Category Archives: Contemporary

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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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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New Music Bake Sale: Music, Conversation, Beer and, yes, actual baked goods!

Posted on September 27, 2010 | 1 comment

Arturo en el Barco's Bake Sale table featured cupcakes and particularly tasty flan de queso. (Photos copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

The 2nd Annual New Music Bake Sale took over the decrepitly beautiful Irondale Center’s space in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, on Saturday, Sept. 25 for more than six hours.

The concept was pretty simple: Bring together a bunch of people who make new music — performers, producers, record companies and the like — in a place where they can make music, talk about music, drink beer and sell sweet and savory baked goods to raise money for their efforts.

Kathleen Supové at her Bake Sale table.

We don’t know how successful the financial part of the evening was, but the place was constantly full of people and activity throughout the event. We sampled the food, beer and music and found it excellent — especially the Sixpoint Sweet Action!

Many of our favorite New Music folks were there throughout the evening, including, but hardly limited to, Todd Reynolds, Matt Marks, Mellissa Hughes, Courtney Orlando, Ken Thomson, Jessica Schmitz, Ted Hearne, David T. Little, Steven Swartz, Glenn Cornett, Franz Nicolay, Caleb Burhans, Kathleen Supové and Oscar Bettison.

Todd Reynolds and Ken Thomson perform Ken's "Storm Drain."

We can hardly wait for next year’s event.

But enough words. Let’s get to the images. Click through to the jump for more photos. Continue reading →

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Solid Sound Festival: Wilco takes over MASS MoCA

Posted on August 12, 2010 | Leave a comment

Wilco has already begun taking over the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. The three-day Solid Sound Festival, curated by Wilco, starts Friday.

A weekend of music and art, side by side in the Berkshires

If you haven’t made your weekend plans yet, you really should think about heading to the Berkshires for the Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, Mass.

Solid Sound is the band Wilco‘s takeover of the entire complex occupied by the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), a fantastic 19th Century factory complex with an ever-changing lineup of modern art.

Wilco

While the museum is no stranger to hosting music events and other performing arts, the Solid Sound Festival is likely the first event that turns over the entire place — in fact, a good chunk of downtown North Adams, to a single event. As the museum website notes:

Just want to visit the galleries? We recommend you come a different weekend.

We anticipate that more than 5000 people will attend the Wilco Solid Sound Festival August 14 + 15. While the galleries will be open to non-festival goers that weekend, visitors who are looking for a contemplative time in the galleries and easy parking should visit us on a different weekend or arrive as early in the day as possible.

Starting at 8 on Friday night, the complex will be filled with thousands of Wilco fans intent on seeing their favorite band’s only East Coast show of the summer. But this event is special, because Wilco has managed to line up a place where all its side projects and friends’ bands can play too.

If you can’t make it to the festival, or even if you’re there, be sure to check back for updates on Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? and our Twitter feed.

(Festival details and links after the jump.) Continue reading →

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Ethel Fair Launches Lincoln Center Out Of Doors

Posted on July 28, 2010 | 3 comments

Crews were making the final preparations to Damrosh Park on Tuesday night for Wednesday's premiere of the 2010 edition of Lincoln Center Out Of Doors. (Copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

The fabulous Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival starts Wednesday night with a bit of Civil Rights Movement street theater at 6:30 at Barclays Capital Grove (the sponsored name for the plaza between Lincoln Center Theater and Avery Fisher Hall and moves into full-bore music mode at 7:30 in Damrosch Park with Ethel Fair: The Songwriters.

Ethel is Ralph Farris (viola), Mary Rowell (violin), Dorothy Lawson (cello) and Cornelius Dufallo (violin).

Ethel is a string quartet like no other string quartet you’ve seen or heard. These four skilled players, who are quite active together and separately on the international contemporary music scene, have been working in collaborative mode over the past several years. Their latest project, which has its world premiere at the Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival,  features the quartet yoked with songwriters who are quite well known on their own. Pop tunesmith Adam Schlesinger (a member of pop bands Fountains of Wayne and Ivy and composer of Broadway’s “Cry Baby”), assisted by Mike Viola (Candy Butchers), has created a work with Ethel. Other collaborators include folk-blues dynamo Dayna Kurtz, punk-New Wave pioneer Tom Verlaine (Television) and folky Argentine singer-songwriter Juana Molina.

Ethel always pushes boundaries with its work. This collaborative effort appears to reach for a broader, more mainstream appeal than some of the band’s more left-of-center efforts, such as its ongoing TruckStop project, which takes the band on the road to work with and celebrate indigenous cultures. But it’s certain to provide a richly entertaining evening.

No Snakes In This Grass is the title of the theater piece, written by James Magnuson and directed by Mical Whitaker, that kicks off the evening. It’s a comedy set in the Garden of Eden that deals issues of race and the Fall.

This is just the first night of a jam-packed schedule of fabulous free music and performance art that runs through Aug. 15. For the full Lincoln Center Out of Doors schedule, read the press release after the jump. Continue reading →

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Music at the museum: Talujon Percussion Quartet performs at the Noguchi on Sunday

Posted on July 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

Talujon Percussion Quartet at the World Financial Center Winter Garden.

Bang on a Can/Cantaloupe Music and the Noguchi Museum are hosting Second Sundays, an awesome concert series on the second Sunday of each month through September. Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? missed the inaugural gig, a performance by French avant-pop composer and bassist Florent Ghys — catching him instead at the Bang on a Can Marathon later in the month.

The series continues this Sunday, July 11, with a set by the amazing Talujon Percussion Quartet. To get a good sense of this group, check out the sound samples posted here.

Master clarinetist Evan Ziporyn will take the garden stage in August, while one-bit electronics composer Tristan Perich closes the series in September.

Shows are at 3 p.m. on the second Sunday of the month in the garden of the Noguchi at 9-01 33rd Road (at Vernon Boulevard), Long Island City. It’s the former workshop of Japanese-American sculptor and visionary Isamu Noguchi that is now preserves his artistic legacy. The concert is included with museum admission, which is $10 for adults.

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New life for Matt Marks’ The Little Death

Posted on July 8, 2010 | 2 comments

Composer Matt Marks and soprano Mellissa Hughes are Boy and Girl in the Incubator Arts Project presentation of The Little Death: Vol. 1 on Thursday, July 8. (Photos copyright 2010, Steven P. Marsh)

Something magical happened to Matt Marks‘ post-Christian nihilist pop opera The Little Death: Vol. 1, when it was preparing for its current staging at Incubator Arts Project at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery. What had been a great collection of smart, sometimes silly, pop songs in the guise of a gently confusing pop opera has evolved into a smartly staged, well focused piece of musical theater.

The stars of the show sell lemonade and cookies before the performance.

While Marks’ excellent music provided the building blocks, director Rafael Gallegos has built a solid foundation and has cemented the building block  together to form an elegant theatrical environment for the Marks’ eerie love story.

A little less wholesome.

Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? was blown away (pun intended) by Thursday night’s premiere performance of the staged version. That’s quite a contrast to my reaction to the semi-staged version presented by Marks’ label, New Amsterdam Records, in March. Although I loved the sample- and hymn-heavy music, the overall feel of the piece left me a bit uneasy. It was hard to discern what Marks was trying to do. Was he making fun of Christianity or exploring the quirks and limitations of the faith context in which he was raised? Songs like “I Like Stuff,” are the types of catchy tunes that every producer wants in a musical — ones that the audience can easily hum on the way out of the theater. The lyrics are no less catchy, but that where things became a bit unsettling — when the singers compare liking hamsters and ice cream and rainbows to liking Jesus.

The piece uses recognizable samples and large chunks of Christian hymnody as the basis for some of its songs that loosely tell the story of a blossoming love affair between Boy (Marks) and Girl (soprano Mellissa Hughes), backed up by a four-member choir. Another thing that left me feeling uneasy in that early viewing was the fact that the story starts with Boy shooting Girl before time-traveling back to the start of their relationship. Marks describes Vol. 1 as “the first half of our story.”

The last temptation of Christ?

Continue reading →

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Bang on a Can Marathon: 12 hours of free music tomorrow

Posted on June 26, 2010 | 1 comment

The Winter Garden during the 2009 Bang on a Can Marathon. (Copyright 2009, Steven P. Marsh)

The Bang on a Can Marathon, one of the highlights of the New Music scene in New York City, is tomorrow. Don’t miss it.

It’s the perfect way to spend a summer Sunday, sampling new music and taking in the sights and sounds of  Battery Park’s waterfront. You can come and go as you please in the climate-controlled Winter Garden, and you don’t even have to leave for a meal, because many of the Winter Garden restaurants will remain open throughout the performance.

Among the acts featured throughout the day are Vernon Reid, perhaps best known for his involvement in Living Colour, Signal ensemble and the fantastic Burkina Electric. But there’s plenty more to hear, see and do throughout the 12 hours.

  • When: Noon to midnight, Sunday, June 27.

Scroll down or click here for the full schedule and details in a previous Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? post.

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