Rock stars are known to court enigma, especially when it comes to their personal lives. But to announce his wedding this week, the rock musician and visual artist David Byrne casually took to his Instagram account on Monday to post a note about the news. His message appeared in white text on a black background, beneath a picture of lettuce.
In the note that was posted to his Instagram Stories — which has already expired — he revealed his thinking behind the playlist he’d created for the wedding.
“I’m getting married this week,” Mr. Byrne, 73, wrote, “and made an almost entirely instrumental playlist while our guests eat an amazing and spicy dinner. My sense is that words & lyrics can be distracting — the ear goes to them, especially if it’s a song one knows.”
“So, I opted for buoyant instrumentals,” he continued, “that will create a hopeful and joyous atmosphere … and that folks can also ignore at the same time.”
Mr. Byrne, the former Talking Heads frontman, is marrying his fiancée Mala Gaonkar, a businesswoman and hedge fund founder. He could not be reached for comment on the wedding.
The announcement, which played out over a few slides, included links to the wedding playlist. It is decidedly Byrne-esque, replete with selections of world music and eclectic cuts like “Guajira Sicodélica” by Los Destellos and “Dung Gate” by Mulatu Astatke & Hoodna Orchestra.
It included pieces like Brian Eno’s soaring “An Ending (Ascent)” and the vampy Herbie Hancock classic “Watermelon Man.” There’s also a virtuosic work by the Pakistani benju player Ustad Noor Bakhsh, and a composition of light orchestral music by Leroy Anderson, “The Syncopated Clock.”
Mr. Byrne subtly referenced his engagement to Ms. Gaonkar, 55, last month in an interview with The Times of London, when he explained that she inspired the song “Moisturizing Thing” on his new album “Who Is the Sky?”
“My fiancée will sometimes come at me with greasy hands, ready to smear my face,” Mr. Byrne said, “and at one point I thought, ‘What if I wake up and really looked younger?’” He added: “But there’s a message, too. About how people judge us by the way we look. You learn a lesson you didn’t expect at the start.”
The couple has creatively collaborated in the past. In 2016, they produced an immersive theater experience, “The Institute Presents: Neurosociety,” that led groups through a series of neuroscience experiments. “You will face moral dilemmas,” read a description of the event. “You will see your hand grow giant and you will be embodied in a doll’s body.”
In 2022, Mr. Byrne and Ms. Gaonkar produced another immersive installation, “Theater of the Mind,” which also invited guests to participate in sensory experiments.
“Mala and I have been fascinated by the science behind these experiences for a number of years,” Mr. Byrne wrote of the show. “We began referring to the project as a Neuro Funhouse, but as we worked on it we came to realize that it was evolving to be something more than that. It has made us rethink some of our own beliefs and assumptions, to see ourselves and the world in a different way, and we hope that it might have a similar effect on our audience.”
Though Mr. Byrne has chosen a largely instrumental playlist for his wedding, he took a different musical tact this spring for the wedding of his only child, Malu Byrne, his daughter from his previous marriage to Adelle Lutz, the costume designer and actress.
The small backyard ceremony was held in Ghent, N.Y., and Mr. Byrne, who was ordained by the Universal Life Church, officiated the wedding in a white shirt, white pants and white sneakers with mismatched red and blue shoelaces. But he also played a song.
Mr. Byrne stood before the crowd with an acoustic guitar to perform the 1979 Talking Heads classic, “Heaven.” And with his foot perched atop a small amplifier, he strummed and sang as his daughter walked down the aisle.
Alex Vadukul is a features writer for the Styles section of The Times, specializing in stories about New York City.
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