What comes after.
Recommended musical events for the week ahead.
I’ll be completely honest: I’m completing this week’s concert listings because right now I can’t think of anything else to do. Artists still need to make art and earn a living just as much as they did yesterday. And some among us might feel like being around other people, awash in music’s saving grace.
I don’t envision myself going that route just yet. But if it’s the right thing for you, here are some strong options for the days ahead.
Give yourself space to feel what you feel, and look after one another.
The Night After Night Watch.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time.
NOTAFLOF = no one turned away for lack of funds.
6
Ainadamar
Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center
70 Lincoln Center Plaza; Upper West Side
Wednesday, Nov. 6, at 7:30pm; Saturday, Nov. 9 at 1pm; $35–$460
metopera.org
The brief, arresting opera by composer Osvaldo Golijov and playwright David Henry Hwang, concerning the life and work of poet-playwright Federico GarcÃa Lorca, comes to the Met in a production by Deborah Colker with all-important sound design by Mark Grey. Angel Blue portrays Margarita Xirgu in most performances, Daniela Mack is GarcÃa Lorca, and conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya makes his house debut.
Raven Chacon
Glass Box Theatre, The New School
55 W. 13th St., Greenwich Village
Wednesday, Nov. 6–Saturday, Nov. 9 at 8:30pm; $20 cash only
thestonenyc.com
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and multidisciplinary artist Raven Chacon comes to The Stone series at The New School for a four-evening series of varied trios. He’s emphasizing guitars tonight with Sky Hopinka and Andrew Yong Hoon Lee, and electronics on Thursday with Marisa Demarco and Lea Bertucci. Friday’s set is a power trio with violinist Laura Ortman and drummer Marshall Trammell, and the series ends on Saturday with an enticing anything-goes lineup with Che Chen and C. Spencer Yeh.
7
Attacca Quartet
Merkin Hall, Kaufman Music Center
129 W. 67th St.; Upper West Side
Thursday, Nov. 7 at 7:30pm; $30
kaufmanmusiccenter.org
Student musicians from Kaufman Music Center’s Special Music School and the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University join the distinguished young Attacca Quartet in a program of contemporary works by Jessie Montgomery, Caroline Shaw, and Gabriella Smith, as well as arrangements of canonical works by Clemens Non Papa and Maurice Ravel.
Exponential Ensemble
Marc A. Scorca Hall, National Opera Center
330 Seventh Avenue, 7th Floor; Midtown West
Thursday, Nov. 7 at 7pm; $25, seniors and students $15
brownpapertickets.com
Forces of Nature, a world premiere by Jessica Meyer, provides the theme for an Exponential Ensemble program featuring works by Christopher Cerrone, Gilad Cohen, Valerie Coleman, and Charles Wuorinen.
Interpretations: Marty Ehrlich/Ingrid Laubrock
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn
Thursday, Nov. 7 at 8pm; $20, seniors and students $15
roulette.org
The invaluable concert series Interpretations opens its 35th season with a double bill of versatile, accomplished improvising saxophonists known for their compositional acumen. Marty Ehrlich leads a septet featuring his wife and frequent collaborator, poet Erica Hunt, a project he showcased here under the name Dark Woods/Bright Sparks last December. Ingrid Laubrock performs with her quartet Grammy Season, with guitarist Brandon Seabrook, bassist Shawn Lovato, and her husband, drummer Tom Rainey.
8
Johnny Gandelsman
American Wing, Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Ave.; Upper East Side
Friday, Nov. 8 & Saturday, Nov. 9, 11am–8pm; free with museum admission
engage.metmuseum.org
Johnny Gandelsman, an entrepreneurial violinist, record-label head, and freshly minted MacArthur Fellow, spends two full days wandering through the Met Museum’s American Wing, performing works from his expansive, profound 2022 release, This Is America – An Anthology 2020–2021. The collection features brief, potent pieces by Clarice Assad, Kinan Azmeh, Layale Chaker, Rhiannon Giddens, Angélica Negrón, Matana Roberts, Tyshawn Sorey, and plenty more, and you can find a key to Gandelsman’s nomadic itinerary here.
Mannes Opera
Tishman Auditorium, The New School
66 W. 12th St.; Greenwich Village
Friday, Nov. 8 at 7:30pm, Saturday, Nov. 9 at 2pm; free, RSVP suggested
events.newschool.edu
Mannes Opera presents the long-overdue local premiere of Vinkensport, or The Finch Opera, a comedy composed by David T. Little with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, sharing an unmissable opera-in-concert double bill with The Infinite Energy of Ada Lovelace, by composer Kamala Sankaram and librettist Rob Handel.
9
See Nov. 6, Ainadamar, and Nov. 8, Johnny Gandelsman and Mannes Opera.
10
Jung Hee Choi
MELA Foundation Dream House
275 Church St., 3rd Fl., Tribeca
Sunday, Nov. 10 at 7pm; $39, seniors and students $39
melafoundation.org
In the second event of a four-concert series marking the 89th birthday of minimalist mainstay La Monte Young, composer, performer, and artist Jung Hee Choi presents two original works, Composition in the Style of La Monte Young’s 1960 Sustained Friction Sounds (2000) and RICE (1999), in a light setting by the late Marian Zazeela. Advance reservations are strongly recommended.
JACK Quartet
92nd Street Y
1395 Lexington Ave., Upper East Side
Sunday, Nov. 10 at 7pm; $40, livestream $25
92ny.org
The adventurous, assured JACK Quartet showcases compositions from its JACK Studio initiative, established in 2019 to support commissions, recordings, and workshops with emerging artists who are interested in exploring the string quartet idiom. Featured in its world premiere is Twice Removed, by Anthony Cheung, alongside pieces by Eduardo Aguilar, Seare Farhat, and Juri Seo. If you can’t attend in person, a ticketed livestream is available.
loadbang
Tenri Cultural Institute
43A W. 13th St.; Greenwich Village
Sunday, Nov. 10 at 7:30pm; $20, seniors and students $10
eventbrite.com
In the 24th edition of its long-running concert series, loadbang – the distinctive quartet of baritone vocalist Ty Bouque, clarinetist Adrián SandÃ, trumpeter Andy Kozar, and trombonist Will Lang – introduces new works by Jonah Haven, Felipe Lara, and Piyawat Louilarpprasert. Further pieces by Mara Gibson, Stefano Gervasoni, and Adam Mirza complete the bill, and if you can’t attend in person, you can stream the concert live free of charge on YouTube.
12
Sussan Deyhim
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn
Tuesday, Nov. 12 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
roulette.org
Due this Friday on the Freedom to Spend imprint, The Invisible Road: Original Recordings, 1985–1990 compiles splendid previously unreleased music Iranian-American composer, vocalist, performance artist, and activist Sussan Deyhim made with her longtime partner in life and art, Richard Horowitz, who died in April. Music the two made together features in tonight’s event, along with Once Within a Time, an engrossing video Deyhim made with filmmaker Godfrey Reggio and composer Philip Glass, and music she created for projects by Shirin Neshat.
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! I'd add an enthusiastic recommendation re: Dublin's mighty Lankum at Warsaw in Brooklyn Friday and Saturday — their only US dates this year. They'll supply huge cleansing drones, centuries-old songs, and uncompromising international political perspective. I trust it'll be quite therapeutic.