Category Archives: Contemporary

Vital Vox to be rescheduled

Posted on October 31, 2012 | Leave a comment

Vital Vox, scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 29 and 30 at Roulette in Brooklyn, may have been scuttled by Sandy. But organizers promise it will be rescheduled. Stay tuned for updates.

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Posted in Concerts, Contemporary, Music

Vital Vox: A festival of the human voice, supercharged

Posted on October 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

(Courtesy Vital Vox Festival/www.vitalvoxfest.com)

If you like the sound of the human voice, but like it even better with a little extra oomph, the Fourth Annual Vital Vox Festival is for you.

The two-evening event, as always, features some of today’s most amazing vocal artists. But this year’s twist is called “Vox Electronics” and focuses on amazing artists who take their sound to a new level with electronic manipulation of all kinds.

It’s scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 29 and 3o, at Roulette in Brooklyn.

Monday night’s program features Philip Hamilton, Vital Vox co-artistic director Sabrina Lastman, and Sarah Bernstein with Satoshi Takeishi.

Pamela Z performs at the 2008 Bang on a Can Marathon in the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center in Manhattan. (Photo © 2008, Steven P. Marsh)

Tuesday brings in Lisa Karrer and David Simons, Vital Vox co-artistic director Sasha Bogdanowitsch and Pamela Z.

For our part, Pamela Z was our entree into the world of manipulated voice, and remains among our top two or three favorites in this arena. The things she can do to her voice with a Mac laptop and an occasional piece of percussion is pretty awesome. And when she pulls out her full arsenal — especially her Body Synth gesture controller — look out!

Other performances to look forward to are Karrer’s “Collision Theory” with video and Bernstein’s “Unearthish” on Monday and Bogdanowitsch’s new song-and-electronics cycle, “Mirror Upon Mirror” on Tuesday.

Every artist on this bill has serious vocal chops. One of them could make your top three. Why not give them a listen?

Fourth Annual Vital Vox Festival, 8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 29 and Tuesday, Oct. 30. Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue (at Third Avenue), Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. Information at the Vital Vox website  or follow Vital Vox on Twitter. Tickets, $15/$10 for students, seniors and members available at the Roulette website.

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A bright, musical — and FREE — way to end a dull, gray Tuesday

Posted on October 23, 2012 | Leave a comment

Miller Theatre’s Pop-Up Concerts are back

Ugh. It’s pretty grim to realize it’s only Tuesday. And what a nasty Tuesday it has turned out to be.

But there’s something happening tonight that’ll put a drink in your hand, a smile on your face and send you back out into the world with a head full of music: Pop-Up Concerts at Columbia University’s Miller Theatre.

And it won’t cost you a dime.

Here’s the deal: One Tuesday a month, this very cool program takes over the theater for a quick, casual get-together that ends in a very cool concert. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. Grab a free drink (thanks to Harlem Brewing Co.) when you get there, and hang out with fellow music lovers until the show starts at 6.

Tonight’s program is Minimalism’s Evolution. Sure, it sounds a little heady, maybe even academic. This is happening on an Ivy League campus, after all. But this series isn’t like any college course you might remember. Pop-Up Concerts let you get up close and personal with the artists in an informal performance that lasts just an hour.

Be sure to save the dates of the next two installments of Pop-Up Concerts: Nov. 13 of 120 Years of Solo Piano and Dec. 11 for John Zorn for Strings.

Tonight you’ll get three members of the awesome Ensemble Signal: Courtney Orlando on violin, Lauren Radnofsky on cello and Paul Coleman on sound.

Read on for the full program and all the details you need to get there. Continue reading →

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Posted in Concerts, Contemporary, Contemporary Classical, Free, Music, News

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David T. Little’s ‘Dog Days’ will blow you away

Posted on September 30, 2012 | Leave a comment
John Kelly as Prince and Lauren Worsham as Lisa in the world premiere performance of "Dog Days." (Photo: James Matthew Daniel)

John Kelly as Prince and Lauren Worsham as Lisa in the world premiere performance of “Dog Days.” (Photo: James Matthew Daniel)

Be prepared to hold onto your seat if — as you really should — go to see “Dog Days,” the new opera from composer David T. Little and librettist Royce Vavrek now in its world premiere run at the Alexander Kasser Theater in Montclair, N.J.

Composer David T. Little (Photo by Merri Cyr)

Composer David T. Little (Photo: Merri Cyr)

While the extremely dark, comedic piece is clearly a team effort (Jim Findlay‘s scenery, live video and video design lend the piece extra oomph), it’s Little’s powerfully dramatic music that makes the tale so compelling. The emotional score, with spiky, jarring moments, never loses its lyrical bearings. “Dog Days” signals Little as one of the great compositional voices of his generation.

(Click here for a video preview.)

Focusing on one American family that has, so far, survived a vaguely described apocalypse, the opera grapples with questions of human relationships, their limits and even what it means to be human.

The opera is based on a short story of the same title by Judy Budnitz. While the opera makes the story arc understandable, I regret not reading the story before seeing the sold-out first performance at the Kasser, a jewel of a theater on the campus of Montclair State University.

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Posted in Contemporary, Contemporary Classical, Music, Opera, Review, Theater

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Hey, Buke and Gass, ummm, GASE, are back with new music

Posted on May 2, 2012 | 1 comment

Thoughts on a name change

Buke and Gass keep their feet busy, too. (Photos © 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

Plus a PREVIEW OF THEIR NEW SONG!

It’s been more than a year since Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?  mentioned Buke and Gass. We’re overdue.

Arone Dyer on buke.

Maybe you’ve already noticed that there’s something different about this intense duo — their name. They’re now Buke and Gase, in what appears to be a slightly sad surrender to phonetics.

For those who have been paying close attention, the morphing began late last fall when the band posted this brief, cryptic bulletin on its website:

October 26 – Just played a show in Canada and our name is morphing.

But the reality didn’t sink in until we saw announcements for the band’s May 4 appearance at The National‘s Bryce and Aaron Dessner-curated Crossing Brooklyn Ferry series at BAM. We thought somebody had made a typo. On further investigation, we discovered the band had indeed changed the spelling.

Aron Sanchez on gass.

Although the pronunciation of the band name was easy to remember once you knew what it stood for — baritone ukulele=Buke, while guitar+bass=Gass — it appears the second half of the name was too often the butt of jokes rhyming with ass. So Arone Dyer, who plays the buke, and Aron Sanchez, on gass, gave in and changed the spelling.

But they didn’t change the sound, as you’ll hear on this great preview track from their next album, which they hope to release in September.

If you can’t make it to Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, or you just want more Buke and Gase, check out the lineup they’ve curated (they’re not listed as performing, just curating) through May 15 with Terry Riley‘s son Gyan Riley, at The Stone, John Zorn‘s music venue in Manhattan’s East Village.

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Posted in Concerts, Contemporary, Music, News, Pop and Rock, Punk, Recordings

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Big talent cultivates big prog-rock sound in Big Farm

Posted on April 2, 2012 | Leave a comment

Don’t miss the all-star ensemble’s gig at Public Assembly

Who knows when they’ll play again

Big Farm: Jason Treuting, Steven Mackey, Mark Haanstra and Rinde Eckert.

Q. Did you hear the one about the Pulitzer Prize finalist, the Guggenheim fellow, one of the leading new music percussionists and a Dutch Jazz Competition-winning bassist got together to make some garage rock?

A. Big Farm was born.

Janus Trio

Never heard of Big Farm? Go to Public Assembly at 70 North 6th St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 7, and you’ll never forget them. (They’re on a bill with Janus Trio, a great Brooklyn-based flute-viola-harp trio.) Admission is $10 at the door.

Time Out NY has called Big Farm “something like a Blind Faith-style supergroup,” given the accomplishments of the individuals in the band. Jason Treuting, the drummer, is perhaps the most recognizable member of the versatile percussion ensemble So Percussion. Steven Mackey, the sizzling lead guitarist, is a former Guggenheim fellow, a Grammy winner and an accomplished New Music composer. Bassist Mark Haanstra is an incredibly talented jazz player from the Netherlands. And Rinde Eckert, the vocalist, was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for his “Orpheus X” and also a Guggenheim fellowship. Continue reading →

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Posted in Concerts, Contemporary, Contemporary Classical, Music, News, Pop and Rock, Recordings

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The Mountain Goats and Anonymous 4 bridge the centuries at Merkin Concert Hall

Posted on March 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

Anonymous four and John Darnielle, right, of the Mountain Goats at Merkin Concert Hall

UPDATE: Audio link to full concert added

Hear the full concert by clicking here.

Who knew John Darnielle had a secret wish to work with Anonymous 4, the a cappella quartet that specializes in music of the 12th through 15th centuries? The Ecstatic Music Festival, created by New Amsterdam Records‘ Judd Greenstein, gave him a shot, and the result was Transcendental Youth, a song cycle presented Saturday,  March 24, at Merkin Concert Hall.

Darnielle, the writer and singer who performs as the Mountain Goats (and for this evening, he was the lone Goat) got the “why” question out of the way first.
As he was getting ready to finish college, his dad gave him a gift — a CD of A4’s 1993 An English Ladymass— an intense listen, he said, and one he returned to over and over as he coped with the more mundane stresses of completing two thesis papers (in English and Classics).

The Mountain Goats set list is after the jump.

John Darnielle (Photo © 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

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Posted in Classical, Concerts, Contemporary, Contemporary Classical, Folk, Music, News, Pop and Rock, Review

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Jenny Scheinman, pregnant and full of energy, played (Le) Poisson Rouge with her band Mischief & Mayhem

Posted on March 2, 2012 | 1 comment

Jenny Scheinman, right, and her Mischief & Mayhem bandmates. (Photo by Michael Gross)

Brooklyn’s own Jenny Scheinman has long been a strong side player, fiddling for lots of rock and pop heroes, from Lucinda Williams, Norah Jones, Rodney Crowell and Carla Bozulich to Bill Frisell, Vinicius Cantuaria and Ani DiFranco.

She’s straddled the divide between “popular” music (rock, folk and country) and contemporary experimental sounds.

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Posted in Concerts, Contemporary, Jazz, Music, Pop and Rock, Review

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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.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Concerts, Contemporary, Contemporary Classical, Folk, Music, News, Pop and Rock

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Quite an event with Antony and the Johnsons

Posted on February 3, 2012 | Leave a comment

Antony Hegarty with his 60-piece orchestra on the Radio City Music Hall stage. (Photos © 2012, Steven P. Marsh)

What can we say about the wonderfully strange singer Antony Hegarty, who on Jan. 26 managed to transform Radio City Music Hall into his own special dreamscape?

Antony, who often performs with a band as Antony and the Johnsons, had some members of his band as part of a 60-piece orchestra for this light-and-music show dubbed Swanlights.  He attracted a sold-out crowd that included celebrities such as Tilda Swinton, Jenny Shimizu, Rufus Wainwright, Lady Bunny, Michael Stipe and many more.

Lady Bunny in the lobby of Radio City Music Hall.

(Check out The New York Times review of the show here.)

The show, commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art and originally designed for presentation in the museum’s atrium, reached so far that it was doomed to fall a bit short. But even so, the evening was stunning and engaging, as the transgender Antony, dressed in a simple, flowing gown, came out an sang a selection of his marvelous songs with lush accompaniment, a visually stunning set, and, for the most part, well-done lighting.

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Posted in Art, Concerts, Contemporary, History, Music, News, Opera, Pop and Rock, Review

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