Night After Night Watch: The Master List
Keeping tabs on upcoming live music events of interest, in and around New York.
Updated April 17, 2024.
Night After Night Watch rounds up details about upcoming performances of interest to the new-music community: contemporary classical music and jazz, electronic and electroacoustic music, and idioms for which no clever genre name has been coined.
This round-up used to be accessible only to paid subscribers, and maybe one day in the future that could be true again. But it’s not, now.
Events are culled from press releases, venue websites, social-media posts, and other online resources, and details are subject to change; follow links to the original sources before heading out to a show. All concerts are listed in Eastern Standard Time.
These listings are not comprehensive—nor could they be! To submit a forthcoming event for consideration, email information to nightafternight@icloud.com.
All opinions expressed herein are solely my own, and do not express the views of any employer.
April
All listings are in Eastern Standard Time (EST).
NOTAFLOF = no one turned away for lack of funds.
17
Ringdown
Public Records
233 Butler St., Brooklyn
Wednesday, April 17 at 7pm; $25.75
dice.fm
Ringdown is the ecstatically blissful new art-pop duo of vocalist Danni Lee and composer-performer Caroline Shaw, partners in life and art. Stream their buoyant new single, “Two-Step,” then catch ’em in this intimate show with support from fellow art-pop duo Sky Creature (Majel Connery and Matt Walsh), then mark your calendar for their guest appearance with Decoda at Weill Recital Hall on May 14.
18
Anthony Braxton + Wolf Eyes
Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleecker St., Greenwich Village
Thursday, April 18 at 8pm; $30, advance $25
lpr.com
Almost 20 years after their epochal first encounter at Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, which produced the memorably titled document Black Vomit, improvising composer Anthony Braxton and iconoclastic noise duo Wolf Eyes played shows late last year at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn and Zebulon in Los Angeles—the latter preserved just yesterday with a limited-edition boxed set of lathe-cut singles, Difficult Messages, Vol. 5. Joining them for this return engagement is the long-running, transcendentally empathic duo of Marcia Bassett and Samara Lubelski.
Joanna Mattrey
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn
Thursday, April 18 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
Free livestream on the Roulette website and YouTube
roulette.org
Is love a battlefield? Find out in Battle Ready, the second large-scale work improvising violist and composer Joanna Mattrey has created for her Roulette residency. As in her urgently expressive previous work, Arrhythmia, Mattrey is joined by a quartet now named Swoon, featuring violinist gabby fluke-mogul, saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi, and trumpeter Chris Williams. If you can’t attend, the event will be streamed live and archived for on-demand viewing.
New York Philharmonic
David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center
10 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side
Thursday, April 18 at 7:30pm; Friday, April 19 & Saturday, April 20 at 8pm; $75–$188
nyphil.org
Let’s be blunt: It’s nearly impossible to promote anything involving an institution embroiled in a disastrous situation precipitated by serious allegations of heinous criminal conduct, unforgotten and unresolved. But the brilliant German composer Olga Neuwirth, who has grappled with sexist attitudes in a patriarchal global culture industry for decades, merits recognition for her extraordinary music and her unflagging courage. Neuwirth’s fantastical Keyframes for a Hippogriff – composed as part of the Phil’s worthy Project 19 initiative, and dedicated to the memory of arts patron Hester Diamond – has its U.S. premiere on these concerts, which also include Lili Boulanger’s brief, splendid D’un matin de printemps and Sergei Prokofiev’s noble Symphony No. 5. The performance features countertenor Andrew Watts, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and Minnesota Orchestra music director Thomas Søndergård in his NY Phil debut. (And no, you won’t be forced to applaud the individuals then and now named in the incident.)
20
TENET Vocal Artists
St. Paul’s Chapel
209 Broadway, Lower Manhattan
Saturday, April 20 at 8pm; $15–$60
tenet.nyc
Vocal consort TENET is most closely associated with early music, and rightly so. But for The Power of Mythology, a program centering female deities representing Greek, Jewish, and Hindu traditions, the ensemble partners with Trinity Wall Street resident orchestra NOVUS NY to present a world premiere by Reena Esmail. The program also features music by Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, Guillaume de Machaut, and Gilles Binchois, poetry and musical arrangement by Larry Rosenwald and Shira Kammen, and projections by Camilla Tassi.
21
Mantra Percussion
Various locations
Sunday, April 21 at 12, 3, and 6pm; free admission
resonant-spaces.org
Mantra Percussion is well known for inducing blissed-out trance with its performances of Timber, an elemental work by Bang on a Can co-founder Michael Gordon. On Sunday, the group takes the piece around town this weekend for unique free performances in some of the city’s most sonorous sites. You’ll find Mantra under the 7 Train Viaduct at 46th St. in Queens (12pm), then in two Brooklyn spots: the Endale Arch in Prospect Park (3pm), and the Prison Ship Martyrs’ Memorial in Fort Greene Park (6pm). Go here for maps and directions.
23
El Niño
Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center
30 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side
Tuesday, April 23 at 8pm; through May 17. $47–$490.
metopera.org
Two of the most thoughtful, expressive, and courageous vocalists now at work in the concert-music and operatic world, soprano Julia Bullock and bass-baritone Davóne Tines, make their Metropolitan Opera debuts in El Niño, a beguiling 1999 nativity oratorio by John Adams, who adopted texts from biblical, gnostic, historical, and modern sources. Also debuting are conductor Marin Alsop and director Lileana Blain-Cruz; mezzo J’Nai Bridges completes the principal trio, and Siman Chung, Eric Jurenas, and Key’mon W. Murrah comprise the work’s uncanny countertenor chorus.
28
Dave Douglas Gifts Trio
Rizzoli Bookstore
1133 Broadway, Midtown East
Sunday, April 28 at 5pm; $33.85
eventbrite.com
In observance of International Jazz Day and Jazz Appreciation Month, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Dave Douglas shares material from his new album, Gifts, with a tight, taut trio featuring two collaborators who are leaders in their own right: guitarist Ava Mendoza and drummer Kate Gentile. (Read more about the occasion and the album here.)
May
3
Long Play 2024
BAM + BRIC + Irondale + Murmurr + Public Records + Roulette
Various locations
Friday, May 3–Sunday, May 5; various times and prices
bangonacan.org
Bang on a Can’s moveable feast of new music sprawls through multiple Brooklyn venues for its second impressive year. Choice shows are too many to mention, including headlining sets by Soundwalk Collective with Patti Smith, Jeff Mills, and Bang on a Can All-Stars playing Steve Reich. The Saturday menu in particular is an embarrassment of riches, and Sunday brings Ensemble Klang in a rare outing for Éliane Radigue’s acoustic group music. Start mapping now…
11
Pekka Kuusisto & Gabriel Kahane
92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Ave., Upper East Side
Saturday, May 11 at 7:30pm; $55, ages 40 and under $30, livestream $25
92ny.org
18
International Contemporary Ensemble + Either/Or
Bruno Walter Auditorium, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
111 Amsterdam Ave., Upper West Side
Saturday, May 18 at 2pm; free with advance registration
eventbrite.com
Two of the city’s most significant new-music groups, Either/Or and International Contemporary Ensemble, join forces to present a program of works by Talib Rasul Hakim. Born Stephen Alexander Chambers, Hakim was active from the mid-’60s to the mid-’80s, and also worked as an organizer, teacher, and radio and TV producer. This concert will include five compositions meant to reflect his view of music as “an encounter with the divine.” Afterward, a panel comprising Courtney Bryan, George Lewis, Tyshawn Sorey, Harald Kisiedu, Richard Carrick, and Chris McIntyre will discuss Hakim’s life and work. Events in Bruno Walter Auditorium tend to get booked up quickly, so act fast, here.
21
TAK Ensemble
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn
Tuesday, May 21 at 8pm; $25, seniors and students $15
roulette.org
The versatile, multifarious TAK Ensemble presents the world premiere of when the great fires were lit on the other side of the ocean, by Weston Olencki. A free livestream will be accessible and archived for future viewing on the Roulette website and YouTube.
22
JACK Quartet + Taylor Deupree + Joseph Branciforte & Theo Bleckmann
Public Records
233 Butler St., Brooklyn
Wednesday, May 22 at 7pm; $25.75
dice.fm
Electronic composer and producer Joseph Branciforte’s greyfade label throws a release party for two acts with recent releases: Taylor Deupree, whose 2002 electronic album Stil. is revisited on Sti.ll, an acoustic arrangement by Branciforte, and the label head himself in his evanescent duo with vocalist Theo Bleckmann. What’s JACK up to? Unknown… but they’re on a greyfade album, too.
23
Distractfold with Conrad Tao
Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center
129 W. 67th St., Upper West SideThursday, May 23 at 7:30pm; $30
kaufmanmusiccenter.org
[The U.S. debut of exciting U.K.-based new-music collective Distractfold has been postponed to a later date to be determined.]
31
Squanderers + J. Pavone String Ensemble
Public Records
233 Butler St., Brooklyn
Friday, May 31 at 7pm; $25.75
dice.fm
In Squanderers, the blossoming guitar duo of Wendy Eisenberg and David Grubbs expands to welcome bassist, producer, and downtown icon Kramer. They’ll share a bill with the newest configuration of violist and composer Jessica Pavone’s ensemble, featuring violinist Aimée Niemann and violinist/violist Abby Swidler, as heard on a substantial new album, Reverse Bloom.
Thank you.