGA), inclusive of Verve Label Group, which ended the third quarter with a 10.43% current market share. That’s up from the 10.13% IGA held at the same mark in 2024 and is boosted by chart-topping albums from Lady Gaga and Playboi Carti this year, plus the continued success of Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft and Kendrick Lamar’s GNX, both from last year. By song consumption units, Lamar and SZA’s “luther” remains the biggest song of 2025 so far, and IGA’s current share has come down from its Q1 high of 12.67% as the song has receded. 

Making the biggest jump in the third quarter is the Atlantic Music Group, at a 7.83% current share, though that mark comes with some caveats that make it difficult to compare with past quarters. Most significant: This is the first quarter that Luminate’s market share numbers reflect Atlantic’s reorganization, which moved 10K Projects and its 1.52% current market share under Atlantic for the first time. (Atlantic’s share also includes 300 Entertainment, which was included in previous quarters.) That helps explain Atlantic’s jump from 5.75% at the midyear 2025 mark (and 5.51% from Q3 2024), though it also enjoyed a huge third quarter. Subtracting 10K’s performance for comparison purposes, Atlantic’s 7.28% for the period from June 26 through Oct. 2 reflects Alex Warren’s summer of success with “Ordinary” and chart-topping albums from Twenty One Pilots and Cardi B.  

Warner Records, which ranked fourth, maintained its strong position over the past few years, posting a 6.13% current share, though it was down year over year from 6.54% last year. (Warner’s share includes some of Warner Latin, Warner Nashville and catalog label Rhino.) 

Atlantic’s growth has benefited the Warner Music Group overall, boosting its current share at the nine-month mark to 16.83%, up from 16.25% at this point in 2024. That’s still far behind Sony Music Entertainment’s second-place showing: The label grew year over year — from 25.89% to 26.65%, with help from a Bad Bunny bump. And Universal Music Group (UMG) remained No. 1, although despite its top two labels boasting double-digit shares of their own, the absence of a Swift album during the period contributed to the music company’s year-to-year current share slip to 35.96% from last year’s 36.65%. (That, of course, will change soon.) By distribution ownership, the indie community is down from 21.21% last year to 20.55% this year, while by label ownership, the indie community stands at 39.43%, up from a 37.09% share in 2024, easily the largest segment of the industry. 

Sony’s benefited from owning at least a majority stake in five of the six labels that round out the top 10. At No. 5 is Columbia Records, with a 4.54% current share, up slightly from the 4.41% it held this time last year. For the same comparative period, RCA dropped one slot to seventh and 4.31% to 4.22%; Alamo Records, in eighth place, vaulted from 1.86% to 2.54%, inclusive of its indie distributor Santa Anna; and Sony Latin (2.11%) and Sony Nashville (1.83%) finished ninth and 10th. In sixth place was UMG’s Capitol Music Group, which includes Virgin Music, Quality Control/Motown, Astralwerks, Blue Note and Capitol Christian Music Group, and scored 4.31% of the market, up from 4.04%. (The Interscope Capitol Labels Group, or ICLG, accounts for 14.74% of current share in total.) 

In terms of overall market share — inclusive of current and catalog releases — UMG was essentially unchanged at 38.46% for the first three quarters of this year vs. 38.47% for the same period last year. Inching up were Sony (27.63%, from 27.25%) and Warner Music (18.97% from 18.42%). That came at the expense of the indies, which dropped from 15.85% to 14.94% by distribution ownership. Among the individual labels, REPUBLIC (10.08%) narrowly edged out Interscope (10.00%) for first place, with Atlantic Music Group (8.50%) and Warner Records (7.04%) just behind. At 5.88%, Capitol Music Group jumped to fifth, beating out Columbia’s 5.33%, while RCA (5.10%), Epic Records (2.47%), Sony Nashville (2.01%) and Concord (1.77%) rounded out the top 10. 

Among catalog share — titles older than 18 months — Interscope takes the title, coming in at 9.86%, down slightly from its industry-leading 9.93% at this point last year, but still maintaining its top slot. REPUBLIC, at 8.98%, beat out Atlantic Music Group’s 8.71% for second place, with each label improving a bit year over year. From there, Warner Records (7.33%), Capitol Music Group (6.37%), Columbia Records (5.57%) and RCA Records (5.37%) follow, while Epic Records (2.73%), Concord (2.07%) and Sony Nashville (2.06%) make up the top 10. 

New love is exciting, complicated and sometimes confusing. Those emotions, and much more, are explored on the new duet from BLACKPINK‘s JISOO featuring Zayn Malik. The K-pop star began hinting at the surprise, smoldering duet “Eyes Closed,” earlier this week via a mysterious teaser featuring a shadowy male silhouette standing behind her with the cryptic phrase “EYESCLOSED” and the caption “a duet is near.”

It dropped on Friday (Oct. 10) and it finds the pair trading verses about the exploration and excitement of a new love, with JISOO leading off the ethereal ballad with the lines, “Time is standing still and I don’t wanna leave your lips/ Tracing my body with your fingertips,” before former One Direction member and solo star Zayn responds, “I know what you’re feeling and I know you wanna say it/ I do too but we gotta be patient.”

The pair then trade lines in the dreamy chorus about how a love that shouldn’t work is somehow perfect, especially when you don’t try to make it make sense. “‘Cause someone like me/ And someone like you/ Really shouldn’t work, yeah, the history is proof/ Damned if I don’t/ Damned if I do,” they sing over soothing, bubbling synths, a spare beat and acoustic guitar strums, alternating lines before joining their voices for the heart-swelling chorus: “Oh, we should fall in love with our eyes closed/ Better if we keep it where we don’t know/ The beds we’ve been in/ The names and the faces of who we were with.”

The duet comes more than three months after Zayn was spotted attending BLACKPINK’s New York show on July 27, accompanied by his daughter, Khai. After the show, he shared a photo from the audience with the caption: “@BLACKPINKOFFICIAL THANK YOU 🙂 ME & KHAI LOVED IT,” leading fans to speculate about the connection between the two artists.

The duet is JISOO’s first new music since the release of her solo EP Amortage in February, which features tracks including “Hugs & Kisses,” “You Love” and “Earthquake.” JISSO is on the road now on BLACKPINK’s Deadline world tour, which will pick up again on Oct. 18 with the first of two shows at Kaohsiung National Stadium in Kaohsiung, Taiwan before continuing along to Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, wrapping up with three shows at Singapore National Stadium (Nov. 28-30).

Zayn is preparing for his first Las Vegas residency at the Dolby Live at Park MGM, which kicks off a seven-show run on Jan. 20.

Listen to “Eyes Closed” below.

English singer-songwriter Olivia Dean makes her Billboard albums chart debut with her second studio album, The Art of Loving. The project launches on multiple charts (dated Oct. 11): at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and No. 7 on Top Album Sales, as well as top 10 bows on Indie Store Album Sales (No. 2), Vinyl Albums (No. 2), Top Current Album Sales (No. 7) and Top Streaming Albums (No. 8).

The effort starts with 43,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the week ending Oct. 2, with 11,000 of that in traditional album sales (nearly 9,000 in vinyl purchases).

Across the pond, the BRIT Award-nominated artist’s set debuts atop the U.K. Official Albums Chart — her first No. 1 on the list.

The Art of Loving single “Man I Need,” Dean’s debut on the Billboard Hot 100, surges 25-12. The track also rises 8-6 on Streaming Songs and 36-25 on Pop Airplay and debuts at No. 37 on Adult Pop Airplay. The album also yields two arrivals on the Hot 100: “Nice to Each Other” (No. 97) and “So Easy (To Fall in Love)” (No. 98).

In addition, The Art of Loving is one of six debuts in the top 10 on a busy Top Album Sales chart, where Mariah Carey’s Here for It All debuts at No. 1. P1Harmony’s EX debuts at No. 2, Doja Cat’s Vie enters at No. 3, the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack rises 7-4, Stray Kids’ chart-topping KARMA falls 4-5, Young Thug’s UY SCUTI is new at No. 6, HARDY’s Country! Country! climbs in at No. 8, Cardi B’s AM I THE DRAMA? falls 1-9 in its second week and Sabrina Carpenter’s former leader Man’s Best Friend dips 6-10.