The Goings On About Town section in The New Yorker remains suspended indefinitely in its conventional format, replaced with a mix of album reviews and listings for events taking place online—some live, others pre-recorded. (Click on the image to enlarge it, or hit the link to read the text on the New Yorker website.)
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The Goings On About Town section in The New Yorker remains suspended indefinitely in its conventional format, replaced with a mix of album reviews and listings for events taking place online—some live, others pre-recorded. (Click on the images to enlarge them, or hit the links to read the text on the New Yorker website.)
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The Goings On About Town section in The New Yorker remains suspended indefinitely in its conventional format, replaced with a mix of album reviews and listings for events taking place online—some live, others pre-recorded. (Click on the image to enlarge it, or hit the link to read the text on the New Yorker website.)
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The Goings On About Town section in The New Yorker remains suspended indefinitely in its conventional format, and album reviews linger. But with a marked uptick lately in the number of live online events planned and announced well in advance, the possibility of "events listings" has resumed. For the May 4 issue, I've written about two streaming events: a week-long replay of Angel's Bone, the arresting opera by Du Yun and Royce Vavrek, streamed as "Opera of the Week" on the Beth Morrison Projects website; and the first-ever wholly online Bang on a Can Marathon. (Click on the image to enlarge it, or hit the link to read the text on the New Yorker website.)
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Change is upon us once again, and with it a fresh start for Night After Night—elsewhere. As of Thursday, April 23, the primary focus of my work has shifted over to a newly launched Substack newsletter, also called Night After Night. That title has provided my online identity – my "brand" – for more than two decades; no reason I would change that now.
From the new site, my explanatory preamble:
As in all of my previous ventures – from blogging and freelancing through stints with Time Out New York, The New York Times, the Boston Globe, and National Sawdust Log – I’ll be covering music in its infinite richness and variety, emphasizing what’s happening here and now. I’ll interview composers and performers about their newest projects, as well as bigger, broader ideas. I’ll review current recordings… and concerts, too, when the opportunity returns. I’ll direct your attention toward pertinent news and reviews published elsewhere, too.
I plan to post twice a week, and some posts will be available to everyone. But paying subscribers will have access to premium content now in planning stages… stay tuned.
Following that preamble, the first real entry – a biographical prelude, an extensive interview with Quince Ensemble and composer David Lang, and a postlude to my New York Times obituary of Richard Teitelbaum – was sent out on April 23. You can read it now, for free.
You'll notice that subscriptions are available, and at some point soon I'll start to roll out features meant exclusively for those who subscribe. That said, I completely recognize that this is a difficult time, and I intend to keep a substantial portion of my work freely accessible to all.
As for this long-serving Typepad blog, well, it's staying right where it is, and shifting to serve, even more than it does already, as an archive for past writings—both my original posts and the work I make for others. The playlists will stay here, too, and I'll try to be diligent about them.
I'll continue to add more past content when I find time (ha!). But for now, the Substack newsletter is where I'll be moving forward.
I hope that you'll join me…
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The Goings On About Town section in The New Yorker remains suspended indefinitely in its conventional format, and album reviews linger. But with a marked uptick lately in the number of live online events planned and announced well in advance, the possibility of "events listings" has resumed. For the April 27 issue, I've written up a brief preview of subtracTTTTTTTTT, a new web-native opera by the music-theater performance-art troupe thingNY, which treats glitch, echo, connection issues, and so on not as a bug, but as a feature. (Click on the image to enlarge it, or hit the link to read the text on the New Yorker website.)
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You can watch the world premiere performance on Friday evening, April 24 at 6pm (EDT), on the thingNY website. It will repeat in the same place at the same time on Saturday and Sunday.
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The Goings On About Town section in The New Yorker remains suspended indefinitely in its conventional format, and album reviews prevail, mostly. But with a marked uptick lately in the number of live online events planned and announced well in advance of their occurrence, the possibility of "events listings" has resumed. This week, I've written up a brief preview of Alone Together, a characteristically impressive and thoughtful commissioning initiative undertaken by the violinist Jennifer Koh and her nonprofit organization, ARCO Collaborative. (Click on the image to enlarge it, or hit the link to read the text on the New Yorker website.)
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You can watch Koh's performance live this Saturday, April 18, at 7pm EDT, on Instagram or Facebook. Of note: it now appears that this week's presentation will include pieces from still another pair of composers, Anthony Cheung and Tomás Gueglio Saccone, in addition to the two pairs cited in my preview.
Koh also posts supplemental material on those platforms, such as brief video statements from the composers. Following each live webcast, you can watch archived video, along with sessions from previous weeks, on her YouTube channel.
One thing more: A sentence from my original text ended up on the cutting-room floor this week, presumably for reasons of space, and another sentence was altered accordingly. But I liked the way the original draft indicated that this new project is not only Koh's response to current conditions, but also an undertaking very much in keeping with her consistent aims. So, just this once, here's the draft version of the passage to which I'm referring:
In past projects like “Bach and Beyond,” “Bridge to Beethoven,” and “Limitless,” Koh intertwined notions of aesthetic continuity and artistic community, to powerful ends. She explores similar concepts in “Alone Together,” her newest project, but the execution reflects conditions born of the present COVID-19 pandemic: specifically, forced isolation and economic hardship.
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Last week, before I could collect and share my contributions to the Goings On About Town section in the March 16, 2020 issue of The New Yorker, covering the dates March 11-17, the cancellations started to trickle in—and then came the flood. Here are screenshots of my listings for that issue as they appeared online, before they were hidden away one by one. (Click on an image to enlarge it, or hit the link to read the listing on the New Yorker website.)
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While all of this was going on, we GOAT contributors already had put the finishing touches on our listings for the March 23 issue, covering the dates March 18-24, with our valiant editor, Briana Younger. Those listings never made it to page or to the website, and none of the events transpired. Perhaps some of them will, some time down the line; for now, I'm preserving the text here simply for posterity.
Again: The following events are not happening on the dates and times listed.
Switch~ Ensemble
DiMenna Center; March 21 at 7:30
Switch~ Ensemble, which devotes itself to fusing music with technology in innovative ways, presents the world première of “Up Close,” by the resourceful Swiss composer Katharina Rosenberger. The new piece, the result of a yearlong collaboration between Rosenberger and the group, features tiny sounds that are closely amplified and conjoined with interactive lighting in a darkened room. Complementary works by Cathy van Eck, Dieter Ammann, and the ensemble members Jason Thorpe Buchanan and David Clay Mettens complete an intriguing program.
Latitude 49
Areté Venue and Gallery; March 24 at 7, free with suggested R.S.V.P.
A well-travelled sextet widely known for its technical assurance, stylistic versatility, and abundant personality, Latitude 49 visits Brooklyn on the heels of its vivid new recording, “Wax & Wire.” Playing at the cozy, comfortable venue Areté, the group serves up compositions by Gabriella Smith, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Viet Cuong from the album, plus a newer piece by Juri Seo and a longtime favorite by Pierce Gradone.
Belcea Quartet
92nd Street Y; March 24 at 7:30
The Belcea Quartet recorded a compelling Beethoven cycle not quite a decade ago; it’s no surprise, then, that the British group would mine this lode during a season dominated by the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the composer’s birth. The program isn’t quite an alpha and omega, but it’s close, pairing the blithe Quartet No. 1 in F Major with the powerful Quartet No. 13 in B-Flat Major—the latter outfitted with its still jolting original ending, the “Grosse Fuge.”
Johnny Gandelsman
Irish Arts Center; March 24 at 8
The violinist Johnny Gandelsman, a linchpin of Brooklyn Rider and the Silk Road Ensemble, celebrates the release of his superb new recording of Bach’s six suites for unaccompanied cello, as rearranged for violin. The Irish Arts Center is an ideal setting in which to hear the set of beloved works anew, both for its intimacy and its close association with dance—a quality Gandelsman emphasizes in his interpretations.
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As has been the case with basically every upcoming concert scheduled to occur during the next six weeks or more, New York new-music institution the S.E.M. Ensemble has announced that its planned concert for April 1 at the Bohemian National Hall has been canceled. In this instance, presenting the concert online for an empty house also wasn't an option. But with admirable resourcefulness, the ensemble and its leader – the composer, flutist, and conductor Petr Kotik – will present a virtual recreation of the celebratory event, featuring recent live recordings of the pieces involved.
Dates and sources for the recordings have just been announced:
Christian Wolff
Small Piece for Orchestra (2019, American premiere)
Ostravská banda, Petr Kotik, conductor
August 26, 2019 at Ostrava Days Festival, Czech Republic
Robert Ashley
The Mystery of the River (2014)
Excerpt from the opera Atalanta (Acts of God) (1991)
Thomas Buckner, baritone; Tom Hamilton, electronics
September 11, 2014 at Roulette Intermedium, NYC
Miya Masaoka
States of Being, States of Becoming (2018, world premiere)
S.E.M. Ensemble, Petr Kotik, conductor
December 19, 2018 at Paula Cooper Gallery, NYC
Julius Eastman
Joy Boy (1972)
S.E.M. Ensemble
September 26, 2017 at Studio 1 of Czech Radio Ostrava
Petr Kotik
Wednesdays at RW on Spring Street (2019-20, American premiere)
Ostravská banda, Petr Kotik, conductor; Hana Kotkova, violin
August 30, 2019 at Ostrava Days Festival, Czech Republic
The streaming presentation also will include commentary from Wolff, Masaoka, and Kotik, as well as an overview of S.E.M. activities by George Lewis. You can watch on April 1 at 1pm EST at www.semensemble.org.
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My contributions to the Goings On About Town section in the March 9, 2020 issue of The New Yorker, covering the dates March 4-10. (Links lead to detailed listings on the New Yorker website.)
Dai Fujikura
Miller Theatre; March 5 at 8
The intrepid musicians of International Contemporary Ensemble present a Composer Portrait showcasing music by a gifted longtime associate of the group, including a world premiere.
yMusic
Rockwood Music Hall; March 5 at 7
The unpredictable sextet yMusic celebrates the release of a brilliant new album, Ecstatic Science, featuring music by Missy Mazzoli, Caroline Shaw, Gabriella Smith, and Paul Wiancko.
New York Philharmonic
David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center; March 5 and 10 at 7:30, March 7 at 8
The stylish and insightful conductor Louis Langrée makes his Philharmonic debut (!!) with a top-to-bottom luscious program that includes the mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard.
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center; March 8 at 5
Robert Schumann gets top billing, but the real headline news here is the New York premiere of a new piece by John Harbison, featuring soprano Joëlle Harvey—who also lends her voice to music by Schubert and Chausson.
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