Always never the same.
Contemporary concert works and creative music in New York City, March 25–31.
If it’s Wednesday, then this must be the Tuesday newsletter. Let’s go.
Recommended reading.
Nate Chinen on the late, great drummer, bandleader, and composer Paul Motian. (The Gig)
Yaz Lancaster interviews Lucy Liyou on her new album and an NYC performance this Saturday. (Which Sinfonia)
Sam Newsome, an improvising saxophonist and composer, mulls why musicians’ gig alerts don’t connect on social media. (Soprano Sax Talk)
Will Robin on the 10th International Conference on Music and Minimalism, coming in May. (Industry)
brin solomon has launched a keen newsletter covering music and culture in Western Mass. (That Supreme Alive-ness)
The Night After Night Watch.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time.
25
Theresa Wong
Glass Box Theatre, The New School
55 W. 13th St., Greenwich Village
Wednesday, March 25–Saturday, March 28 at 8:30pm; $20 cash only
thestonenyc.com
Bay Area cellist and composer Theresa Wong comes to The New School for a Stone series engagement featuring collaborations with local luminaries DoYeon Kim, Jane Rigler, Nava Dunkelman, and John McCowen.
Jeffrey Zeigler
National Sawdust
80 N. 6th St.; Williamsburg
Wednesday, March 25 at 6:30 & 8:30pm; $45
nationalsawdust.org
We’ve all grown accustomed to seeing the dynamic cellist Jeffrey Zeigler juggling pieces, engagements, and roles like the consumate virtuoso that he is. But for two shows tonight, Zeigler’s sole assignment is to handle playing cello for Division of Time, a new evening-length piece by composer Eric Nathan, while the juggling is left to the skillful performers of London’s Gandini Juggling—a troupe familiar to anyone who’s thrilled to Phelim McDermott’s production of Philip Glass’s Ahknaten.
26
Composer Portrait: Chinary Ung
Miller Theatre, Columbia University
2960 Broadway; Morningside Heights
Thursday, March 26 at 7:30pm; $20–$35
millertheatre.com
The celebrated Cambodian-American composer Chinary Ung is the subject of a career-spanning survey by the excellent Del Sol Quartet, including two world premieres from 60 years apart: a String Trio composed in 1966, and a new piece commissioned by the quartet and Miller Theatre for this occasion.
Skylark
Hispanic Society Museum & Library
3741 Broadway; Washington Heights
Thursday, March 26 & Friday, March 27 at at 6:30pm; free admission, VIP seating $75
eventbrite.com
The exemplary Massachusetts vocal ensemble Skylark alights in Washington Heights for a performance of Path of Miracles by Joby Talbot, while surrounded by the 14-panel masterpiece Vision of Spain by Joaquín Sorolla.
The Westerlies
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave.; Brooklyn
Thursday, March 26 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
roulette.org
Poised, mellifluous, and simultaneously urbane and rustic, brass quartet The Westerlies is pretty much the best group you could imagine tackling the Bill Frisell canon… possibly short of Frisell, who’s celebrating a milestone birthday elsewhere this weekend. The proof is evident throughout the new Westerlies album, Have You Heard: The Music of Bill Frisell, Vol. 1, a collection of succinct ballads and bops Frisell composed during the pandemic. If you can’t be here in person, watch for free, live or later, on the Roulette website or YouTube.
27
Bill Frisell
The Appel Room, Jazz at Lincoln Center
10 Columbus Circle; Midtown West
Friday, March 27 at 7 & 9pm; Saturday, March 28 at 4:30 & 7pm; $57–$107
jazz.org
Guitarist, composer, and bandleader Bill Frisell, a musician central to New York City’s vanguard for decades, celebrates his 75th birthday at Jazz at Lincoln Center with a bunch of heavy friends. On Friday, he’s joined by Jenny Scheinman, Eyvind Kang, Hank Roberts, Tony Scherr, and Rudy Royston for a project titled In My Dreams: A Sonic Reunion—not coincidentally named after his latest Blue Note album featuring that band. Saturday’s program features a smaller group of disparate collaborators: singer Petra Haden, drummer Tim Angulo, and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire.
28
Canines in Six Musical Portraits
AKC Museum of the Dog
101 Park Ave.; Upper East Side
Saturday, March 28 at 4pm; $25, seniors & students $20, children $15, dogs $5
museumofthedog.org
Pianist Ning Yu presents a performance of A Dog Is a Machine for Loving, a whimsically inventive piece for for piano, spoken voice and fixed media by Alec Hall, derived from close observation of some four-footed friends. On her fine Kairos recording, the pianist handled the spoken parts; here, New Yorker writer Vinson Cunningham does the honors.
Loren Connors + David Grubbs & Jules Reidy + Liam Grant
Roosevelt Island Cultural Center
548 Main St.; Roosevelt Island
Saturday, March 28 at 7:30pm; $27.50
eventbrite.com
Roosevelt Island plays host to an extraordinary evening of advanced approaches to guitar, including hushed poetry from the inimitable Loren Connors and a first-time duo from post-punk icon turned hometown hero David Grubbs and Berlin composer/improviser Jules Reidy.
Lucy Liyou: Mister Cobra
Keith Haring Theatre, Performance Space New York
150 First Ave.; East Village
Saturday, March 28 at 7pm; $12–$100 sliding scale
performancespacenewyork.org
Singer, songwriter, composer, and performance artist Lucy Liyou mixes elements of free jazz, Korean folk opera, musique concrète, text-to-speech recordings, drag-inspired performance techniques, and more in Mister Cobra, a performance piece documented on a new album due in April. For much more insight, see the Which Sinfonia interview linked above.
29
Miranda Cuckson, Jessica Meyer & Laura Metcalf
Museum of Arts & Design
2 Columbus Circle; Midtown West
Sunday, March 29 at 11am; $30, children under 12 free
gathernyc.org
The Gather NYC series is one of New York City’s secret treasures, a weekly offering on Sunday mornings celebrating live music, storytelling and silence. This week, cellist and series co-founder Laura Metcalf takes the stage with two first-call colleagues, violinist Miranda Cuckson and violist-composer Jessica Meyer, performing selections by Meyer, Missy Mazzolli, Nina C. Young, and Dobrinka Tabakova. All this, plus free coffee and pastries!
31
Eunbi Kim
National Sawdust
80 N. 6th St.; Williamsburg
Monday, March 31 at 7:30pm; $30
nationalsawdust.org
I wrote about pianist Eunbi Kim and her ongoing autobiographical multimedia project it feels like a dream a few years ago for a former workplace, and what I said then still applies: it’s mighty satisfying to watch an artist working with material over a span of a few seasons or years, witnessing a journey toward a destination they might not even have envisioned at the start. Tonight’s program includes new and recent music by Daniel Bernard Roumain, Angélica Negrón, Pauchi Sasaki, Sophia Jani, and Zosha Di Castri.
The String Orchestra of Brooklyn
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave.; Brooklyn
Tuesday, March 31 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
roulette.org
The ensemble affectionately known as The SOB returns to Roulette for its annual String Theories program, a celebration of modern and new pieces for string orchestra. The program includes two confirmed classics, Krzysztof Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima and Jonny Greenwood’s Popcorn Superhet Receiver, plus the New York premiere of Falling Together by Sarah Hennies and the debut of Aveilut, a work for string orchestra and extreme-metal vocalist by Brendon Randall-Myers, with his Scarcity bandmate Doug Moore on vocals.