Where it's at.
Reflections on a busy few days of listening in NYC, plus Andrew Yee, Fieldwork, Charles Curtis, and more recommended live new-music events Sept. 16–23.
The fall arts season is underway, and while I regrettably was compelled to miss opening night at the New York Philharmonic, I was gratified to attend the opening-night performance of Celestial Excursions by Robert Ashley at Roulette. The latest in an inspiring series of Ashley revivals mounted by producer Mimi Johnson, music director Tom Hamilton, stage designer David Moodey, the presentation involved the so-called New Band of young but experienced Ashley expert interpreters – Gelsey Bell, Kayleigh Butcher, Mario Diaz-Moresco, Brian McCorkle, and Paul Pinto.
These vocalists, skilled in Ashley’s iconoclastic mode of sung-spoken electronic opera, performed the composer’s alternatingly elegiac and funny ode to advanced age with dignity and vigor. Just as you wouldn’t attend a latter-day performance by an ensemble bearing Duke Ellington’s name and not anticipate hearing an alto saxophonist playing in a manner reminiscent of Johnny Hodges, here you frequently heard turns of phrase and tonal nuances that specifically echoed the originators of these roles: Ashley himself, with Jacqueline Humbert, Joan La Barbara, Sam Ashley, and Thomas Buckner.
But none of these reliably engaged and engaging artists is a mere imitator, and there was plenty of fresh detail in their work. Bell in particular has become an Ashley interpreter who can split your side or break your heart merely by arching an eyebrow or slurring a syllable; McCorkle, cast in Ashley’s role as supervisor and interogator, echoes the composer’s drawling delivery even as he seems to evoke the futility of attempted replication.
The troupe’s newest member was the most surprising: Diaz-Moresco nudged Buckner’s lyrical delivery closer to outright cantabile, effectively and without sacrificing the Ashley essence. (The same singer, I recalled much later, had courageously taken on Ashley’s role in the illuminating production of Dust that La Barbara and William Gustafson directed at Mannes Opera in 2017.)
Two presences onstage in the original production of Celestial Excursions, mounted first in Germany and then at the Kitchen in 2003, were absent. One, pianist “Blue” Gene Tyranny, had already been removed from the stage in the work’s 2009 revival at La MaMa E.T.C., which I reviewed for The New York Times (gift link), though his jazzy epigraphs (now recorded) remain a part of the work’s digital sound world. The other, Joan Jonas, whose ritualistic motions and crumpled-paper costumes and props were omnipresent in 2003 and modified in 2009, was entirely gone in this latest realization.
For this longtime Ashley admirer, who saw the original cast in 2003 and 2009, this fresh conception was a thrill, right down to the poignance of Ashley’s old wooden chair suspended above the stage. Whether any professional reviewers attended this auspicious revival, I couldn’t say (though I thought I spotted one prominent California critic in the lobby after the show), but I very much enjoyed Ethan Iverson’s detailed account of the final night.
Two more concerts offered glimpses of things to come. Opening for the big indie-rock sounds of Oneida and Editrix at the George Seuffert, Sr. Bandshell in Forest Park on Saturday afternoon, improvising vocalist and composer Nick Hallett presented a sublime set of synthesizer meditations and vocoder-treated murmurs—a new line of work, he told me afterward, that emerged while he was working on Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Stimmung. And in a Works & Process event last night at the Guggenheim Museum, singers Nola Richardson and Mikaela Bennett joined Contemporaneous and conductor Mariana Corichi Gomez in ravishing selections from Hildegard, a new chamber opera by Sarah Kirkland Snider, promising much for upcoming engagements at LA Opera in November and the Prototype festival in January.
The Night After Night Watch.
Concerts listed in Eastern Standard Time.
16
New York Philharmonic
David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center
10 Lincoln Center Plaza; Upper West Side
Tuesday, Sept. 16 at 7:30pm; $157–$284
nyphil.org
Superstar conductor Gustavo Dudamel opens his tenure as Music Director Designate of the New York Philharmonic with a surprising and welcome commission: of light and stone, a world premiere by the gifted Hawaiian composer and Pulitzer Prize finalist Leilehua Lanzilotti, who has a knack for transforming acoustic phenomena into arresting musical drama. Dudamel also conducts Béla Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with soloist Yunchan Lim, and Charles Ives’s Symphony No. 2; if you can’t afford tickets, grab a spot in the lobby and watch the concert streaming live on the Hauser Digital Wall.
17
Dan Weiss
Glass Box Theatre, The New School
55 W. 13th St., Greenwich Village
Wednesday, Sept. 17–Saturday, Sept. 20 at 8:30pm; $20 cash only
thestonenyc.com
A versatile mainstay of New York City’s creative-music scene, drummer, composer, and bandleader Dan Weiss cues up two solid piano trios to start his Stone residency at The New School: with Craig Taborn and Peter Washington on Wednesday, and Jacob Sacks and Thomas Morgan on Thursday. Friday’s show features a robust lineup of saxophonists Ingrid Laubrock, Anna Webber, Caroline Davis, and Sophia Kickhofel, plus pianist Matt Mitchell, guitarist Miles Okazaki, and bassist Chris Tordini. And after all that firepower, Weiss ends the week playing solo on Saturday night.
18
Juilliard Orchestra
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center
1941 Broadway; Upper West Side
Thursday, Sept. 18 at 7:30pm; $40
juilliard.edu
Stephanie Childress conducts the Juilliard Orchestra in the New York premiere of PALETTE, a recent work composer Anna Clyne terms a Concerto for Augmented Orchestra—meaning a conventional ensemble outfitted with electronic signal processing and sound elements designed by Clyne and her husband, audio engineer Jody Elff. Paintings by Clyne associated with the work will be on display next door at the Juilliard Station, where Clyne will chat with David Serkin Ludwig, Dean and Director of Juilliard’s Music Division, at 6:30pm. The program also includes Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2, and if you can’t attend in person, the concert will stream on Juilliard.Live.
NOVUS
Trinity Church Wall Street
89 Broadway; Lower Manhattan
Thursday, Sept. 18 at 7pm; free admission with RSVP
trinitychurchnyc.org
NOVUS, Trinity’s resident new-music ensemble, presents the world premiere of Trans Requiem, a new work for trans voices, choirs, and orchestra by Andrew Yee, most widely known as cellist of the Attacca Quartet. The work involves soloists Breanna Sinclairé and Katherine Goforth, the Trinity Youth Chorus, and the Trinity Chorus. Completing the program are Samuel Barber’s Agnus Dei – a vocal version of his Adagio for Strings, performed here in a Trinity arrangement – and Pauline Oliveros’s Sonic Meditations. Admission is free; make your reservation here.
19
Fieldwork
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave.; Brooklyn
Friday, Sept. 19 at 8pm; $45, advance $40, seniors and students $35
roulette.org
Each member of the long-running collective trio Fieldwork – saxophonist Steve Lehman, pianist Vijay Iyer, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey – is a formidable thinker, composer, and bandleader in his own right. No surprise that it takes a while to get them all together, but when it happens, as on the newly released album Thereupon, sparks fly. Count on that happening here, as well.
Henry Flynt
Issue Project Room
22 Boerum Place; Brooklyn
Friday, Sept. 19 at 8pm; $26
issueprojectroom.org
It’s surely significant that this event featuring composer, performer, and philosopher Henry Flynt isn’t billed as a concert, despite his creation of a signature idiom infused with string-band music, raga, and minimalist notions. Hosted by Issue Project Room and The Emily Harvey Foundation in conjunction with the 2025 Brooklyn Book Fair, Flynt will, according to the presenters, “revisit his seminal 1961 Concept Art work, Transformations.” (If you want to hear Flynt’s music, see Sat 20, Everloving.)
The Village Trip
St. John’s in the Village
218 W. 11th St.; East Village
Friday, Sept. 19 at 7pm; $30, seniors and students $25
thevillagetrip.com
This annual festival saluting Greenwich Village history, culture, and counterculture includes several programs devoted to modern music with roots in the neighborhood. Here, baritone James C Martin, and pianist Lynn Raley perform the world premiere of Five American Voices, a song cycle by Village icon David Amram, along with works by Carman Moore, Maria Thompson Corley, and others. For details about further events involving gamelan, gospel music, and more this week, see the festival calendar.
20
Everloving
Emily Harvey Foundation
537 Broadway #2; SoHo
Saturday, Sept. 13 at 6:30pm; suggested donation $20
emilyharveyfoundation.org
It takes a lot for an NYC band to qualify as a supergroup, but the Henry Flynt homage quartet Everloving – drummer Jonathan Kane (La Monte Young, Swans), violinist Dave Soldier (Soldier String Quartet), Sunwatchers guitarist Jim McHugh and bassist Peter Kerlin, and singer-songwriter Peg Simone on keyboards – certainly qualifies. A promotional recording of “Hillbilly Jive” made available briefly in June proved the group’s got the composer’s style down right—and given that the Emily Harvey Foundation presented Flynt in person on Friday (see above), is an appearance here unthinkable? Hmmm…
River Rhyme
West Harlem Piers
132nd St. at the Hudson River; Harlem
Saturday, Sept. 20 at 4 & 6pm, Sunday, Sept. 21 at 11am & 1pm; free admission
johnphastings.org
Composers John P. Hastings and Aaron Meicht offer a multimedia meditation on our relationship to the waters that surround us, stationing a brass and percussion ensemble on a pier jutting into the Hudson River for a performance fusing music, motion, text, and natural sound. You’ll find more information here, including a recommended reading list.
21
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center
30 Lincoln Center Plaza; Upper West Side
Sunday, Sept. 21 at 6:30pm, through Oct. 11; $37–$495
metopera.org
The Metropolitan Opera opens its season with the local premiere of a new opera by composer Mason Bates and librettist Gene Scheer, based on Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about two Jewish cousins who create a fascist-fighting superhero in pre-World War II Brooklyn. Baritone Andrzej Filończyk makes his house debut as Joe Kavalier, tenor Miles Mykkanen sings Sam Clay, and music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts, with a production by Bartlett Sher.
The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
15 W. 16th St.; Greenwich Village
Sunday, Sept. 21 at 4pm; $25, students $20
yivo.org
Alex Weiser has proved himself a gifted composer for the voice time and time again, which surely has something to do with ticket demand for the world-premiere production of his new chamber opera: the first performance, on Thursday, Sept. 18, sold out some time ago, and another performance at 1pm Sunday is already booked to capacity. (Wait lists are available for both.) Incorporating a libretto by Ben Kaplan, The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language is based on the true story of linguist Yudel Mark’s incomplete effort to compile a comprehensive Yiddish dictionary.
Mary Halvorson Amaryllis Sextet
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave.; Brooklyn
Sunday, Sept. 21 at 8pm; $30, advance $25, seniors and students $20
roulette.org
Reportedly on a whim, guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson decided to add a couple of saxophones – specifically, Immanuel Wilkins and Brian Settles – to her already distinctive band Amaryllis for her latest album, About Ghosts. We should all be blessed with such hunches, since the result is one of the year’s most impressive recordings. The gang’s all here tonight for this hometown celebration.
22
Abasement
Artists Space
11 Cortlandt Alley; SoHo
Monday, Sept. 22 at 7pm; free admission
artistsspace.org
Celebrating 10 years and 80 shows, the underground (literally) multimedia performance series Abasement welcomes a choice klatch of outstanding ensembles, including Tom Carter/Laura Ortman/Greg Fox, Shelley Hirsch/Hans Tammen/Ken Filiano, Lee Ranaldo/Leila Bordreuil, and Patrick Holmes/Tcheser Holmes/Ken Filiano.
23
Charles Curtis
New York Studio School
8 W. 8th St.; Greenwich Village
Tuesday, Sept. 23 at 8pm; $25
blankforms.org
Composer Morton Feldman served as dean of the New York Studio School from 1969 to 1971; now, cellist Charles Curtis, a specialist in works concerned with time, space, and duration, comes to the school to play two of Feldman’s earliest graphic scores, Projection 1 and Intersection 4. The program also includes two more recent works, Alvin Lucier’s Glacier and Alison Knowles’s Rice and Beans for Charles Curtis, the latter featured on Curtis’s arresting 2020 anthology, Performances & Recordings 1998–2018.
John Zorn New Masada Quartet
Village Vanguard
178 Seventh Ave. S., Greenwich Village
Tuesday, Sept. 23–Sunday, Sept. 28 at 8 & 10pm; $45
villagevanguard.com
The newest John Zorn aggregation to bear the Masada moniker – a quartet with guitarist Julian Lage, bassist Jorge Roeder, and drummer Kenny Wollesen – is one of those rare bands so jaw-droppingly virtuosic and tight that its feats might make you laugh out loud in disbelief.
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.
Thanks again, Steve, for keeping us enlightened!