Running to stand still
A William Kentridge opera at a new culture and arts festival in Brooklyn, and more recommended live new-music events for Oct. 7–14.
My report card for attendance so far in October has not been impressive. Unanticipated complications caused me to miss Steven Wilson at the Brooklyn Paramount last Thursday. As for passing on Castle Rat at Music Hall of Williamsburg on Sunday night, let’s chalk that one up to pragmatic transit skepticism.
Happily, things are looking up this week. I’m eager to catch Dambudzo, the multimedia dance event by choreographer nora chipaumire that opens BAM’s annual Next Wave festival on Wednesday—which, in a welcome new alliance, is taking place at Roulette. (BAM, it bears repeating often, is my employer.)
Then on Friday I’m very curious to see Sibyl, a multimedia opera by William Kentridge, Nhlanhla Mahlangu, and Kyle Shepherd. I very much admired Kentridge’s previous opera The Head and the Load at the Park Avenue Armory, which made the Best of 2018 list I compiled for National Sawdust Log.
Adding to the novelty of this affair, Sibyl is being presented at Powerhouse International, the new festival curated by theater producer and former BAM artistic director David Binder at the Powerhouse Arts space in Brooklyn. (I plan to be back at Powerhouse in November to see claire rousay, part of an impressive music mini-series curated by Adam Shore.)
The Night After Night Watch.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time.
7
Susie Ibarra
National Sawdust
80 N. 6th St.; Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Tuesday, Oct. 7 at 7:30pm; $55.51, advance $50.51
nationalsawdust.org
Improvising percussionist, composer, and sound artist Susie Ibarra celebrates the release of her newest recording, Parallels and Confluence: Bugang and Pasig Rivers (recently covered here), with a National Sawdust+ event featuring that work and a portion of another recent piece, CHAN: Sonnets and Devotions in the Wilderness, and a conversation with biochemist and climate scientist Daniel Ibarra (no relation). Performers include mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran, pianist Alex Peh, and the Arneis Quartet.
8
Erik Friedlander
Glass Box Theatre, The New School
55 W. 13th St., Greenwich Village
Wednesday, Oct. 8–Saturday, Oct. 11 at 8:30pm; $20 cash only
thestonenyc.com
A longtime fixture on the downtown music scene, cellist, composer, and bandleader Erik Friedlander has cut a lower profile onstage in recent years while being treated for Parkinson’s disease-induced tremors. But since undergoing Deep Brain Stimulation surgery in 2022, Friedlander has regained his motor control, which should make this Stone series of varied encounters at The New School an exuberant affair. Collaborators across this four-night stand include Uri Caine, Mark Helias, Sara Serpa, Ikue Mori, Wendy Eisenberg, and Ned Rothenberg; see the Stone calendar for specifics.
Relics & Martyrs
The Crypt under the Cathedral of St. John the Divine
1047 Amsterdam Ave.; Morningside Heights
Wednesday, Oct. 8–Friday, Oct. 10 at 7:30pm; $100
deathofclassical.com
It’s a rare occasion when Death of Classical events are listed here—but that’s only because they nearly always sell out well in advance. And indeed, all early shows are sold out for this collaboration by vocal chamber ensemble The New Consort and period-instrument band Theotokos, which includes a world premiere by Doug Balliett alongside selections by Dietrich Buxtehude and Caroline Shaw. But at deadline time, tickets can still be had for late shows, preceded as always with complimentary cocktails, food, and a brief stroll.
Sibyl
Powerhouse Arts
322 3rd Ave.; Brooklyn
Wednesday, Oct. 8 at 7:30pm, Thursday, Oct. 9 at 8pm, Friday, Oct. 10 at 7:30pm, Saturday, Oct. 11 at 2 & 7:30pm; $30–$175
festival.powerhousearts.org
Working in collaboration with composers Nhlanhla Mahlangu, and Kyle Shepherd, South African multimedia artist William Kentridge ventures anew into the opera world with this two-part presentation: The Moment Has Gone, a film with live musical accompaniment, and Waiting for the Sibyl, a chamber opera for 10 singers and dancers with co-composer Shepherd at the piano. Described vaguely as a work that “confronts our desire to know the future—and the forces that obscure it,” Sibyl offers a tour-de-force demonstration of Kentridge’s operatic mode: hand-painted backdrops, animations and projections, and lush South African vocal harmonies.
Trustfall
University Settlement House
184 Eldridge St.; Lower East Side
Wednesday, Oct. 8 at 8pm; pay what you can ($8–$20 suggested), students and arts workers free
eventbrite.com
The second event in the new concert series Trustfall, developed by Brooklyn-based pianist, composer, and interdisciplinary artist Sugar Vendil to showcase performing composers and artists working in sound, features sets by three intrepid artists creating sounds with their voices and/or bodies: Gelsey Bell, Cindy Lan, and Sylvain Souklaye will present solo sets, followed with a collaborative finale.
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Composer Portrait: Helmut Lachenmann
Miller Theatre, Columbia University
2960 Broadway; Morningside Heights
Thursday, Oct. 9 at 7:30pm; $23.25–$39, seniors $24.50–$33.50
millertheatre.com
Writing about a JACK Quartet performance of Helmut Lachenmann’s String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 for Musical America in 2023, the word that came to mind – much to my surprise – was charismatic. “Perhaps that’s not the first term that comes to mind when you think about the alien rustles, hisses, judders, and croaks that comprise Lachenmann’s vocabulary for stringed instruments,” I wrote in a review accessible to MA subscribers only. “But the JACK players – violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell – handled their work with assurance and authority, lending these uncanny scores a visceral appeal readily defined as charisma.” That quality should be even more evident at this traversal of all three Lachenmann quartets as Miller Theatre launches its latest Composer Portraits series with a 90th-birthday salute to the trailblazing German composer.
10
Progressive Chamber Music Festival
Greenwich House Music School
46 Barrow St.; Greenwich Village
Friday, Oct. 10 & Saturday, Oct. 11 at 7pm; $30, advance $25, two-day pass $45, advance $40
eventbrite.com
Hosted by Sirius Quartet, a string quartet populated with improvising composers, the annual Progressive Chamber Music Festival has become a fertile meeting ground for adventurous performers and groups who can’t be bothered to honor rigid genre boundaries. In addition to Sirius, the Friday lineup includes brass trio B3+ and Zarabanda Quartet, an idiosyncratic group formed by violinist Keir GoGwilt to explore the disparate roots of Baroque music. Saturday brings a pairing of saxophonist Tim Berne and guitarist David Torn, along with protean vocalist Theo Bleckmann reprising his found-text project 12 Easy Songs.
11
Guillermo E. Brown
Veterans Room at the Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave.; Upper East Side
Saturday, Oct. 11 at 7 & 9pm; $55
armoryonpark.org
Guillermo E. Brown, a drummer, composer, and sound artist whose aural vistas extend from the David S. Ware Quartet to the band Reggie Watts led on The Late Late Show with James Corden, comes to the Park Avenue Armory to demonstrate a new audio-visual performance system he has developed using drumming, singing, electronics, and multi-touch sensors, with a playable centerpiece that doubles as sound source and video screen.
Dada Strain x L&SD
Light & Sound Design Studios
undisclosed address; Greenpoint
Saturday, Oct. 11 at 7pm; $20–$30
eventcreate.com
The link provided above will take you directly to a just-the-facts webpage where you can learn details about the inaugural showcase in a series jointly presented by journalist, DJ, and community organizer Piotr Orlov (Dada Strain) and Greenpoint experiential listening space Light & Sound Design, whose address is provided with your RSVP. But you really do owe it to yourself to read Piotr’s essay about this show and its synergistic bill, which brings together three powerful acts with vital new releases: Chris Williams, Neti-Neti (Amirtha Kidambi & Matt Evans), and Gladstone Deluxe.
Just Alap Raga Ensemble
MELA Foundation Dream House
275 Church St., 3rd Floor; Tribeca
Saturday, Oct. 11 and Tuesday, Oct. 14 at 7:30pm; $63, seniors and students $56
melafoundation.org
The iconoclastic minimalist La Monte Young celebrates his own 90th birthday with his rendition of Raga Darbari, vocalizing in a small ensemble with Jung Hee Choi, Jon Catler, Hansford Rowe, Naren Budhkar, and the recorded tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath. The performance takes place in a light-saturated environment comprising art by Choi and Marian Zazeela.
Wet Ink
Tenri Cultural Institute
43A W. 13th St.; Greenwich Village
Saturday, Oct. 11 at 8pm; pay what you can ($20 suggested), students free
eventbrite.com
The composer-performer collective Wet Ink presents Chimeric Form, an appropriately titled work by Eric Wubbels for the odd-yet-familiar combination of French horn, violin, and piano previously explored by Johannes Brahms and György Ligeti. Clarinetist Madison Greenstone opens solo, presenting the next step in their continuing adventures after their ear-opening 2023 CD, Resonance Studies in Ecstatic Consciousness.
12
Prism Quartet
Christ & St. Stephens Church
120 W. 69th St.; Upper West Side
Sunday, Oct. 12, 2025 at 4pm; suggested donation $10–$35
eventbrite.com
The four trailblazing saxophonists of Prism Quartet lock horns in an afternoon of new and recent works by Nina C. Young, Marcos Balter, Roberto Sierra, Roshanne Etezady, and Frank J. Oteri.
13
Natural Information Society
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave.; Brooklyn
Monday, Oct. 13 at 8pm; $35, advance $30, seniors and students $25
roulette.org
Joshua Abrams brings his Chicago-based drone-improv ensemble Natural Information Society to town ahead of a hypnotic/ecstatic new album, Perseverance Flow, due Oct. 24 on Eremite. Kalia Vandever, an improvising trombonist who knows more than a little about blissful transport (as proved on 2023’s gorgeous We Fell in Turn) opens.
Striped Light
undisclosed location; Queens
Monday, Oct. 13 at 8pm; $15
Instagram
Striped Light presents yet another alluring triple bill in an undisclosed Queens venue easily accessible by mass transit. Of particular interest is a duo set by saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and electronic composer Cecilia Lopez that’s sure to recall their powerful 2023 album, Maromas. Saxophonist Sam Weinberg plays an unaccompanied set, as does Nick Hallett, whose performance is likely to echo the transporting voice-and-synth reveries he played recently in Forest Park (described here).
14
See Sat 11, Just Alap Raga Ensemble.
To submit listings for consideration, email nightafternight [at] icloud [dot] com.
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.
I might be daring and try to get to Tenri after the Molly Joyce State Change release show in Brooklyn! https://www.mollyjoyce.com/events/state-change