Spring break.
Contemporary concert works and creative music in New York City, April 7–14.
This will be the last update here for a while. Other responsibilities and obligations demand attention. There’s never enough time for the kinds of writing I’d like to be doing. Eking out a bare minimum in the margins of my waking hours has not been satisfying lately, and the pressure of self-imposed deadlines hasn’t felt healthful. And to be honest, a few ill-advised media-business communications have bothered me more than perhaps they should.
In the mean time, I wholeheartedly endorse these invaluable resources for NYC event recommendations, by music lovers for music lovers.
All Ears – classical, experimental & creative musics; monthly
Concert Net – indie-rock & eclectic; weekly
Dada Strain – creative & club musics, activism & community; weekly
Extended Techniques – experimental & creative musics; monthly
GUNKYARD – indie rock, punk & underground; monthly
Lament for a Straight Line – “Must See Three” jazz; weekly
New Music Calendar – contemporary concert music; continuous
ODEA – classical & experimental music; monthly
The Night After Night Watch.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time.
7
Caroline Davis + Matt Mitchell
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave.; Brooklyn
Tuesday, April 7 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
roulette.org
A double bill of solo performances pairs two consistently inventive mainstays of the NYC creative-music scene. Saxophonist Caroline Davis showcased her prowess with electronics on her absorbing new album, Fallows, which I wrote about at length here; for this Roulette date, she’ll employ similar tactics with poetic spontaneity. Likewise, pianist Matt Mitchell offers a completely improvised solo set along the lines of his recent albums Illimitable and Sacrosanctity, while also completely different from those impressive documents. If you can’t attend in person, the concert will be streamed live and archived for on-demand playback on the Roulette website and YouTube. (See Sat 11, Lux Quartet, for another performance by Davis.)
8
Vicky Chow & Mivos Quartet
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave.; Brooklyn
Wednesday, April 8 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
roulette.org
Most widely known for her work in the Bang on a Can All-Stars, the versatile, accomplished pianist Vicky Chow joins forces with the always arresting Mivos Quartet for a performance of Morton Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet marking the composer’s centennial year. If you can’t attend in person, the concert will be streamed live and archived for on-demand playback on the Roulette website and YouTube.
Erik Hall, Metropolis Ensemble & Sandbox Percussion
Tishman Auditorium, The New School
63 Fifth Ave.; Greenwich Village
Wednesday, Apr. 8 at 7:30pm; free with registration
event.newschool.edu
Michigan instrumentalist and composer Erik Hall has recorded Canto Ostinato (1976–79), a watershed minimalist work by Dutch composer Simeon ten Holt, in a multitracked solo rendition, and Sandbox Percussion has performed the work with other keyboardists. Now, Hall and Sandbox join forces with Metropolis Ensemble for a fresh account of the work: a lush, cinematic rendition they’ve documented on a new Western Vinyl recording. If you can’t attend in person, the concert will stream live on YouTube.
New York Philharmonic
David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center
10 Lincoln Center Plaza; Upper West Side
Wednesday, April 8–Friday, April 10 at 7:30pm; $57–$132
nyphil.org
Guest conductor Kwamé Ryan takes the podium for one of the most exciting, enterprising programs of the current New York Philharmonic season. Featured in their Phil debut are the members of intrepid new-music quartet Yarn/Wire – pianists Laura Barger and Julia Den Boer, founding percussionist Russell Greenberg and newcomer Dustin Donohue – in the world premiere of “…ohne festen Wohnsitz” (…without a fixed residence), a Phil co-commission composed by George E. Lewis. Soprano Golda Schultz lends her splendid voice to selections by Samuel Barber, Carlisle Floyd, and Igor Stravinsky; the concert opens with Charles Ives’s The Unanswered Question, and concludes with Barber’s too-seldom-encountered Second Essay.
The Trio of the FLUX Quartet
DiMenna Center for Classical Music
450 W. 37th St.; Midtown West
Wednesday, April 8 at 8pm; $20 suggested donation
livemusicproject.org
Entrepreneurial composer-curator Michael Vincent Waller is back in town, and he’s serving up notice with this concert featuring three-quarters of the invaluable FLUX Quartet. Violinist Tom Chiu, violist Josh Henderson, and cellist Ruben Kodheli will perform premieres by Waller, alongside his 2012 work Per la madre e la nonna, Iannis Xenakis’s Ikhoor, and Arvo Pärt’s Summa.
9
The Knights
Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
881 Seventh Ave.; Midtown West
Thursday, April 9 at 7:30pm; $81–$91
carnegiehall.org
The sensational clarinetist Anthony McGill joins indie orchestra The Knights in the New York premiere of If love will not swing wide the gates, a new concerto by Gabriel Kahane. The auspicious introduction comes as part of an all-American program presented as part of Carnegie Hall’s United in Sound: America at 250 festival; also featured are Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite and selections by Duke Ellington, Margaret Bonds, Albert Edward Brumley, and Lev “Ljova” Zhurbin.
10
Adam O’Farrill & Elephant
Close Up
154 Orchard St.; Lower East Side
Friday, April 10 & Saturday, April 11 at 8 & 10pm; $37.49
closeupnyc.com
One of the most in-demand sidemen on the current jazz scene, trumpeter Adam O’Farrill burnished his burgeoning profile as a noteworthy leader on Elephant, released last month on the Out of Your Head label. Sophisticated, assured, and instantly seductive, the album’s among this year’s best, and the band that made it – O’Farrill, pianist/keyboardist Yvonne Rogers, bassist Walter Stinson, and drummer Russell Holzman – is celebrating its arrival with a two-night stand at an intimate club that lives up to its name.
Poiesis Quartet & Amiri Harewood
Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center
129 W. 67th St.; Upper West Side
Friday, April 10 at 7:30pm; $25
kaufmanmusiccenter.org
The red-hot Poiesis Quartet hits Manhattan for an evening at Merkin shared with pianist Amiri Harewood. The concert comprises delectable layers, with Gabriela Lena Frank’s piano quintet Tres Homenajes framing quartet works by Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate and Brian Nabors, as well as preludes and fugues for solo piano by Johann Sebastian Bach and Dmitri Shostakovich.
11
Innocence
Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center
30 Lincoln Center Plaza; Upper West Side
Saturday, April 11 at 8pm, Tuesday, April 14 at 7:30pm; through April 29; $35–$470
metopera.org
Set in the aftermath of a school shooting, the final opera by the extraordinary Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho is unquestionably a work for our day and age. The libretto is by prominent Finnish author Sofi Oksanen and Saariaho’s son, Aleksi Barrière; Susanna Mälkki is on the podium, and the cast includes Joyce DiDonato, Vilma Jää, Jacquelyn Stucker, Miles Mykkanen, and – making her Met Opera debut at 82 – the peerless, fearless trailblazer Lucy Shelton.
Lux Quartet
The Jazz Gallery
1158 Broadway, 5th fl.; NoMad
Saturday, April 11 at 7 & 9pm; $40–$50, livestream $20
jazzgallery.org
Jointly led by pianist Myra Melford and drummer Allison Miller, this luminous foursome made an impressive debut with Tomorrowland, issued by Enja in 2024. For this one night stand at the cozy Jazz Gallery, the leaders are joined by bandmate Scott Colley on bass and guest saxophonist Caroline Davis.
13
thingNY with Olivia Shortt
Fridman Gallery
169 Bowery; Greenwich Village
Monday, April 13 at 7pm; $22.50
new-ear.org
Mercurial improvising multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performance artist Olivia Shortt joins members of the similarly inclined cabal thingNY for an evening of vocal, instrumental, and electronic works by Raven Chacon, who’ll be on hand in person to perform an opening solo set in this New Ear presentation. The performers ask all guests to wear an N95 or similar high-quality mask/respirator; see the event page for further details.
14
Alisa Weilerstein
Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall
881 Seventh Ave.; Midtown West
Tuesday, April 14 at 7:30pm; $55–$66
carnegiehall.org
In the fifth installment of a multi-year series titled FRAGMENTS, the eloquent cellist Alisa Weilerstein interleaves new pieces by Gabriela Lena Frank, Gabriella Smith, Gerard McBurney, Mathilde Wantenaar, and Osvaldo Golijov with the movements of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor, presented without pause in an hour-long sequence imaginatively staged by Elkhanah Pulitzer.
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