Category Archives: Contemporary Classical

Musical ecstasy: Ecstatic Music Festival starts tonight

Posted on February 4, 2012 | Leave a comment
John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats. (Photo © 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

John Darnielle's band The Mountain Goats is one of the great acts in this year's Ecstatic Music Festival lineup. (Photo © 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

Friends have been asking for recommendations on what shows to check out in the second annual Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Concert Hall.

Sxip Shirey (© 2011, Steven P. Marsh)

The two-month festival, put together by Judd Greenstein and New Amsterdam Presents, an arm of the innovative New Amsterdam Records label, is an absolute must. It’s so chock full of great artist pairings that it’s tough to pick just one or two. Last year’s festival was strong, and the lineup this year looks even stronger. And ticket sales seem to reflect that, given that some of the shows have been sold out for awhile.

But some shows are still available, and tickets are around even for the sold-out gigs.

There’s one I’m really looking forward to is the Saturday, March 24 bill featuring The Mountain Goats, the homemade indie-rock project of John Darnielle, paired with the early music vocal quartet Anonymous Four. We’re not sure how this one will play out, but both groups are so good at what they do, and so genre-busting, that it should be remarkable.

Todd Reynolds (Photo © 2011, Steven P. Marsh)

Another highlight early in the festival is the amazingly indescribable music-maker Sxip Shirey and Angélica Negrón, with special guests electro-violinist Todd Reynolds, Noveller, Jonny Rodgers& Face the Music on Tuesday, Feb. 7.

And we don’t mean to give tonight’s opening show short shrift, but we have to think tickets for this one evaporated in seconds: Jherek Bischoff and the Wordless Music Orchestra, with special guests David Byrne, Craig Wedren, Greg Saunier, Mirah, Zac Pennington, and more. But if you’re willing to try to score a ticket, we’re sure it’ll be worthwhile!

For the full schedule, click through to the jump for the festival press release, courtesy of our pal, New Amsterdam publicist Jill Strominger.

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Todd Reynolds, Sxip Shirey and friends steal the show

Posted on August 13, 2011 | Leave a comment

Sxip Shirey, Todd Reynolds and friends at Lincoln Center Out of Doors. (Photos © 2011, Steven P. Marsh)

How often do you go to a show and feel like you’ve heard such an amazing opening act that you’re ready to skip the headliner?

Not often, I’ll bet.

Todd Reynolds

But that’s exactly the way I felt at Lincoln Center Out of Doors on Wednesday night, Aug. 10. It was another triumph in New York’s best free outdoor concert series, which The New York Times describes perfectly as “generous, warm, high-spirited real entertainment for a big audience.”

Don’t get me wrong, Laurie Anderson was the headliner of the free show in Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park. She is — and was that night — amazing. But openers Todd Reynolds and Sxip Shirey, joined by six violinists and a tuba player, blew the house down with their collaboration. I could have gone home floating on air after their set, feeling perfectly satisfied.

Lou Reed slips heads backstage at Lincoln Center Out of Doors.

Todd, the inimitable Digifiddler, kicked off his set with some of the inventive work from his new album, Outerborough. Laurie’s husband, Lou Reed, slipped through the crowd and backstage while Todd was really wailing on “Crossroads,” a Michael Lowenstern-composed “duet” with bluesman Robert Johnson.

In short order, Todd was joined by six more violinists, each of whom is pretty amazing in his or her own right (Caleb Burhans, Conrad Harris, Pauline Kim Harris, Yuki Numata, Courtney Orlando, and Ben Russell). The Sxip, the multi-instrumentalist clown prince of the NYC indie music scene entered along with Adam Matta (the Human Beatbox) and tuba player Don Godwin of Raya Brass Band. (Check out a rehearsal clip of Todd and Sxip cutting loose here.)

The energy that flowed among all these talented musicians as they jammed onstage was palpable. And there was lots of love flowing from stage to audience and back again.

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Posted in Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Free, Pop and Rock, Review

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Get ready for the Bang on a Can Marathon

Posted on June 4, 2011 | Leave a comment
Asphalt Orchestra at Lincoln Center Out of Doors on Aug. 4, 2010. © 2010, Steven P. Marsh

Asphalt Orchestra will open the 2011 edition of the Bang on a Can Marathon by performing "Carlton" by Stes and Heidi Rodewald and "Opus 81" by Yoko Ono. (Photo © 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

Memorial Day may be the unofficial start of summer, but it doesn’t really get started for us at Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? until the annual Bang on a Can Marathon arrives.

This year’s edition is Sunday, June 19. It’s scheduled to run from 11 a.m. to midnight, meaning we’re in for a real treat of 13 continuous hours of music — all for FREE at the World Financial Center Winter Garden in Manhattan’s Battery Park City.

Todd Reynolds at Littlefield's, Feb. 13, 2011. © 2011 Steven P. Marsh

Todd Reynolds

Scheduling problems (also known as my day job) last year made it hard to take in much of the daylong (mostly indoors) event.

We managed to listen only for a couple of hours. We’re not going to let that happen this year. We’ve made sure to save the time and date this year. You should, too.

This year’s edition features many of our favorites, including Bang on a Can’s house band, the All-Stars, electro-acoustic violinist extraodinaire Todd Reynolds (performing a World Premiere of his work Transamerica), avant garde marching band Asphalt Orchestra, the fabulous New Music ensemble Signal, singer-composer-director Toby Twining, cellist Maya Beiser and the truly wonderful Young People’s Chorus of New York City.

Toby Twining

Toby Twining (Ben Sozanski photo)

Aside from our recurring favorites, this year’s marathon also features a performance by the Sun Ra Arkestra in the 8-10 p.m. slot, and the Glenn Branca Ensemble as the day’s closer.

Aside from works by Bang on Can founders Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon and David Lang, the day features music by luminaries such as Philip Glass. Iannis Xenakis and Michael Nyman. However, the music of Steve Reich, a godfather of Bang on a Can, is absent from the program.

Click through for the full schedule or download a copy here.

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People’s Commissioning Fund: Make your own music

Posted on February 8, 2011 | Leave a comment

Want to feel like a Medici or some other patron of the arts but don’t have the treasury to make it happen?

Everyone who gives — even just a few dollars — to Bang on a Can’s People’s Commissioning Fund is a minimogul responsible for the creation of a handful of musical works every year.

Commissioners, as Bang calls its donors to the PCF, get to hear the fruits of their efforts in concert in Manhattan on Thursday evening, Feb. 10. This year’s commissioned composers are Nick Brooke, hometown hero Bryce Dessner of the Brooklyn-based rock band The National and tabla-electronic-hip hop wizard Karsh Kale. 

This year’s concert is programmed as part of the Ecstatic Music Festival, a two-month cornucopia of music by like-minded composers and performers being presented at Merkin Concert Hall near Lincoln Center.

If you’ve already donated and have some free time at 5 p.m. on the day before the concert, you can see the musicians, and some or all of the composers, up close in a free dress rehearsal. You’ll even get the chance to ask questions and rub elbows with the artists and other commissioners at an informal reception afterward. Contact BoaC’s director of development, Tim Thomas, tim@bangonacan.org, for more info.

The Bang on a Can All-Stars, the house band, handles the playing duties for virtually all the commissions. They also be filling out the program with some other great music, including Steve Martland‘s Horses of Instruction, Convex/Concave/Concord by Danish minimalist Pelle Gudmundsen Holmgreen, and Believing by BoaC cofounder Julia Wolfe.

Here’s how BoaC cofounder David Lang describes the PCF process in a nutshell: “Over 14 years the People’s Commissioning Fund (PCF) is as liberating a force in music as we had imagined it would be. We are still pooling together the contributions large and small of hundreds of music lovers from around the world, adding penny to penny, combining lonesome individual gifts into awe inspiring communities of power and cold cash.  And then we give that money to bold, innovative, questioning, dedicated and highly inventive composers. We commission them, we rehearse their music intensively, we hold special events so that the members of the PCF can meet the musicians and composers that their generosity supports, and then we play that music in New York and often all around the world.  It is an amazing and beautiful thing.”

Beautiful, indeed. We here at Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? have supported the PCF from the beginning. We couldn’t be more proud of what our pennies have helped create.

The details:

7:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 10. Bang on a Can 2011 People’s Commissioning Fund Concert, Merkin Concert Hall, 129 W. 67th St. (between Broadway and Amsterdam), Manhattan. $25.

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Music of Julia Wolfe

Posted on February 3, 2011 | Leave a comment

Bang on a Can cofounders Julia Wolfe, David Lang and Michael Gordon. (Photo copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

We’re a little overdue with sharing this, but better late than never:

Bang on a Can cofounder and composer Julia Wolfe gets the full attention on Miller Theatre’s Composer Portraits series on Thursday, Feb. 3.

The show features two New York premieres that demonstrate the depth and breadth of Julia’s work.

On the 80-minute program are Cruel Sister (2004), based on a grisly English tale of sibling rivalry, and Fuel (2007), a collaboration with filmmaker Bill Morrison that examines the impact of our dependence on the title subject.

“I’m thrilled the pieces are going to be done. They really haven’t been done together like this in the U.S.,” Julia says. “The intensity and the driving, relentless aspect of my writing is there in these pieces.”

You can hear more of Julia’s thoughts on the program in Miller Theatre’s video preview of the concert. You can read the complete program notes here.

Julia’s music will be performed by the incomparable New Music ensemble Signal, led by Brad Lubman, the concert will also include an onstage discussion with Julia and WNYC’s John Schaefer.

For more from Julia Wolfe, read her interview about this performance in The New York Times.

8 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 3. Miller Theatre at Columbia University, 116th St. & Broadway. http://www.millertheatre.com. $25. Tickets are available online or at the box office.

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TwoSense: Old guard piano meets new guard cello

Posted on December 31, 2010 | Leave a comment

Australian pianist Lisa Moore and American cellist Ashley Bathgate join forces as TwoSense.

We at Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? can’t think of a better way to kick off the New Year than with New Music.

So we’ll be at (Le) Poisson Rouge in Manhattan on Tuesday night, Jan. 4, for the New York City debut of TwoSense. It’s a New Music Super Duo and commissioning powerhouse comprising Lisa Moore, the superb Australian pianist who was a longtime member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars, and Ashley Bathgate, the Saratoga Springs, N.Y., native who’s the All-Stars’ latest cellist. Oh, and in addition to playing their primary instruments, both women will sing. Lisa will also play melodica, while Ashley adds kick drum to the duo’s sound.

Ashley and Lisa are both passionate about New Music and are a joy to watch and hear.

Ashley Bathgate at (Le) Poisson Rouge in September, 2010. (Copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

Here’s how they describe the mission of TwoSense:

TwoSense is a concert series and commissioning venture established by Ashley Bathgate and Lisa Moore presenting new, experimental commissions paired with mainstream works for cello and piano and guest artists. Both emerging and distinguished composers are writing works for TwoSense. The TwoSense mission seeks to ensure the inclusion of this music in the library of great chamber music. Please join us! PS – all the composers who are alive will be there!

And if the mere presence of Ashley and Lisa isn’t enough to persuade you to attend, check out the guest performers: Iva Bittová, voice/violin, Kelli Kathman, flute and Andy Akiho, steel pans.

Iva Bittová, Czech violinist, vocalist and composer, will join TwoSense at (Le) Poisson Rouge. (Copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

And then, as TwoSense says, all the living composers on the program will be in attendance. That list includes: Akiho, Bittová, Stephen Feigenbaum, Paul Kerekes, Jerome Kitzke, and Kate Moore. They’re also performing music by Leos Janacek.

TwoSense. 6:30 p.m. (show at 7:30), Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker St., Manhattan. Tickets are $15 and available by clicking here, or call (212) 505-FISH (3474).

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New York City’s preparing for an Unsilent Night

Posted on December 17, 2010 | Leave a comment

Composer Phil Kline hands out tapes to Unsilent Night/NYC participants in 2005.

New York, it’s time to get ready for Unsilent Night!

This musical happening, composed and orchestrated — in every sense of the word — by Phil Kline, returns to its roots in New York on Saturday, Dec. 18. It kicks off at 7 p.m. at the Washington Square Arch in Greenwich Village.

This is the 19th year for Unsilent Night in New York, where it all started in 1992.

It’s an amazing experience in which every participant is responsible for part of the music by carrying a boombox or other speaker-equipped music playback gadget to sent Kline’s ethereal composition through the cold night air.

There’s nothing specifically religious or sectarian about the music or the event, but it generates a warm, holiday spirit for most participants.

Be sure to arrive early and bring your own boom box. Dress warmly and prepare to have a great time!

You’ll save time and be better prepared if you bring your own CD or MP3 file to play on whatever system you’re using. Click here to download your part. CDs will also be available at the start.

Here’s  this year’s instructions, direct from the Unsilent Night website:

On December 18 at 7:00pm, Phil Kline will lead a massive chorus of boomboxes from the West Village to the East Village in the 19th annual holiday presentation of Unsilent Night. People will gather in Washington Square Park, and less than an hour and mile later, end up in Tompkins Square Park.

In NYC, it is recommended that participants arrive by 6:45 pm at the arch in Washington Square. 
Phil Kline will hand out a limited number of boomboxes—and cassettes and CD’s for those who bring their own players. The public is strongly encouraged to bring their own boomboxes and hold them high as they play the music. Mp3 downloads of the individual tracks will be available on this website after November 27, so pod-docks and other sound-blasters can be carried . People have even brought their laptops hooked up to large speakers mounted on a wagon.

“Unsilent Night was designed in 1992 to withstand the unreliability, playback delay and occasional quavering tones of cassettes, “ said Phil Kline in an interview with the San Francisco Examiner. “About 90 percent of people have CD players now, so I make CDs available as well, but there’s something about the twinkling, hallucinatory effect of a warbling cassette tape that I enjoy.”

The event is free, and will be held rain or shine.

Participants can e-mail unsilentnight@gmail.com for information.

The growing list of U.S. cities presenting Unsilent Night this year:
Asheville, Baltimore, Boulder, Charleston, SC, Charleston, WV, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, Traverse City and beyond the U.S.:
Hong Kong, Oxford, UK | Cambridge, Ontario | Vancouver, BC | Fredericton, NB.

More cities to come!

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Great news: As predicted, Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival returns to MASS MoCA in 2011

Posted on December 17, 2010 | Leave a comment

When Wilco arrived at MASS MoCA last summer, the band even took over the museum's sign. (Photos copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

Fantastic festival can only get better

We don’t like to brag (well, okay, sometimes we do), but Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? predicted that Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival would become an annual event — even before this year’s inaugural gathering wrapped up.

Wilco HQ announced the news with an email this morning:

Greetings and Happy Holidays. We’ve got a last bit of news before heading home for the break. The big story here is that Solid Sound 2011 is officially ON and happening the weekend of June 24-26, once again at MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA. if you were there last year, we know you’ll be back. If not, well, this year you should know better. Ticket information and more will be announced on January 18. So keep an eye and ear out.

Safe travels and sweet holidays to you all. Thanks again for another great year in Wilcoworld. We’ll see you in 2011 with what will undoubtedly be a whole bunch of news regarding Wilco tours, records, the festival and so on. Cheers.

the HQ Staff

This years three-day event was held  in mid-August. It gave thousands of fans of all ages the run of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in the Berkshires town of North Adams, Mass. Participants got to hear lots of music from Wilco, the side projects of band members like Jeff Tweedy, Nels Cline, Pat Sansone, their friends, and got to sample comedians and films along with the spectacular art on the gritty former factory campus. It was well run, well curated and surprisingly chill.

The music was great, the scheduling tight without being overwhelming, the facilities were superb and the food and drink never seemed to run out. Everything worked together to make it one of the best and most memorable festivals around.

Wilco perfoms on the main stage in Joe's Field at MASS MoCA.

Museum management was thrilled to have as many as 5,000 well-behaved patrons on site at once, and obviously saw the festival as something worth bringing back. Museum Director Joe Thompson was singing the praises of the event all weekend, and made no secret of the fact that he supported the idea of doing it again in 2011.

And Cline brimmed with excitement about the festival when we spoke with him at Joe’s Pub in New York City, where he and fiancee Yuka Honda were checking out Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl‘s new project, The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger.

Next year’s festival is earlier in the summer — June instead of August. So save the date and stay tuned for an update in a month.

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Yale Percussion Group coming to Zankel Hall on Dec. 12

Posted on December 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

Members of the Yale Percussion Group rehearsing Thierry de Mey's Musique des Tables. (Photo by Bob Handelman)

We at Will You Miss Me When  I’m Gone? have a soft spot for percussion music and the ensembles that play it well.

So it should be no surprise that we’re excited about the Yale Percussion Group’s visit to New York on Sunday, Dec. 12. This exciting group of performers — Michael Compitello, John Corkill, Ian Rosenbaum, Yun-Chiu Candy Chiu, Leonardo Gorosito  and Adam Rosenblatt, directed by founder Robert van Sice — will be bringing four major percussion classics to the stage of Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall.

Included is Mauricio  Kagel’s rarely performed Dressur to the Balinese-flavored mysticism in James Wood’s Village Burial With Fire.  Add to that Thierry de Mey’s Musique des Tables, played on amplified table, which is as much fun to watch as it is to hear and top it off with Steve Reich’s Sextet, and you’ve got a great evening of percussion music performed by top-notch players.

If you need proof, check out performance videos of YPG at work by clicking here.

Ticket contest

Boosey & Hawkes, Steve Reich’s publisher, is running a contest for free tickets. You have until 2 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 10, to enter. Click here to enter.  If you don’t win, read on for ticket-buying information.

musand Yale Percussion Group performs at 8 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 12. Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall,  Seventh Avenue at 57th Street, Manhattan. Tickets, which are $15-25, are available at the box office or by clicking here.

Acclaimed for its virtuosity and electrifying stage presence, the Yale Percussion Group and its director, Robert Van Sice, perform four challenging and theatrical works that explore the limitless potential of percussion instruments, written by four singular contemporary composers: Mauricio Kagel, Steve Reich, Thierry de Mey, and James Wo

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Kronos Quartet’s rare NYC club appearance at (Le) Poisson Rouge

Posted on October 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

 

David Harrington of Kronos Quartet at New York nightclub (Le) Poisson Rouge on Oct. 8, 2010. (Photos copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

 

Groundbreaking ensemble sells out two nights at Greenwich Village nightspot

Kronos Quartet can and does regularly fill huge auditoriums for its programs. But for its latest appearance in New York City, the ensemble picked Greenwich Village’s (Le) Poisson Rouge, arguably the most welcoming venue for New Music New York City.

 

Kronos Quartet's cellist, Jeffrey Zeigler.

 

Kronos’ two-night program included a slew of premieres and put the spotlight on many New York-based composers and collaborators, including the super-talented young composer Missy Mazzoli (founder of the hot electroacoustic chamber ensemble Victoire), Bang on a Can founder Michael Gordon, guitarist Bryce Dessner of the bands Clogs and The National (formed in Cincinnatti but now based in Brooklyn) and the Young Peoples Chorus of New York City.

The 37-year-old, San Francisco-based qua
rtet  — David Harrington and John Sherba on violins, Hank Dutt on viola and Jeffrey Zeigler on cello — played a spirited set to a packed house on Friday evening, Oct. 8. The second installment is tonight, Saturday, Oct. 9, when Kronos offers a completely different program.

 

 

At the Friday show, Kronos kicked off with Dessner’s Aheym (Homeward), which he wrote for Kronos. Mazzoli’s lovely, lyrical Harp and Altar, also composed for Kronos, followed.

The first world premiere of the evening was Aleksandra Vrebalov‘s spell no. 4, for a changing world.

But the most stunning performance moments of the evening came next, when Kronos introduced the Young Peoples Chorus, founded and conducted by Francisco Nuñez. The youngsters entered from the darkened sides of the room shrieking and howling the vocal parts of Terry Riley‘s Another Secret eQuation, which he wrote for Kronos and had its world premiere at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in March.

 

Composer Michael Gordon cheers the Young Peoples Chorus of New York City, with John Sherba and David Harrington of Kronos Quartet.

 

After a brief intermission, the Young Peoples Chorus rejoined Kronos for the world premiere of Gordon’s Exalted, an intensely emotional composition.

Click through to the jump for more words and photos about Kronos and collaborators. Continue reading →

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