Under the wire.
Reflections on recent live music encounters, plus recommended live new-music events for Nov. 19–25.
Sorry to be tardy yet again. I held this newsletter back yesterday when a few worthy listings arrived in the afternoon, but then as a result was unable to complete it. I need to make sure I don’t do that again—which suggests I should actually publish a submission deadline somewhere.
Still, given how often I’ve started one of these newsletters by saying “I wasn’t able to…” just lately, it’s a pleasure to report having attended a string of noteworthy performances. First was the sparky Ivalas Quartet on November 8 at the High School for Fashion Industries, presented by the venerable Peoples’ Symphony Concerts series.
These four skillful, ebullient musicians gave a persuasive performance of a contemporary work they’re championing everywhere, Derrick Skye’s Deliverance, alongside penetrating accounts of Alban Berg’s String Quartet (Op. 3) and Claude Debussy’s String Quartet in G minor. For this listener, the program was pure pleasure; still, overheard quite a few audience members grousing about the (beautiful, passionate) Berg.
More young listeners should be taking advantage of this generous series, which presents marquee names at budget prices. Given the opportunity to hear the Ivalas in a program this fresh for just $20 ($10 for students!!), why on earth wouldn’t you?
Saturday night brought a master class in equipoise from saxophonist Henry Threadgill, pianist Vijay Iyer, and drummer Dafnis Prieto at the 92nd Street Y. This conspiracy of geniuses brought forth musical pastoral and martial, elevated and earthy; one hopes they make their way into a recording studio, if only to clarify which artist wrote which piece of sheet music on their stands, so well attuned was each participant to the voices and skills of his associates.
Then on Sunday, I trekked up to Caramoor in Katonah to see the Poiesis Quartet, a young ensemble around whom an estimable buzz is building; read Joshua Kosman for prior evidence. I’d be tempted to say “believe the hype,” except that there is no hype: everything that’s been written about this young ensemble’s acumen and charm is simply fact. The program they played – new and recent works by Brian Raphael Nabors and Kevin Lau, a contemporary classic by Sky Macklay, and a gorgeous gospel-infused 1956 piece by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson – was worthy of their time and effort, played with a conviction and expertise that amounted to advocacy in action.
Kathy Schuman, Caramoor’s artistic director, proudly made a point of having booked the Poiesis Quartet before their recent triumph at the 2025 Banff International String Quartet Competition… though in truth they’d already won Grand Prize at the 2023 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition. So demand is high, and it’s only going to get higher: just yesterday the quartet was named winner of Chamber Music America’s Cleveland Quartet Award.
Their Caramoor residency continues with two more concerts in May and during the summer; just seeing them is worth the trek, but make the time to see the historic Rosen House, explore the verdant grounds, and check out a growing collection of sound-art installations on the premises.
The Night After Night Watch.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time.
19
FOR REAL
Fishman Space, BAM Fisher
321 Ashland Pl.; Brooklyn
Wednesday, Nov. 19–Saturday, Nov. 22 at 7:30pm, Sunday, Nov. 23 at 3pm; $35
bam.org
FOR REAL, a unique event presented by BAM in association with performing-arts intiative Qubit, is an evening of musical journalism created by Dutch/Belgian musician Andrea Voets. Inspired by British journalist Mary Ann Sieghart’s book The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About It, the presentation starts with the recorded voices of 14 women who describe how intellectual undermining has impacted their aspirations, achievements, and feelings of self-worth, matching candid conversations with original music played live onstage by Voets and two colleagues. Audience members are then encouraged to share their own views, recorded for a podcast that never tells the same story twice.
Mandatory disclaimer: The listing above is adapted from text I wrote for BAM, my current employer.
Frank London
Glass Box Theatre, The New School
55 W. 13th St., Greenwich Village
Wednesday, Nov. 19–Saturday, Nov. 22 at 8:30pm; $20 cash only
thestonenyc.com
“Meditations on Resilience” is the name of the project trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Frank London will be showcasing on Friday during his Stone BrassFest at The New School—and if anyone is qualified to address resilience, it’s London, whose comeback from treatment for a rare cancer last summer, which I reported for The New York Times (gift link), has been a source of constant inspiration. The run kicks off with Conspiracy Brass on Wednesday, continues with Loisaida Fife & Drum Corp on Thursday, and concludes with a brassy showdown with fellow trumpeter Steven Bernstein on Saturday.
Music for Two Pianos
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave.; Brooklyn
Wednesday, Nov. 19–Saturday, Nov. 22 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
roulette.org
A positively extraordinary quartet of programs featuring music for two pianos commences on Wednesday night with Ursula Oppens and Adam Tendler performing Anthony Braxton’s epic Composition 95, which Oppens famously recorded with Frederic Rzewski in 1982. Sharing the bill, saxophonist Darius Jones and electronics improviser Cecilia Lopez play Braxton’s Composition 38, which Braxton himself recorded with Richard Teitelbaum in 1974. On Thursday, Sarah Cahill and Joseph Kubera play works by Robert Ashley and “Blue” Gene Tyranny, a program they played for the Other Minds Festival at Mills College in September (video here). Rahul Carlberg and Maya Keren play old and new pieces by Henry Threadgill on Friday, and on Saturday Jace Clayton reprises his marvelous 2013 piece The Julius Eastman Memory Depot, with David Friend and Emily Manzo at the pianos.
20
Black’s Myths
Guggenheim New York
1071 Fifth Ave.; Upper East Side
Thursday, Nov. 20 at 5:30pm; $30, students $19
guggenheim.org
Shortly after I published a round-up of recordings issued this year by the increasingly prolific British pianist Pat Thomas, a colleague with a commanding overview of the trade pinged me about missing one of the best: The Mythstory School, Thomas’s vivacious encounter with improvising bassist-composer Luke Stewart and his Blacks’ Myths project with drummer Warren G. “Trae” Crudup III. Thomas isn’t around for this hang linked to the profound, provocative exhibition Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers; but Stewart and Crudup will perform with harpist Cassie Watson Francillon, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Christina Wheeler, and movement artist Miriam Parker while you savor a skyward spiral of sights and tones.
21
Exponential Ensemble
Americas Society
680 Park Ave.; Upper East Side
Friday, Nov. 21 at 7pm; free admission with registration
as-coa.org
Pianist Han Chen joins the four musicians of Canada’s Exponential Ensemble in works by American composers Paul Schoenfield, Lowell Liebermann, Robert Paterson, and Reena Esmail.
Hypercube
Mise-En_Space
45 St. Nicholas Ave.; Harlem
Friday, Nov. 21 at 7:30pm; $20
mise-en.org
The dynamic new-music quartet Hypercube hits Harlem with a mix of new and recent pieces for saxophone, guitar, piano and percussion by Elizabeth Hoffman, Mara Gibson, William Martin, Aaron Zimmer, Won Jong, and Jason Zhang.
Talea Ensemble
St. Bartholomew Hall, The Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew
520 Clinton Ave.; Brooklyn
Friday, Nov. 21 at 7:30pm; $20, seniors $10, students pay-what-you-can
Saturday, Nov. 22 at 6pm; free admission
taleaensemble.org
The Boulez centenary celebrations continue for Talea Ensemble, which pairs his Derive 2 with George Lewis’s Born Obbligato on their Friday evening concert. Then on Saturday evening, Talea participates in the national Fall of Freedom resistance movement with a musical gathering open to volunteers who feel moved to demonstrate; should you wish to take part, sign up here by Thursday, Nov. 20 at 11:50pm. Spectators are also welcome.
22
Ruda Lee and ANIMA Ensemble
Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall
881 Seventh Ave.; Midtown West
Saturday, Nov. 22 at 7:30pm; $41–$91
carnegiehall.org
If you reckon from seeing the title “Four Seasons: A Journey of 1725-2025” that a familiar happy pairing of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons with Astor Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires might be on offer, you’ve guessed correctly. But the more substantial attraction of this concert by violinist Ruda Lee and Hong Kong’s ANIMA Ensemble for most readers of this newsletter will be the world premiere of Memory of Snow by Scott Ordway, a North Californian composer with an estimable knack for the ruminative and crepuscular, as heard on North Woods, a new EP by Lorelei Ensemble.
claire rousay
Powerhouse Arts
322 Third Ave.; Brooklyn
Saturday, Nov. 22 at 8pm; $30
festival.powerhousearts.org
A seriously impressive inaugural music series curated by Adam Shore for the Powerhouse International festival opens tonight with a performance by claire rousay, based on her richly layered, deeply moving new album, a little death. For this rare live realization, which will be presented in the round, rousay has assembled an exciting live band featuring Alex Cunningham, Lia Kohl, Mari Maurice (more eaze), and Wendy Eisenberg, with poet and sound artist LA Warman as a special guest. Pianist-keyboardist Kelly Moran will be on hand to conjure suitably evocative soundscapes.
23
Piano+#48
Mise-En_Space
45 St. Nicholas Ave.; Harlem
Sunday, Nov. 23 at 5pm; $20
mise-en.org
Welcome news arrived regarding the future of the courageous venue Spectrum NYC: recently displaced from its Red Hook location by a devastating fire, the program is moving uptown to Mise-En_Space. That bond formally launches on Nov. 30, but the latest installment of Teodora Stepančić’s Piano+ series, long housed at Spectrum, serves to set the stage. The program on Sunday features LCollective – the flexible ensemble heard on an arresting new album by trumpeter Douglas Farrand just out on Sawyer Spaces with a title Fiona Apple might envy – in compositions by Stepančić, James Tenney, Gabriela Areal, Hollas Longton, and Mark R Taylor.
25
A Concert to Benefit Roulette: IMPROV NIGHT
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave.; Brooklyn
Tuesday, Nov. 25 at 8pm; $50–$100 sliding scale
roulette.org
John Zorn gathers a coterie of marquee-name improvisers, including Laurie Anderson, Jim Staley, Marc Ribot, John Medeski, and Ikue Mori, for an evening of spontaneous music-making to support this steadfast bastion of innovation.
To submit listings for consideration, email nightafternight [at] icloud [dot] com.
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.
I think we're in some kind of golden age for string quartets. The talent, venturesomeness (is that a word?), and conviction across the board of new, established, and venerable quartets keeps impressing me across the board. No one's phoning it in!