Mind the gap, slight return.
Recommended live new-music events April 1–8.
Last week’s travel disruption, along with the resulting scramble to make new plans, precluded any news for today. (I did get to feed some squirrels over the weekend, though, which is among my forms of meditation.)
I’m hoping to get out to see something new, soon! Meanwhile, once again let’s go straight to this week’s picks.
The Night After Night Watch.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time
NOTAFLOF = no one turned away for lack of funds.
1
Buck McDaniel
St. Malachy’s – The Actors’ Chapel
239 W. 49th St.; Midtown West
Tuesday, Apr. 1 at 7pm; free admission
eventbrite.com
Composer, conductor, and keyboardist Buck McDaniel presents the U.S. premiere of The Lenten Gospels, a new immersive work by Nico Muhly for organ and narrator. The Reverend Graeme Napier will narrate the work, based on scripture as interpreted by The Reverend Andrew Hammond, formerly an opera singer and arts administrator.
2
Zoh Amba
Glass Box Theatre, The New School
55 W. 13th St., Greenwich Village
Wednesday, Apr. 2–Saturday, Apr. 5 at 8:30pm; $20 cash only
thestonenyc.com
Saxophonist Zoh Amba, a soulful, versatile bearer of the ecstatic jazz torch, comes to The New School for an especially wide-ranging Stone series. Amba opens on Wednesday in a duo with guitarist Lee Ranaldo, continues on Thursday in a trio with pianist Micah Thomas and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, and then concludes with disparate quartets: Sun Ensemble (with pianist Lex Korten) on Friday and Reflections on Emahoy (with Eliana Glass on piano and David Moore on pump organ) Saturday.
3
Composer Portrait: Jessie Montgomery
Miller Theatre, Columbia University
2960 Broadway; Morningside Heights
Thursday, Apr. 3 at 7:30pm; $10–$35
millertheatre.com
Composer and violinist Jessie Montgomery is having an extraordinary season, as detailed in this missal on several previous occasions (mainly here), and now she’s the subject of one of Miller Theatre’s covetable Composer Portrait concerts. Mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran, violist Dana Kelley, and pianist Pascal Le Boeuf are among the participants in a program featuring a newly commissioned world premiere, appropriately titled Everything, All at Once. (In a separate but related event, Montgomery will be presented with the Sorel Medallion Award at the National Arts Club on Tuesday, Apr. 8 at 7pm; you’ll find information about extremely limited free admission here.)
Joel Harrison
Public Records
233 Butler St.; Brooklyn
Thursday, Apr. 3 at 7pm; $20.60
dice.fm
Guitarist, composer, bandleader, scene organizer: Joel Harrison has done it all. Tonight’s event celebrates the impending arrival of Guitar Talk, Vol. 2, a new collection of jazz and classical guitar duets due April 18 on Harrison’s ASG Recordings label. Joining him here for tonight’s string summit are Adam Levy, Brad Shepik, Anthony Pirog, and Gregg Belsisle-Chi.
Juilliard at Zankel Hall
Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
154 W. 57th St.; Midtown West
Thursday, Apr. 3 at $35–$45
carnegiehall.org
Juilliard vocal arts students, dancers, and instrumentalists join together in a wide-ranging celebration of Meredith Monk, addressing her history of innovative work as a composer, performer, director, and choreographer. The program spans the breadth of Monk’s canon, and Juilliard President Damian Woetzel will interview Monk onstage about her distinguished career.
4
counter)induction
Williamsburg Biannual
20 S. 4th St.; Brooklyn
Friday, Apr. 4 at 7pm; by donation
williamsburgbiannual.org
A seasoned new-music group with a memorably punctuated moniker, counter)induction comes to Williamsburg Biannual, a recently established Brooklyn artist space, for a program titled Rotations, featuring new and recent music by core members Kyle Bartlett and Douglas Boyce, as well as guests Mark Rimple, Yoon-Ji Lee, and Christian Carey.
String Orchestra of Brooklyn
Church of St. Ann and the Holy Trinity
157 Montague St.; Brooklyn
Friday, Apr. 4 at 8pm; $20, under 18 free
thesob.org
Following their recent performance of Arvo Pärt’s Symphony No. 3, Eli Spindel and the String Orchestra of Brooklyn follow up with the same composer’s Symphony No. 4 (“Los Angeles”)—dedicated to the exiled Russian oligarch and opposition activist Mikhail Khodorkovsky and “all those imprisoned without rights in Russia.” The program also includes the third movement of Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 3 and Yaz Lancaster’s our streets, written in commemoration of the Tulsa Race Riots.
6
Jane Ira Bloom & Mark Helias
Soapbox Gallery
636 Dean St., Brooklyn
Sunday, Apr. 6 at 4pm; $25
Pay what you can livestream
soapboxgallery.org
Even when the pandemic lockdown prevented soprano saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom and bassist Mark Helias from sharing the same room, the longtime collaborators managed to play together in real time at a distance with razor-sharp reflexes and genuine presence; the albums Some Kind of Tomorrow and See Our Way – the first recorded online, the second in person – offer all the proof you’ll need. The two join forces here with drummer Matt Wilson; if you can’t attend in person, there’s a pay-what-you-will livestream available.
loadbang
OPERA America’s National Opera Center
330 Seventh Ave.; Midtown West
Sunday, Apr. 6 at 3pm; $20, seniors and students $10
eventbrite.com
In a program titled SEEN, the restlessly inquisitive quartet loadbang – baritone vocalist Ty Bouque, bass clarinetist Adrián Sandi, trumpeter Andy Kozar, and trombonist William Lang – presents a world premiere by Mu-Xuan Lin, New York premieres by Pamela Z and Darian Donovan Thomas, and works composed for the ensemble by Che Buford, Yu-Chun Chien, Sebastian Currier, and Yotam Haber.
7
TAK Ensemble
Elebash Recital Hall, CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Ave.; Midtown East
Monday, Apr. 7 at 7:30pm; free admission
gc.cuny.edu
The fearless players of TAK Ensemble present new pieces by CUNY graduate composers William Bolles-Beaven, Tianfang Jia, Ryan Jung, Lila Quillin, Sami Seif, and Qi Xia. If you can’t attend in person, the program will be livestreamed via Zoom, accessible here.
8
Voices of Ascension
Church of the Ascension
36 Fifth Ave.; Greenwich Village
Tuesday, Apr. 8 at 7:30pm; $20–$50
voicesofascension.org
Overseeing a program meant to reflect the complex history of Manhattan’s native and subsequent inhabitants, Voices of Ascension collaborates with the International Contemporary Ensemble and Eagle Project, a multidisciplinary Native American artistic laboratory, in Holy Ground, a world premiere by composer Danielle Jagelski (Oneida/Ojibwe) with video by artist Sage Ahebah Addington (Navajo). Jagelski also conducts Voiceless Mass, the Pulitzer Prize-winning work by Raven Chacon, alongside Andrew Balfour’s Vision Chant and Cris Derksen’s Triumph of the Euro-Christ.
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.
Gonna try to take myself to Tak, at the very least!