Gratitude.
A return to musicking in person, plus a select handful of recommended new-music events Nov. 26–Dec. 3.
I’m grateful this week: first and foremost for my beautiful family, and for a happy, healthy employment situation for the first time in much too long.
I’m also grateful, after an illness-imposed hiatus, to have attended three deeply satisfying performances last week.
The one in the middle was a BAM offering: Gaviota, an ingenious transformation of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull by Argentine director Guillermo Cacace. Having studied Spanish diligently with an app for a few years now, I was surprised by how much of the script I was able to follow; familiarity with the source no doubt helped. The play was presented without pause by five excellent Argentine actors, all women, seated around an oversize table with audience members alongside and all around them—an intimate, powerful experience.
Prior to that, I was glad to catch up with Alarm Will Sound in another BAM presentation, Sun Dogs, originally developed by Liquid Music for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. The project involved three collaborations among filmmakers and composers: Apichatpong Weerasethakul with Rafiq Bhatia; Madi Diop and Manon Lutanie with Devonté Hynes; and Josephine Decker with Arooj Aftab and Daniel Wohl—who also provided an overture.
I’d already seen Weerasethakul’s enigmatic On Blue – streaming on Mubi, if memory serves? – and had watched digital screeners of the other two films on my laptop screen while writing copy for this presentation. Understandably, though, seeing the films properly projected was a different experience—not only because of the excellent live music, but also because a large screen underscored the kinetic ebullience of the young dancer featured in Diop and Lutanie’s Naked Blue, and amplified the wrenching poignancy of Decker’s Rise, Again.
Even knowing in advance what Decker’s film was about, I was brought to tears throughout. Since she was two seats away, I told her. “That is the nicest thing you could have said to me,” she replied. (For a proper critical assessment of Sun Dogs, scroll down to Reviews to read.)
Saturday brought a straight-up rock show that hit the spot completely: British band The Pineapple Thief at the Gramercy Theatre. It was my second time seeing the band, who I’d become aware of because of Gavin Harrison, a supernaturally dexterous drummer who’s also played in Porcupine Tree and every King Crimson lineup since 2008.
The band tends to get categorized as progressive rock: an ill-fitting label since, like Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson, singer and multi-instrumentalist Bruce Soord fits his sophisticated textures and instrumental finesse to relatable songs about human connection and disconnection. Harrison complements that quality in both groups: he’s rarely showy or epic, but his intricate style is architecturally omnipresent, like Stewart Copeland’s was in The Police.
Soord & Co. have released 16 studio albums since forming in 1999, including Give It Back, a 2022 collection of past songs re-recorded to take advance of Harrison’s playing and arranging prowess. Saturday’s set included the entirety of the newest Pineapple Thief album, It Comes to This, a richly engaging February release, plus one song from an even newer EP released this month, Last to Run, and a well-selected handful of past selections: the opposite of a hits-heavy jukebox approach.
Soord is a riveting frontman, and for a drummer like me it’s hard not to fixate on Harrison’s poetry in motion. But praise is due to the rest of the group: bassist and backing vocalist Jon Sykes, whose presence enlivens any stage; keyboardist Steve Kitch, a compelling orchestrator; and guest guitarist Beren Matthews, provider of deft leads and strong vocal harmonies.
For this listener, it was ideally satisfying. So, too, was a four-song opening set from Randy McStine, a singer-songwriter and guitarist I’d previously seen as a touring member of Porcupine Tree at Radio City Music Hall in 2022. McStine’s no stranger to drummers of oversize presence: Mutual Hallucinations, his new album, features Harrison and another King Crimson drummer, Pat Mastelotto, plus longtime collaborators Nick D’Virgilio and Marco Minnemann.
Here, though, he was hypnotic on his own: singing sweetly, playing nimble acoustic guitar and fluid electric, and looping keyboards and beats on the fly. More, please.
News to note.
Congratulations to composers Anuj Bhutani and Harriet Steinke, newly named the finalists of BMP: NEXTGEN 3 after concerts over the weekend at National Sawdust. Selected by a jury comprising Beth Morrison, composers Paola Prestini and Huang Ruo, G. Schirmer vice president Peggy Monastra, and Los Angeles Opera president and CEO Christopher Koelsch, Bhutani and Steinke are now commissioned to compose a 30-minute chamber opera or vocal-theater work under the mentorship of composer Missy Missoli and librettist Royce Vavrek, to be performed during the 2025–26 season; the winner of that round will be commissioned to create a full-length opera.
Reviews to read.
On Dada Strain, Piotr Orlov writes about an intimate TV on the Radio anniversary-tour warm-up show that happened under the radar Sunday night at TV Eye, with vivid photography by Kate Glicksberg.
In The New York Times (gift link), Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim perceptively covers two recent presentations at BAM: Sun Dogs, mentioned above, and American Railroad, performed by Rhiannon Giddens and Silkroad Ensemble on Saturday night.
The Night After Night Watch.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time.
NOTAFLOF = no one turned away for lack of funds.
26
Jason Moran & The Bandwagon
Village Vanguard
178 Seventh Ave. S.; Greenwich Village
Tuesday, Nov. 26–Sunday, Dec. 1 at 8 & 10pm; $40
villagevanguard.com
Ingenious pianist, composer, bandleader, and multidisciplinary artist Jason Moran settles into the city’s most hallowed jazz shrine with bassist Tarus Mateen and drummer Nasheet Waits for their customary Thanksgiving-week run.
29
Harish Raghavan
The Jazz Gallery
1158 Broadway, 5th floor; Midtown East
Friday, Nov. 29 & Saturday, Nov. 30 at 7:30 & 9:30pm; $35–$45
Livestream tickets $20
jazzgallery.org
Known for his nimble, fluid work alongside Vijay Iyer, Tyshawn Sorey, and Ambrose Akinmusire, among others, Chicago-born bassist Harish Raghavan has also proved a thoughtful, stylish leader and composer on two albums of his own, Calls for Action and In Tense. His band this weekend includes saxophonist Logan Richardson, trumpeter Steph Clement, guitarist Emmanuel Michael, pianist Miki Yamanaka, and drummer Jimmy Macbride—and if you can’t attend in person, livestream tickets are available.
30
Oto Zono
HEART
442 Broadway, #3; SoHo
Saturday, Nov. 30 & Sunday, Dec. 1 at 7pm; $10–$20 suggested donation
harvestworks.org
In partnership with Harvestworks, composer and sound artist Masa Hosojima hosts a two-evening audiovisual celebration, whose name translates as sound garden, in the SoHo space of fellow artist Maya Man. Artists performing on Saturday night include the Indeterminate Ensemble, Elliott Sharp and Janene Higgins, Devin Gray, and Keiko Uenishi, while the Sunday lineup includes Michael J. Schumacher, Tom Chiu & Dan Joseph, Dave Seidel, and HxH (Lester St. Louis and Chris Williams).
1
Carolyn Enger
Klavierhaus
790 11th Ave.; Hell’s Kitchen
Sunday, Dec. 1 at 2pm; free admission with RSVP, donations encouraged
salon.klavierhaus.com
Pianist Carolyn Enger celebrates the release of her latest album, Resonating Earth, a celebration of nature and a statement of ecological activism featuring compositions by John Cage, Meredith Monk, John Luther Adams, Philip Glass, Caroline Shaw, and Sean Hickey, among others. The recital program includes those selections and works from additional composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Claude Debussy, Robert Sirota, and Scott Wollschleger.
[Mandatory disclosure: I wrote the liner notes for Ms. Enger’s CD.]
2
Abasement #74
Artists Space
11 Cortlandt Alley; Lower Manhattan
Monday, Dec. 2 at 7pm; free admission, no RSVP
artistsspace.org
The newest installation of Abasement, a wildly generous multi-disciplinary house party curated since 2015 by Joseph Frivaldi and Robert Mayson, features performances by Eric Copeland (of Black Dice), skronk troubadour Arto Lindsay, Egyptian violinist Ayman Asfour, the enticing duo of cellist Leila Bordreuil and saxophonist Tamio Shiraishi, and quite a lot more.
Barry Weisblat + Regan Bowering + Dominic Coles
Striped Light
undisclosed location; Queens
Monday, Dec. 2 at 8pm; $15
Instagram
Striped Light, the innovative covert concert series organized by Ian Douglas-Moore and David Watson, presents a fascinating triple bill of distinctive, diverse sound artists. Barry Weisblat is well known among NYC experimental-music audiences for his rigorously investigative approach to harnessing wild sound with photovoltaic sensors, radios, and handmade gadgets. Percussionist Regan Bowering plies a similarly elemental approach with snare drums and speaker feedback, as heard on her 2023 release Solos for _ _ _ _ spaces. And Dominic Coles crafts teeming worlds of particulate sound with speech and noise in fascinating projects like Alphabets.
3
Dear Lord, Make Me Beautiful
Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave.; Upper East Side
Tuesday, Dec. 3 at 7:30pm, through Dec. 14; $45–$170
armoryonpark.org
Choreographer Kyle Abraham joins forces with the unpredictable new-music ensemble yMusic, whose members provide an original score, and visual design by new-media artist Cao Yuxi (also known as James). Abraham will dance alongside an oversize cadre of his company, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, in an explicitly personal meditation on being and aging in an anxious, insecure world.
Philip Glass Ensemble
The Town Hall
123 W. 43rd St.; Midtown West
Tuesday, Dec. 3 at 8pm; $68–$95
thetownhall.org
Performing under the leadership of longtime conductor and keyboardist Michael Riesman – and without its namesake composer – the Philip Glass Ensemble returns to The Town Hall to accompany a screening of Powaqqatsi, the second film in the celebrated Qatsi Trilogy Glass created with filmmaker Godfrey Reggio.
TAK Ensemble
DiMenna Center for Classical Music
450 W. 37th St; Midtown West
Tuesday, Dec. 3 at 7:30pm; $10–$100 sliding scale admission
takensemble.com
The tirelessly innovative TAK Ensemble presents “Holding,” a program of aurally enveloping compositions by Zeynep Toraman, Seare Farhat, inti figgis-vizueta, and Eric Wubbels, following an opening solo set by Beijing-born improviser, performance artist, and technologist Qiujiang Levi Lu.
More vital directories of new-music destinations:
Find even more events in Night After Night Watch: The Master List, here.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.