Structures from silence.
Steve Roach, Kate Soper, Meredith Monk, and more: the latest lightning round of recommended musical events for the week ahead.
It really does feel impossible to keep up sometimes, especially when a backlog of day-job and freelance work collides with an information ecosystem that increasingly relies on last-minute Instagram posts and little else. For example, one of the most promising events happening this week is tonight—and I learned about it just a few hours ago. (It’s the one atop the list.)
A quick, brief update, then…
The Night After Night Watch.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time.
NOTAFLOF = no one turned away for lack of funds.
18
“Notes from Rome”
Italian Cultural Institute
686 Park Ave., Upper East Side
Wednesday, Sept. 18 at 7pm; free admission with registration
aarome.org
The Italian Cultural Institute hosts a concert of works by recent Rome Prize Fellows. Vocalist and composer Kate Soper performs with guitarist James Moore, and the trio Longleash – violinist Pala Garcia, cellist John Popham, and guest pianist Mika Sasaki – plays pieces by Baldwin Giang, Igor Santos, Suzanne Farrin, and Anthony Vine.
19
Kim Cass Levs Trio
The Jazz Gallery
1158 Broadway, 5th floor, Midtown East
Thursday, Sept. 19 at 7:30 & 9:30pm; $28–$39
Livestream tickets $22
jazzgallery.org
Bassist Kim Cass is joined by pianist Matt Mitchell and percussionist Tyshawn Sorey to perform the elegantly knotty original compositions on Cass’s recent Pi Recordings album, Levs, along with new pieces.
Claire Chase
Rosemary and Meredith Willson Theater, The Juilliard School
155 W. 65th St., Upper West Side
Thursday, Sept. 18 at 7:30pm; $30
juilliard.edu
Maverick flutist Claire Chase, currently Arnhold Creative Associate at The Juilliard School, joins the Prometheus Quartet in Terry Riley’s The Holy Liftoff, the latest installment in Chase’s visionary multi-decade commissioning initiative, Density 2036.
20
Sarah Davachi
Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker St., Greenwich Village
Friday, Sept. 20 at 7pm; $25–$30, advance $20–$25
lpr.com
Hard on the heels of The Head As Form’d in the Crier’s Choir, a supremely gorgeous collection of modern music for old and new keys – pipe organs, Mellotron, and the like – composer, performer, and arcane-instrument scholar Sarah Davachi comes to LPR for an album-release celebration. Presumably she’s playing alone, but she’s sharing the bill with Randall Dunn, a revered engineer and producer as well as a sound artist in his own right.
John Schneider
Greenwich House Music School
46 Barrow St., Greenwich Village
Friday, Sept. 20 at 7pm; $25, students $17.50
thevillagetrip.com
Presented under the banner of The Village Trip, an annual celebration of arts and activism across Greenwich Village and the East Village, California guitarist John Schneider heads east for a program of works by Harry Partch and Lou Harrison – composers indelibly associated with California, but who spent crucial early years here – and more music for refretted guitars. The festival is offering quite a few further musical enticements during its “American Primitive & Inventors of Genius Weekend” (Sept. 19–22), including an impressive GuitarFest on Saturday and a program by piano duo Quattro Mani on Sunday; see here for more.
21
Steve Roach
St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church
157 Montague St., Brooklyn
Saturday, Sept. 21 at 9pm; $64.38
dice.fm
Despite being one of the most popular, successful, and prolific creators in the ambient and space-music realms, Steve Roach still hasn’t received his critical due as an innovator who synthesized (pun intended) early advances of Brian Eno and Tangerine Dream into a wholly original and satisfying voice. Church of the Heavenly Rest – New York City, a document of Roach’s first-ever local performance in 2022, provides a sense of his depth and breadth. In only his second local show, presented by the immersive-lighting concert series Reflections, Roach celebrates the 40th anniversary of his watershed 1984 album, Structures from Silence.
22
Seth Cluett and TAK Ensemble
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn
Sunday, Sept. 22 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
roulette.org
Seth Cluett, an inventive composer and multidisciplinary artist most closely associated with electronic music and sound art, collaborates with the fearless new-music group TAK Ensemble in two substantial premieres – one video, one scored – rooted in environmental concerns. For an in-depth introduction to these new creations and the thinking behind them, listen to the TAK Editions podcast or read the transcribed conversation on Which Sinfonia.
“Louis Karchin/A Retrospective”
Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center
129 W. 67th St., Upper West Side
Sunday, Sept. 22 at 4pm; $25, seniors and students $10
kaufmanmusiccenter.org
The League of Composers-ISCM celebrates Louis Karchin, a gifted composer and a devoted advocate and organizer, with a matinee program of works he wrote between 2018 and 2023. The impressive array of performers includes sopranos Alice Teyssier and Marisa Karchin, violinist Miranda Cuckson, pianists Stephen Drury and Steven Beck, and the Horszowski Trio.
23
Grounded
Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center
70 Lincoln Center Plaza; Upper West Side
Monday, Sept. 23 at 6:30pm, through Oct. 19; $35–$460
metopera.org
The Metropolitan Opera opens its 2024–25 season with the local premiere of Grounded, the new opera by composer Jeanine Tesori with a libretto by George Brant, based on his award-winning play. The excellent Canadian mezzo Emily D’Angelo portrays a military fighter pilot forced by unexpected pregnancy to transition to a ground-based drone unit. The play is a powerful meditation on modern warfare, with lines that practically sing off the page. Michael Mayer’s production involves extensive use of video screens – certainly appropriate given details of the story – and Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts all performances apart from Oct. 5, led by Steven Osgood. (If you don’t mind spoilers, the New York Times review of last year’s Washington National Opera premiere is here, and a discussion with Tesori and Brant about what’s been changed for the Met, also from the Times, is here.)
Meredith Monk
Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave.; Upper East Side
Monday, Sept. 23 at 7:30pm, through Oct. 6; $135–$185
armoryonpark.org
The esteemed singer, composer, choreographer, and all-around innovator Meredith Monk presents the North American premiere of Indra’s Net, an extensive work for her Vocal Ensemble with a 16-piece orchestra and eight additional vocalists. The third part of a trilogy begun with On Behalf of Nature and Cellular Songs, this new work is inspired by a Buddhist/Hindu legend, and is meant to illustrate the preciousness of interconnectedness.
24
Ethel
Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center
129 W. 67th St., Upper West Side
Tuesday, Sept. 24 at 7:30pm; $30
kaufmanmusiccenter.org
The genre-flouting string quartet Ethel joins forces with flutist and composer Allison Loggins-Hull – Daniel R. Lewis Composer Fellow at the Cleveland Orchestra and incoming Resident Artistic Partner at the New Jersey Symphony – in a New Sounds Live event featuring works by Loggins-Hull, Migiwa “Miggy” Miyajima, Xavier Muzik, Sam Wu, and Leilehua Lanzilotti.
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.
Thank you!!