Looks like eclipsed again.
Another lightning round of current events, plus a For the Record round-up of newly arrived and upcoming recordings of interest.
Here we go again: another week where too much busywork confounds best intentions, yet there are too many worthwhile things to talk about to afford sitting idle. We’ll start once more with a fistful of live events you shouldn’t overlook, followed with a tally of new releases and a clutch of future gems.
Serendipitously, one of this week’s must-hear new releases ties in neatly with not one but two upcoming events. Weston Olencki has a mesmerizing new album out on Full Spectrum today, listed below in For the Record: pearls ground down to powder, one side itchy-scratchy banjo-as-drum chatter, the other wibbly-wobbly banjo-as-choir soak. Wrap your head around it now in anticipation of Olencki’s big premiere with the brilliant TAK Ensemble next Tuesday, listed below in The Night After Night Watch, as well as their duo hit with TAK’s otherworldly flutist, Laura Cocks, at Mise-En Place next Friday (also mentioned below).
Further must-hear releases this week include new albums by JACK Quartet and Lorelei Ensemble, both on the consistently splendid label Cold Blue; a sonically enveloping, musically persuasive solo album from Westerlies trombonist Andy Clausen; and an ambitious, assured art-song cycle by Malini Sridharan warmly recommended in particular to admirers of Julia Holter, who produced the record.
Video of the Week.
Nothing to see here yet, but here’s a handy reminder that the second concert of this year’s Cincinnati May Festival will be streaming live on YouTube tomorrow night—Saturday, May 18 at 7:30pm EDT. This is the festival’s first year under the artistic leadership of the Pulitzer Prize-winner composer and Bang on a Can co-founder Julia Wolfe, which she discusses in this video trailer. Tomorrow’s concert includes the world premiere of Wolfe’s All that breathes, a festival commission, on a program that also includes another Wolfe piece, Pretty, plus David Lang’s the national anthems and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Dona nobis pacem.
The rest of the festival looks equally enticing, including more Wolfe plus pieces by Franz Joseph Haydn, Gabriel Fauré, and Michael Gordon, but this program is the only one streaming, and it’ll be available for seven days afterward.
And, speaking of Cincinnati, the final Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra concert conducted by Louis Langrée as music director, which streamed live last Saturday, is still available—but probably not for much longer. You don’t want to miss the world-premiere account of Broken in Parts, an orchestral song by Anthony Davis… watch it now, here.
The Night After Night Watch.
All listings are in Eastern Standard Time (EST).
17
MATA Festival
Fotografiska New York
281 Park Ave. S., Midtown East
Friday, May 17, and Saturday, May 18 at 7pm; $45
matafestival.org
Underway since Wednesday in the photogenic building Anna Delvey couldn’t buy, the MATA Festival wraps up with two enticing events. Tonight’s program includes music by April Dawn Guthrie, Marco Adrián Ramos, Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh, Qiujiang Levi Lu, Bobby Ge, Henryk Golden, and Jane Sheldon, performed by the composers and the newly formed ensemble MATA Mavens. In tomorrow’s closing concert, the Brooklyn Orchestra plays Philip Glass’s Aguas da Amazonia, newly orchestrated by founder and conductor Olivier Glissant, and additional works by Anthony R. Green, Wenbin Lyu, and Mariel Teran.
Sejong Soloists
Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
881 Seventh Ave., Midtown West
Friday, May 17 at 7:30pm; $64
sejongsolo.org
Sejong Soloists, a chamber orchestra formed in 1994 by Juilliard violin professor Hyo Kang, has often slipped contemporary works into its basic diet of canonical classics. But after presenting the premiere of Tod Machover’s Overstory Overture with Joyce DiDonato last year, the ensemble decided to make new music a bigger part of its agenda. Sejong Here & Now 2024, part of the group’s 30th-anniversary season, features two world premieres in two concerts; the first, tonight, is Haemosu's Celestial Chariot Ride, a saxophone concerto by Augusta Read Thomas, featuring soloist Steven Banks. (J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 and Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings complete the program.)
18
An American Soldier
Perelman Performing Arts Center
251 Fulton St., Lower Manhattan
Saturday, May 18 at 8pm, Sunday, May 19 at 3pm; $54–$153
pacnyc.org
PAC-NYC, Boston Lyric Opera, and American Composers Orchestra jointly present the New York premiere of an opera by composer Huang Ruo and playwright David Henry Hwang. Directed by Chay Yew and conducted by Carolyn Kuan, An American Soldier relates the tragic true story of Danny Chen, a Chinese-American soldier who served in the U.S. Army during the War in Afghanistan.
International Contemporary Ensemble + Either/Or
Bruno Walter Auditorium, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
111 Amsterdam Ave., Upper West Side
Saturday, May 18 at 2pm; free with advance registration
eventbrite.com
Two of the city’s most significant new-music groups, Either/Or and International Contemporary Ensemble, join forces to present a program of works by Talib Rasul Hakim. Born Stephen Alexander Chambers, Hakim was active from the mid-’60s to the mid-’80s, and also worked as an organizer, teacher, and radio and TV producer. This concert will include five compositions meant to reflect his view of music as “an encounter with the divine.” Afterward, a panel comprising Courtney Bryan, George Lewis, Tyshawn Sorey, Harald Kisiedu, Richard Carrick, and Chris McIntyre will discuss Hakim’s life and work. Events in Bruno Walter Auditorium tend to get booked up quickly, so act fast, here.
Lucy Railton
Blank Forms
468 Grand Ave. #1D, Brooklyn
Saturday, May 18 at 5:30 and 7:30pm; each set $20
blankforms.org
The talented and inquisitive British cellist and composer Lucy Railton comes to the intimate home base of itinerant curatorial outfit Blank Forms for a micro-residency, which technically started last week with the organization’s eighth anniversary party. Her early set on Saturday is devoted to a new work for cello and synthesis, part of her ongoing Laments series; for the late set, she’ll partner with JACK Quartet cellist Jay Campbell in a new version of The Additive Arrow, which Catherine Lamb originally composed for Campbell and pianist Conrad Tao.
20
Takt Trio
The Forum at Columbia University
601 W 125th St., Manhattanville
Monday, May 20 at 6pm; free admission
millertheatre.com
Access to Columbia University’s main campus remains limited for well-known reasons, so Miller Theatre has moved its final Pop-Up Concert for the season to a university facility at the corner of 125th St. and Broadway. It’ll be worth the extra distance to hear French-horn player David Byrd-Marrow, violinist Austin Wulliman, and pianist Conor Hanick play György Ligeti’s Horn Trio, plus new works by Marcos Balter and Hilda Paredes honoring Ligeti’s 100th birthday. Doors open at 5:30pm, and seating is first come, first served. (P.S. If you’re in Washington, D.C. tonight, you can catch this program at the Library of Congress.)
21
TAK Ensemble
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn
Tuesday, May 21 at 8pm; $25, seniors and students $15
roulette.org
The versatile, multifarious TAK Ensemble presents the world premiere of when the great fires were lit on the other side of the ocean by Weston Olencki, described as a “journey through real and imagined histories of electricity, using myriad perspectives and mythologies around electrical force to re-enchant its ubiquitous presence throughout American industrial, spiritual, and vernacular narratives.” A free livestream will be accessible and archived for future viewing on the Roulette website and YouTube. (While you’re looking, mark your calendar for May 24, when Olencki and TAK flutist Laura Cocks will celebrate their arresting recent album, Music for Two Flutes, presented by Qubit New Music at Mise-En Place.)
For the Record: May 17, 2024.
New this week.
John Luther Adams - Waves and Particles - JACK Quartet (Cold Blue)
Rick Baitz - River of January - Rick Baitz, Erin Lesser, Jennifer Choi, Yves Dhar, David Cossin, Geoffrey Burleson, Cornelius Dufallo, Audrey Chen, William Hopkins, Jakob Schoenfeld, and Yoon Lee (Neuma)
Federico Bonacossa - Elettroarmonico (New Focus)
Dante Boon - Three times or more - Denis Sorokin (self-released)
Borderlands Trio (Stephan Crump, Kris Davis, Eric McPherson) - Rewilder (Intakt)
Christopher Cerrone - Beaufort Scales - Lorelei Ensemble (Cold Blue)
Layale Chaker & Sarafand - Radio Afloat (In a Circle)
Andy Clausen - Few Ill Words: Solo Trombone at The Tank, Vol. 1 (Westerlies)
On Ka’a Davis - …Here’s to Another Day and Night for the Lwa of the Woke (Tzadik)
Taylor Deupree - Sti.ll - Taylor Deupree, Joseph Branciforte, Laura Cocks, Madison Greenstone, Christopher Gross, Ben Monder, and Sam Minaie (Nettwerk; hardcover Folio edition on Greyfade June 17)
Dörner, Heenan, Dafeldecker, Johansson - Form (SÅJ-Records)
Juan J.G. Escudero - Ice Door - Emilie-Anne Gendron, Christopher Gross, Benjamin Fingland, Molly Morkoski, Josh Perry, Benjamin Grow (Neuma)
ETHEL & Layale Chaker - Vigil (In a Circle)
Rachel Evans - The Rabbit and the Hawk (Hooker Vision)
Inna Faliks - Manuscripts Don’t Burn - compositions by Clarice Assad, Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin, Veronika Krausas, Maya Miro Johnson, Mike Garson, Fanny Mendelssohn, Fazil Say, and Franz Schubert (Sono Luminus)
K. Freund - Trash Can Lamb (Soda Gong)
James Ilgenfritz - Stay Logged In on This Trusted Device (Infrequent Seams)
Helmut Lachenmann - Mes Adieux - performances by Trio Catch, trio recherche, Karolina Öhman, WDR Sinfonieorchester/Lin Liao (bastille musique)
Joëlle Léandre and Lauren Newton - Great Star Theater, San Francisco (Other Minds)
Denman Maroney - The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (Neuma)
Carman Moore - Soul Musings (Reading Group)
David Murray Quartet - Francesca (Intakt)
Weston Olencki - pearls ground down to powder (Full Spectrum)
Kory Reeder - Texas: Vol. X - Chamber Music (2022 - 2023) (self-released)
Malini Sridharan - Tombeaux (Birdwatcher)
Ulla E. Straus and John Andrew Wilhite - Spatial Data Management (Original Score) (Reading Group)
Untight - Fair (self-released)
Otomo Yoshihide and Chris Pitsiokos - Uncanny Mirror (Eleatic)
Upcoming releases.
May 24
Matthew Rosenblum - We Lived Happily During the War - Jamie Jordan, Talujon Percussion (Cantaloupe Music)
May 31
Kathy Hinde - Twittering Machine (TBC Editions)
Lisa Mezzacappa/Beth Liseck - The Electronic Lover (Innova)
John Zorn/Jesse Harris - Love Songs Live (Tzadik)
June 7
Alexi Kenney - Shifting Ground - compositions by Angélica Negrón, Eve Beglarian, Salina Fisher, and Matthew Burtner, with additional music by Nicola Matteis, Nicola Matteis Jr., J.S. Bach, Robert Schumann, and Joni Mitchell (Bright Shiny Things)
Frank London/The Elders - Spirit Stronger Than Blood (ESP-Disk’)
June 14
Denny Zeitlin - Panoply (Sunnyside)
June 17
Matthew Shipp - The Data (RogueArt)
June 21
David Birchall, Kate Carr and Tullis Rennie - Zippered Time, Winged Dialogue (Flaming Pines)
Guðmundur Steinn Gunnarsson - Stífluhringurinn (Carrier)
July 5
Antonina Nowacka - Sylphine Soporifera (Mondoj)
July 12
Christopher Rountree - 3 BPM - Nadia Sirota, Hocket, Wild Up (Brassland)
July 19
Various artists - The Middle of Everywhere: Guitar Solos, Vol. 1 (AGS Recordings)
August 9
Lux Quartet (Myra Melford, Allison Miller, Dayna Stephens, Scott Colley) - Tomorrowland (Enja/Yellowbird)
August 23
Nicole Mitchell & Ballaké Sissoko - Bamako*Chicago Sound System (FPE Records)
Find many more upcoming releases in For the Record: The Master List.
Photographs by Steve Smith, except where indicated.
I just added an overwhelming number of releases from this post to my "Of Note" playlists...thanks!
Ooooh that Denny Zeitlin release is gonna be tops! 🔥