This week: concerts in New York (February 17 – February 23, 2014)

Neil Rolnick – Dynamic RAM & Concert Grand | Vicky Chow, Kathleen Supové & Bob Gluck

Neil Rolnick presents three recent large-scale works for piano and computer. Featuring the world premiere of Dynamic RAM & Concert Grand, which was commissioned by the Fromm Foundation for pianist Vicky Chow, this concert also includes Kathleen Supové performing Digits (2005) and Bob Gluck on Faith (2009) with Rolnick joining the pianists on all three works.
Monday, February 17 at 8 PM
Tickets $20, $15 Members/Students/Seniors, FREE for All Access Members
Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
..:: Website

Red, Black, And Green Revolutionary Eco-Music Big Band

Suffering from the final stages of terminal cancer, Fred Ho presents what will likely be his final public work with the Red, Black and Green Eco­Music Big Band. In honor of Black history month, the band will perform the work of legendary composer Cal Massey, writer of the long­lost jazz opus The Black Liberation Movement Suite (1969). Mr. Ho will also present his final long form work, co­written with his conductor Marie Incontrera, The Revolutionary Gardens of Harlem Suite: A Tribute to Clifford Thornton. In the tradition of all of Fred Ho’s dramatic musical works, questions of power and politics guide the music. The concert aims to tie the politics of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements to the burning question of our times: the fate of the planetary ecology in light of rising sea levels, species extinctions and genetically modified food systems. How can the example set by the selfless and dignified activists of the Black Liberation struggle guide the flame of the fight for a livable planet today?
Tuesday, February 18 at 7 PM
Tickets $20, $10 students
Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Ave., New York, NY
..:: Website

Aeolus Quartet: Appalachian Portraits | Ear Heart Music

This diverse program centered on American folk music begins with the immediately engaging, blues-inspired string quartet Black Bend by Dan Visconti, and continues with Alexandra Bryant‘s hauntingly beautiful Lady Isabelle Was That Kind of Woman. The first half of the program concludes with Louis Andriessen‘s Facing Death, a fast-paced, visceral masterwork from 1990 which takes Charlie Parker’s bebop riffs and manipulates them in a myriad of ways. This year marks the 75th Anniversary of Andriessen’s birth. The second half of the program includes the music of Hungarian composer Bela Bartok, one of the earliest composers to seamlessly integrate authentic folk styles into art music. Bartok’s sixth and final quartet, premiered at the Town Hall in New York in 1941, explores sounds ranging from the bizarre and ironic to the most intimate and personal writing of his output. The evening closes with the companion piece of Lady Isabelle, Steven Snowden‘s Appalachian Polaroids, a work originally inspired by a set of Shelby Lee Adams’ gritty portraits. This innovative piece directly incorporates the sounds of the Appalachian folk tradition through an integrated 1976 field recording of the song Black is the Color. For the first time, the field recording and live performance will be merged onstage with a collection of Adam’s portraits, to stunning effect.
Tuesday, February 18 at 8 PM
Tickets $20, $15 Members/Students/Seniors, FREE for All Access Members
Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
..:: Website

JACK Quartet

JACK Quartet performs the complete string quartets of noted contemporary German composer Helmut Lachenmann, to coincide with a new recording.
Wednesday, February 19 at 7:30 PM
Tickets $35, $25 for members
The Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, New York, NY
..:: Website

Alarm Will Sound/Dance Heginbotham: Twinned

In this site-specific performance created for The Charles Engelhard Court, Alarm Will Sound and Dance Heginbotham pair movement with the music of Tyondai Braxton, Aphex Twin, and Edgard Varèse.
Thursday, February 20 at 7 PM
Tickets $60, $1 ages 7-16 (when accompanied by an adult)
Gallery 700 (The Charles Engelhard Court), Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave New York, NY
..:: Website

American Composers Orchestra

American Composers Orchestra pairs Steve Reich’s influential work Eight Lines with David Lang’s statement to the court—based on Eugene Deb’s court statement after his landmark conviction in his fight for free speech—as well as world premieres from Lisa Renée Coons and Amy Beth Kirsten.
Thursday, February 20 at 7:30 PM
Tickets $43-$50
Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall, 881 7th Ave, New York, NY
..:: Website

American Woman | Momenta Quartet

As part of Tania Leon’s Composers Now Festival, Momenta will explore the unique voices of American women composers from diverse cultural and stylistic backgrounds. This event will include a panel discussion with the composers about their various experiences and points-of-view as female composers. The program will include works by Ileana Perez Velazquez, Eleanor Cory, Heidi Jacob, and August Read Thomas as well as a world premiere of a work by Elizabeth Brown.
Thursday, February 20 at 8 PM
Tickets $10
The Firehouse Space, 246 Frost St, Brooklyn, NY
..:: Website

Music of Chou Wen-Chung

Marsyas Productions honors composer Chou Wen-chung with a very special 90th birthday tribute concert featuring Boston Musica Viva, Talujon, Jayn Rosenfeld and Christopher Oldfather.
Thursday, February 20 at 8 PM
Tickets $20-$30, $10 students/seniors
Merkin Concert Hall, 129 W. 67th Street, New York, NY
..:: Website

Attractions: New and Recent works by Random Access Music Composers

The program will feature David Fetherolf’s Musings: for Leon (Tom Piercy, clarinet & Al Cerulo, percussion); 3 Phantasies by Allen Schulz (Kate Dillingham, ‘Cello); Three Songs from Science Fair by Stefan Weisman (Hai-Ting Chinn, mezzo-soprano and Jody Schum, pianist); Wang Jie’s Sonata for Piano (Wang Jie, piano); Pause – for a moment by Gilbert Galindo (Amelia Lukas, piccolo & Jody Schum, piano); and David Schober’s The Pillow Book (Makoto Nakura, vibraphone, Ririko Okada, flute).
Friday, February 21 at 8 PM
Tickets $20
Cary Hall, DiMenna Center for Classical Music, 450 W. 37th Street, New York, NY
..:: Website

Moby Dick: Extracts on Death and Other Curiosities

MATA Interval presents two rising stars of the DIY new music scene in a modern oratorio inspired by Melville’s Moby Dick. Composer collective West Fourth New Music Collective (W4) joins Contemporaneous, a New York-based new music ensemble, in the world premiere of Moby Dick: Extracts on Death and Other Curiosities. Collaboratively written by composers and W4 co-founders Matt Frey, Tim Hansen, Molly Herron, and Ruben Naeff, the evening-length piece composes through Melville’s novel, focusing on themes and events related to mortality, identity, and the hunt.
Friday, February 21 at 8 PM
Tickets $15, $12 members/students
ISSUE Project Room, 22 Boerum Place, Brooklyn, NY
..:: Website

Alexandrina Boyanova, violin

Violinist Alexandrina Boyanova performs music by Biber, Pisendel, Paganini, Ernst, Berio, and Christoskov.
Saturday, February 22 at 7:30 PM
Tickets $15, $10 students/seniors
Spectrum, 121 Ludlow Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY
..:: Website

Begin. Again

The show will feature premiere of Hinge, which is accompanied by live music made in collaboration with Yui KItamura (previously featured on your site) and played live on stage by Multicultural Sonic Evolution (MuSE). Choreographer Valerie Green and composer Yui Kitamura collaborated for months in making the score. The result is a unique marriage of dance and music. Musicians include a violinist and two percussionists who use a wide range of instruments, from flower pots, to seashells, to drums.
Saturday, February 22 at 8 PM & Sunday, February 23 at 2:30 PM
Tickets $15 advance, $20 day of show, $10 students
LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, 31-10 Thomson Ave, Long Island City, NY
..:: Website

On Zephyr’s Strings

Featuring Ensemble Epomeo (violin, viola, cello) On Zephyr’s Strings is a program for string trio and shakuhachi with music of Beethoven, Mieczyslaw Weinberg and György Kurtág, plus world premiere pieces for shakuhachi and strings by Victoria Bond (a Kyo-Shin-An Arts Commission) and James Nyoraku Schlefer.
Sunday, February 23 at 4 PM
Tickets $25, $15 students/seniors
Tenri Cultural Institute, 43A W. 13th St, New York, NY
..:: Website

Kathy Tagg Series

Kathy Tagg begins her series at Spectrum.
Sunday, February 23 at 7 PM
Tickets $15, $10 students/seniors
Spectrum, 121 Ludlow Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY
..:: Website