Something good.
A quick list of new records out this week ahead of a Friday bye-day, plus recommended live new-music events July 15–22.
An announcement up top: no newsletter this Friday. The family and I are taking a customary annual beach trip this weekend… the dogs are coming, but the computers aren’t invited. As of now, these titles will be available by and on Friday, July 18:
Sofie Birch & Antonina Nowacka - Hiraeth (Unsound)
Thomas Ciufo - The Rising Moon (Neuma)
Emily Duncan - Woolf at the Door - compositions by Randall Woolf (Neuma)
Ross Lee Finney - Landscapes Remembered - Boston Modern Orchestra Project/Gil Rose (BMOP/sound)
Shuying Li - The Last Hive Mind - Boston Modern Orchestra Project/Gil Rose (BMOP/sound)
Jason Moran x Trondheim Jazz Orchestra & Ole Morten Vagan - Go to Your North (YES)
PER-SON-ELL (Martin Klapper, Sture Ericson, Rex Casswell) - Volume 3 (scatterArchive)
Phillip Schroeder - Radiance Within (Neuma)
Thee Reps - Cryptocartography (Gold Bolus)
Vines (Cassie Wieland) - I’ll be here (Vines Music)
Norman Westberg - Milan (Room40)
Shannon Wettstein - Con Grazia: A Century of Italian Piano Music - compositions by Giacinto Scelsi, Luigi Dallapiccola, Luciano Berio, Franco Donatoni, Salvatore Sciarrino, Sonia Bo, Silvia Bianchera, Ivan Fedele, and Giuliano Bracci (Neuma)
Among these, I’m smitten with the way composer-producer Cassie Wieland is cultivating her Vines project as a ghostly singer-songer vehicle ready for its Hearing Things spotlight. It’s delightful to hear more playful post-post-rock by Thee Reps. And I’m floored by what Jason Moran (and singer Sofia Jernberg) do with Johannes Brahms’s Intermezzo in A minor (Op. 118, No. 2), one of my favorite compositions. For comparison, this rendition of the same piece by Radu Lupu is among my absolute all-time desert island discs.
For a solid survey of what else is on the horizon, the Master List is a good place to start. “For the Record” will return next week.
The Night After Night Watch.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time
NOTAFLOF = no one turned away for lack of funds.
15
The Gospel at Colonus
The Amph at Little Island
Pier 55 at Hudson River Park; Meatpacking District
Through July 26; $25, standing room $10
littleisland.org
Introduced at BAM’s 1983 Next Wave festival, The Gospel at Colonus, a groundbreaking musical show by director and Mabou Mines founder Lee Breuer and composer Bob Telson, reimagines the ancient Greek tragedy Oedipus at Colonus as a Pentecostal church ritual. This new production, staged by Pulitzer Prize finalist Shayok Misha Chowdhury, features a power-packed cast, including the invaluable Davoné Tines in the title role.
Life of Brian Trio
Bar LunÀtico
486 Halsey St.; Brooklyn
Tuesday, July 15 at 9 & 10:15pm; suggested donation $10
barlunatico.com
Pianist and organist Brian Marsella came to New York from Philadelphia a little over 15 years ago, and wasted no time making himself utterly essential, not least in collaborations with ebullient percussionist Cyro Baptista and as an increasingly crucial fixture of John Zorn’s expanding universe. His trio tonight features bassist Trevor Dunn and drummer Kenny Wollesen, players who’ll be able to follow anywhere Marsella might lead.
16
the echoing of tenses
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center
1941 Broadway; Upper West Side
Thursday, July 16 at 7:30pm; choose-what-you-pay ($35 suggested)
lincolncenter.org
The invigorating Run AMOC* Festival concludes with a program conceived by the superlative violinist Miranda Cuckson, joined by tenor Paul Appleby and keyboardist Anthony Cheung in a major new song cycle composed by Cheung. The texts, written and recited by prominent intergenerational Asian-American poets, deals with themes of memory, identity, family, migration, and loss.
Heaviest Hearts
Cassette NYC
68-38 Forest Ave.; Ridgewood
Thursday, July 16 at 7:30pm; $15
dice.fm
Curated by the dynamic violinist, composer, and poet Yaz Lancaster for experimental incubator and activist collaborative PTP, this opening event of a two-part mini-festival devoted to “The Anatomy of New York City’s Experimental Sound” leans into the ambient end of the spectrum. Artists involved include Alex Zhang Hungtai, Akafaë, Maysun, and Swaya. See Saturday, July 18 for the second part of this event.
Matt Mitchell
Glass Box Theatre, The New School
55 W. 13th St., Greenwich Village
Wednesday, July 16–Saturday, July 19 at 8:30pm; $20 cash only
thestonenyc.com
An architect of what Vijay Iyer has termed the New Brooklyn Complexity, a notion Ethan Iverson further explicated in a probing essay, pianist, composer, and bandleader Matt Mitchell celebrates his 50th birthday with a clutch of shows under the banner of John Zorn’s Stone series at The New School. First up on Wednesday is a trio with bassist Kim Cass and drummer Ches Smith, playing selections from Mitchell’s album Fiction and Oblong Aplomb. On Thursday, guitarist Miles Okazaki joins Mitchell’s long-running trio with bassist Chris Tordini and drummer Dan Weiss to highlight last year’s Zealous Angles. Friday’s show brings an all-new quartet with Cass, guitarist Andrew Smiley, and drummer Kate Gentile—Mitchell’s frequent collaborator and Smiley’s sparring partner on the 2023 CD Flagrances. And on Saturday, the actual big day, Mitchell plays solo, a mode he’s favored on two of the finest unaccompanied documents of recent vintage, the astonishing Illimitable and its absorbing sequel, Sacrosanctity.
Sandbox Percussion Summer Seminar
The Auditorium at The New School
66 W. 12th St.; Greenwich Village
Wednesday, July 16 at 7pm; free admission with registration
event.newschool.edu
Sandbox Percussion opens its 10th Annual Summer Seminar in a collaboration with composer and steel-pan performer Andy Akiho. The program also includes world premieres by Arjan Singh Dogra and Ted Babcock. See Tuesday, July 22 for a related event.
17
WOW Summer Festival
iBeam Brooklyn
168 7th St.; Brooklyn
Thursday, July 17–Saturday, July 19 at 7:30pm; each night $30
connectionworks.org
Connection Works mounts its 4th annual Wide Open Works Summer Festival, showcasing established stars of the local creative-music scene alongside emerging talent. The first night features the Rob Garcia Quartet, Joe Fonda’s From the Source, and saxophonist Tony Malaby playing in a trio with bassist Brandon Lopez and drummer Jeff Davis. Night two offers Lopez/Laubrock/Rainey, Michel Gentile’s Without Borders, and the Caleb Wheeler Curtis Trio. The third and final night features mallet percussionist Patricia Brennan in a trio with bassist Kim Cass and drummer Noel Brennan, the duo of saxophonist Chet Doxas and drummer Tomas Fujiwara, and the Steve Cardenas Trio. (P.S. Malaby admirers can catch the characteristically busy saxman in a series of additional settings on Saturday and Sunday at the Lower East Side club Close Up; go here for more details.)
18
Heaviest Hearts
Secret Loft
Undisclosed address in Bedford–Stuyvesant; Brooklyn
Friday, July 18 at 7:30pm; $15
ticketleap.events
See also Thursday, July 16. The heavier half of Yaz Lancaster’s PTP mini-festival features a set by medium., Lancaster’s power tools-wielding duo project with gg200bpm. Also on the bill are another powerful duo, Moment Machine, featuring Jason Lindner and Currency Audio, plus performances by Ka Baird, coi____n, and performance artist torrestial. The address will be provided to ticketholders, and advance sales are strongly recommended.
21
Matthew Shipp Trio
Close Up
154 Orchard St.; Lower East Side
Monday, July 21 at 7:30 & 9pm; $20
closeupnyc.com
Hard on the heels of two substantial new release – the solo set The Cosmic Piano and Armageddon Flower, a quartet with saxophonist Ivo Perelman – pianist Matthew Shipp comes to the Lower East Side’s buzziest space with the trio featured on his superlative 2024 album New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz, bassist Michael Bisio and drummer Newman Taylor Baker.
22
Sandbox Percussion Summer Seminar
Ernst C. Stiefel Hall at The New School
55 W. 13th St.; Greenwich Village
Tuesday, July 22 at 1pm; free admission with registration
event.newschool.edu
See also Wednesday, July 16. For the closing event of the 10th Annual Sandbox Percussion Summer Seminar, the quartet and composer-performer Andy Akiho collaborate with seminar participants in a performance of Akiho’s epic composition Seven Pillars.
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.