Keys to the city.
A deeply moving piano recital just off the beaten path, plus recommended new-music events for Dec. 3–10.
Everyone knows about all the famous, iconic concert spaces in New York City, but the real treasures tend to be tucked away from the mainstream, just out of sight. Sunday afternoon, I discovered one such treasure for myself: Salon Concerts at Klavierhaus, a free recital series curated by composer, pianist, curator and critic Jed Distler in the comfortably funky, intimate confines of a piano showroom on 11th Avenue at 54th St.
Outside a nearby window, I could see pedestrians passing and cars whizzing by. Inside, the space was remarkably quiet and music-friendly.
The series was originally established by the late Joe Patrych, an iconic record producer and recording engineer with an encyclopedic knowledge of the piano literature; I’d assume it wasn’t on my radar chiefly because it seems to have concentrated largely on canonical repertoire. In one of his regular missives for Gramophone, Distler discussed the series, including its generous free multi-camera livestreams, as well what he hopes to do with it as curator.
None of which I knew, I hasten to admit, when I went to Klavierhaus on Sunday afternoon to hear Carolyn Enger perform selections from her ongoing programming project, Resonating Earth, selections from which she included on a recent CD of the same title, for which Enger enlisted me to write the liner notes. (We’d never met in person until after this concert concluded.)
Some of the selections on Sunday’s program were from the CD, while others were not, but shared the same throughline: a sensation of sonorous long tones and reverberations providing a sense of connection to a player’s (and listener’s) surroundings—a song of and for the earth.
Enger played pieces by Imam Habibi, Robert Sirota, Sean Hickey, Pia Møller Johansen, Lee Kesselman, and Scott Wollschleger eloquently and selflessly. She conjured an intense simplicity for Caroline Shaw’s Gustave Le Gray, John Cage’s In a Landscape, Meredith Monk’s Ellis Island, and Philip Glass’s Etude No. 2, and framed it all elegantly with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Prelude in C (BWV 846) to open and Claude Debussy’s Rêverie to close.
Self-effacing almost to a fault, in a post-concert conversation with Distler, Enger credited her teacher and mentor, Dr. Marc Silverman, with helping to sequence her continuous 75-minute program. But the contrasts, correspondences, and affinities she found among the diverse pieces attested to her own gifts and insights, bringing disparate parts together into a satisfying and coherent whole.
Please don’t take my word for all of this… stream the concert for yourself. And keep an eye on Salon Concerts to see where the tirelessly inventive Mr. Distler takes this treasurable little gift of a series.
The Night After Night Watch.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time.
NOTAFLOF = no one turned away for lack of funds.
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. 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, with visual design by new-media artist Cao Yuxi (also known as James).
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.
4
Thurston Moore
Glass Box Theatre, The New School
55 W. 13th St., Greenwich Village
Wednesday, Dec. 4–Saturday, Dec. 7 at 8:30pm; $30 cash only
thestonenyc.com
Erstwhile Sonic Youth shaman Thurston Moore comes to The New School for a Stone series certain to draw crowds, starting on Wednesday with a lacerating quartet featuring saxophonist Zoh Amba. Duets follow: Fred Frith on Thursday, Sonic Youth bandmate Lee Ranaldo on Friday. Saturday’s finale unites Moore with percussionists William Winant and Tom Surgal.
Wadada Leo Smith & Amina Claudine Myers
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave.; Brooklyn
Wednesday, Dec. 4 at 8pm; $35, advance $30, seniors and students $25
roulette.org
Two visionary architects of American creative music, trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith and pianist Amina Claudine Myers, present the magnum opus they recently recorded together, Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens. If you can’t attend in person, the concert will stream live, free of charge, on the Roulette website and YouTube.
5
Bang on a Can
The Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Ave.; Upper East Side
Thursday, Dec. 5 at 7:30pm; $22, seniors and students $15
thejewishmuseum.org
Responding to the current exhibition Draw Them In, Paint Them Out: Trenton Doyle Hancock Confronts Philip Guston, Bang on a Can presents the electric-guitar quartet Dither in arrangements of Morton Feldman’s Piece for Four Pianos and Julius Eastman’s Gay Guerilla.
Hub New Music
Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center
129 W. 67th St.; Upper West Side
Thursday, Dec. 5 at 7:30pm; $30
kaufmanmusiccenter.org
Appearing under the auspices of the Kaufman Music Center’s “Artist as Curator” series, Boston’s enterprising Hub New Music – flutist Michael Avitabile, clarinetist Gleb Kanasevich, violinist and violist Magnolia Rohrer, and cellist Jesse Christeson – presents Hub Mix Tape, a collection of new works commissioned for the group’s 10th anniversary, by Angélica Negrón, Nico Muhly, Tyshawn Sorey, Andrew Norman, Jessica Meyer, Donnacha Dennehy, Marcos Balter, and Sage Shurman.
6
Journey LIVE
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St.; Brooklyn
Friday, Dec. 6 & Saturday, Dec. 7 at 7:30pm; $37–$109
bam.org
Award-winning composer Austin Wintory conducts the American Composers Orchestra in an audacious undertaking: accompanying a real-time playthrough of Journey, a mysterious adventure game. Filled with images of ravishing beauty and haunting uncertainty, Journey is driven by discovery and cooperation rather than battle or conquest, and the music complements the game’s environments and moods ideally. Cellist Tommy Mesa and soprano Ariadne Greif are featured soloists, and actor Anthony Rapp will be among the gamers journeying on stage.
[Mandatory disclosure: BAM is my current employer.]
7
Adam Tendler
David Rubenstein Atrium, Lincoln Center
1887 Broadway; Upper West Side
Saturday, Dec. 7 at 7:30pm; free admission
lincolncenter.org
Pianist Adam Tendler, joined by partner composers and collaborators, performs selections from Inheritances, his extraordinary new album issued just one day before on the New Amsterdam label, and shares the deeply personal story of how this singular project came to fruitition. (You can expect a full house here, so be punctual.)
8
Either/Or
Church of St. Luke & St. Matthew
520 Clinton Ave.; Brooklyn
Sunday, Dec. 8 at 8pm; $20, seniors and students $10
eitherormusic.org
Fielding a quartet of saxophonist James Fei, trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson, trombonist Chris McIntyre, and keyboardist Richard Carrick, the supremely flexible new-music ensemble Either/Or presents a chracteristically innovative program pairing Anthony Braxton’s Composition No. 98 with selections from Mendi + Keith Obadike’s graphic score collection Big House/Disclosure.
Ensemble Mise-en
Tenri Cultural Center
43A W. 13th St.; Greenwich Village
Sunday, Dec. 8 at 8pm; free admission with RSVP
www.mise-en.org
A program devoted to chamber music by composer, organizer, and educator Louis Karchin includes the world premiere of Processions III In Memoriam: Kaija Saariaho, for solo flute, alongside a new revision of As the Circle Opens to Infinity…, composed for this group in 2018, and additional works.
9
Roosevelt Island Concerts
Tata Innovation Center at Cornell Tech
2 West Loop Rd.; Roosevelt Island
Monday, Dec. 9 at 7pm; suggested donation $25, seniors and students $10
riconcerts.org
Pianist Blair McMillen, violinist Ralph Allen, and cellist Iris Jortner join forces for a program devoted to works by Sofia Gubaidulina, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Joan Tower, Jessie Montgomery, and Anna Weesner. Registration is required, and can be made using the QR code in the image above.
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.