The tide is high.
Newly announced seasons for the Vision Festival, MATA Festival, and Time:Spans, plus recommended live new-music events April 8–15.
Obviously I have no business reviewing The Threepenny Opera, directed by Barrie Kosky and performed by Berliner Ensemble last Thursday through Sunday at BAM—my place of employment. Let me spell it out for you: the descriptive text for this show on the BAM website is mine, polished by marketing colleagues at BAM and St. Ann’s Warehouse, our co-presenter.
If you’re keen for critical response to Kosky’s conception, this review by Dan Rubins for TheaterMania is impressively detailed.
That said, I’d find it completely unnatural to say nothing at all about a show so finely wrought and excitingly performed. I wasn’t sure in advance how I’d feel about the jungle-gym sets; as it turned out, watching the cast members negotiate climbing up and around them neatly underscored both entrapment and seductive ooze.
The cast was sensational, with special applause for Gabriel Schneider’s commanding yet oddly sensitive Macheath, Kathrin Wehlisch’s playfully gender-bent Tiger Brown, Laura Balzer’s firecracker Lucy Brown, and Bettina Hoppe’s movingly understated Jenny. The instrumental ensemble led by Adam Benzwi was likewise brilliant—and game for several interactions with a wall-breaking cast.
One more thing I appreciated about Kosky’s conception and Berliner Ensemble’s execution was that this Threepenny Opera often felt rather like a dance work, the cast’s interactions and altercations in and around the cagelike set piece rigorously choreographed and lithely enacted. In that sense, Kosky’s Threepenny Opera felt very much of a piece with Rebecca Frecknall’s similarly dancelike staging of A Streetcar Named Desire, another BAM presentation I had the incredible privilege of seeing a few weeks ago. (FYI, the elegant text on that webpage is not by me, but by my colleague Ethan Cohen.) In both cases, the intricate swirls and intimate entanglements in the texts were brought to life onstage, elegantly and affectingly.
I’m happy to work for an institution that presents this kind of show, and grateful for the opportunity to attend. And I’m looking forward to seeing what’s reported to be a strong revival (says my friend and colleague Elisabeth Vincentelli in The New York Times – gift link here) of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard with the superb Nina Hoss at St. Ann’s Warehouse.
A strong local showing for the senior members of Chicago’s trailblazing Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM) this spring-into-summer continues to mount. In addition to the previously announced Gala honoring Anthony Braxton at Roulette on May 8, and Be Ever Out, the Henry Threadgill retrospective double-header at the same venue June 20 and 21, news has come that this year’s Vision Festival will open with an evening-length showcase featuring Roscoe Mitchell, this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. Included are a Mitchell quartet featuring Dave Burrell, William Parker, and Tani Tabbal; a fascinating project combining Baroque flutist Emi Ferguson, early-music ensemble Ruckus, and saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins’s quartet (co-commissioned by Metropolis Ensemble and Da Camera, and premiered in Houston in February), and a closing set by Mitchell’s Space Ensemble+. It’s happening on June 2 at… yep, Roulette.
Received in this morning’s mail, the schedule for this year’s Time Spans 2025 series is full of remarkable things. Instant must-sees for me include Quatuor Bozzini in new works by Cassandra Miller, Taylor Brook, and Zosha Di Castri; Claire Chase with Talea Ensemble in the U.S. premiere of the divine thawing of the core by Chaya Czernowin; and Montréal organization No Hay Banda presenting Steven Kazuo Takasugi’s amiably antic Il Teatro Rosso. Further familiar names, always welcome, include Ensemble Dal Niente, JACK Quartet, Yarn/Wire, and International Contemporary Ensemble. The festival is happening August 9–23 at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music.
And just in under the wire, the 27th annual MATA Festival will be happening at Issue Project Room June 11–14. Among the big names in the lineup are AACM heavyweights Wadada Leo Smith, George Lewis… and Roscoe Mitchell, who brings us back around full circle.
The Night After Night Watch.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time
NOTAFLOF = no one turned away for lack of funds.
8
Voices of Ascension
Church of the Ascension
36 Fifth Ave.; Greenwich Village
Tuesday, Apr. 8 at 7:30pm; $20–$50
voicesofascension.org
Overseeing a program meant to reflect the complex history of Manhattan’s native and subsequent inhabitants, Voices of Ascension collaborates with the International Contemporary Ensemble and Eagle Project, a multidisciplinary Native American artistic laboratory, in Holy Ground, a world premiere by composer Danielle Jagelski (Oneida/Ojibwe) with video by artist Sage Ahebah Addington (Navajo). Jagelski also conducts Voiceless Mass, the Pulitzer Prize-winning work by Raven Chacon, alongside Andrew Balfour’s Vision Chant and Cris Derksen’s Triumph of the Euro-Christ.
9
Stephan Crump
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn
Wednesday, Apr. 9 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
roulette.org
I already admired Slow Water, the creative meditation on water, nature, and conservation bassist and composer Stephan Crump released last year—but Crump’s recent podcast chat with communications pro and arts activist Matt Merewitz gave me a deeper appreciation of that ambitious, soulful project. Most of the players featured on the album are here for this presentation, and violinist Erika Dicker and violist Carrie Frey are first-call subs.
Annie Gosfield
Glass Box Theatre, The New School
55 W. 13th St., Greenwich Village
Wednesday, Apr. 9–Saturday, Apr. 12 at 8:30pm; $20 cash only, seniors and students $10
thestonenyc.com
The versatile, eclectic, and boundlessly imaginative improvising keyboardist and composer Annie Gosfield comes to The New School for a Stone series residency, opening in trios with her guitarist partner Roger Kleier and two disparate drummers: Billy Martin on Wednesday, Brian Chase on Thursday. Friday’s program features Gosfield’s compositions for the violin duo String Noise, and Saturday’s finale showcases the electric-guitar quartet Dither.
10
Anthony Davis, Earl Howard, Gerry Hemingway & Kyle Motl
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn
Thursday, Apr. 10 at 8pm; $20, seniors and students $15
interpretations.info
The improvising composers Anthony Davis and Earl Howard have enjoyed a long, fruitful collaboration; likewise, both have had a long association with percussionist Gerry Hemingway. Bassist Kyle Motl, a former Davis student in San Diego and his collaborator on the 2023 trio session Vertical Motion, completes the lineup for this promising group hosted by the invaluable Interpretations series.
JACK Quartet
Americas Society
680 Park Ave.; Upper East Side
Thursday, Apr. 10 at 7pm; free admission
as-coa.org
Continuously busy and ceaselessly inventive, JACK Quartet comes to Americas Society with a program titled “Round-about,” featuring compositions by Marcos Balter, Eduardo Aguilar, Leilehua Lanzilotti, and Vicente Atria.
11
Mannes Orchestra
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center
1941 Broadway; Upper West Side
Friday, Apr. 11 at 7:30pm; $17.50
event.newschool.edu
Conductor David Hayes conducts the Mannes Orchestra in “Mavericks,” featuring Viet Cuong’s playfully athletic Re(new)al, featuring Sandbox Percussion; John Zorn’s virtuosic violin concerto Contes de Fées, with Stefan Jackiw as soloist; and Luciano Berio’s grandiose Sinfonia, for grand Mahlerian orchestra with eight amplified singers.
12
Tim Berne Warped Ensemble
The Jazz Gallery
1158 Broadway, 5th floor; Midtown East
Saturday, Apr. 12 at 7:30 & 9:30pm; $35–$45, livestream $20
jazzgallery.org
Lately a prolific maven of the neighborhood hang in Brooklyn, saxophonist and composer Tim Berne is encountered far too infrequently in Manhattan venues now. That’s part of what makes this evening with his Warped Ensemble – trumpeter Ralph Alessi, pianist Matt Mitchell, bassist Sean Conly, and drummer Tim Angulo, players from his working units and his hang-time orbit – such a rare and special deal; the other part is that Berne reliably mixes a signature sound with surprise at every outing. (If you can’t make it in person, livestream tickets are available.)
Adam Tendler
Bargemusic at the Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse
10 Montague St. at Pier 5; Brooklyn
Saturday, Apr. 12 & Sunday, Apr. 13 at 2 & 4pm; free admission
bargemusic.org
The barge that formerly housed the venerable concert-music presenter Bargemusic was towed off into the sunset back in January. But the long-serving crew christened new digs at the Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse last weekend, and has prioritized bringing contemporary music into the mix in these weekend recitals by pianist Adam Tendler. He’ll play Phrygian Gates by John Adams at 2pm each day, followed by Tom Johnson’s An Hour for Piano at 4pm; admission is free and no reservations are required.
13
claire rousay & more eaze
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn
Sunday, Apr. 13 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
roulette.org
Tex-pat improvisers claire rousay and more eaze – a.k.a. Brooklynite multi-instrumentalist Mari Maurice Rubio – have a long history of collaboration to wildly disparate ends, from high-gloss pop to haunting chamber-emo. Their new Thrill Jockey album, no floor – which I wrote a bit about here – is an Americana-infused ambient reflecting pool, a repository for faded memories of lost evenings and the ghosts of nightclubs past. Whatever you make of that description, just know the music is achingly beautiful on record, and surely will be here in person tonight, as well.
14
David Murray Quartet
Blue Note Jazz Club
131 W. 3rd St.; Greenwich Village
Monday, Apr. 14 at 8 & 10pm; table seating $45, bar $30
bluenotejazz.com
Saxophonist, composer, and bandleader David Murray showcases the potent quartet featured on his widely praised 2024 Intakt release, Francesca: pianist Marta Sánchez, bassist Luke Stewart, and drummer Russell Carter. That band takes flight again on Birdly Serenade, Murray’s forthcoming debut for the storied Impulse! label. Due April 25, the album is an extension of The Birdsong Project, a recording series and 20LP box set benefitting The National Audubon Society. Appropriately songful and buoyant, it includes guest spots by Ekep Nkwelle, a soulful Cameroonian-American singer, and Francesca Cinelli, Murray’s manager and wife—WRTI has more.
15
Miles Okazaki & Bill Frisell
Miller Theatre, Columbia University
2960 Broadway, Upper West Side
Tuesday, Apr. 15 at 6pm; free admission
millertheatre.com
Insert an appropriate joke here about the joy of finding an excellent free show on Tax Day—and then come grab a seat onstage right up close to two of the finest guitarists in improvised music, veteran Bill Frisell and rising star Miles Okazaki.
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.
Thanks Steve for including us and for
all of your efforts keeping the world of music afloat!
steve thanks for the continued kind words on claire and mari- appreciate you