This week: concerts in New York (April 21 – April 27, 2014)

The Business of Being a Composer Part 2 | MATA Festival

The legendary Ralph N. Jackson will host a workshop on the business of being a composer. The second of two such workshops during this year’s festival, this one will focus on how to present yourself and interact with existing classical music institutions. Guests will include BMI’s VP of Classical Music Deirdre Chadwick who will discuss licensing your music, and others.
Monday, April 21 at 11 AM
RSVP to info@matafestival.org
BMI, 7 World Trade Center, New York, NY
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Music in the Afternoon | MATA Festival

Two snare drummers 150 yards apart turn the High Line into a giant monochord; what you hear will depend on where you stand.
Monday, April 21 at 1:30 PM
Free
The High Line, Between 19th and 21st Street, New York, NY
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Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival 2014

The second program in Victoria Bond’s Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival features Margaret Brouwer’s Blue Streak Ensemble in its New York debut. The April 21st performance includes the world premiere of Brouwer’s Inner Voices and the New York premiere of her Shattered Glass. Blue Streak also performs selections from Victoria Bond’s opera Clara (featuring soprano Sarah Beatty and baritone Branch Fields) and the world premiere of Oscar-winning composer Jonathan Tunick’s Trio.
Monday, April 21 at 7:30 PM
Tickets $20, $15 students
Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, New York, NY
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Man Forever and So Percussion

Man Forever and So Percussion will perform their new collaborative album Ryonen in its entirety at Le Poisson Rouge in New York on April 21st to celebrate its release.
Monday, April 21 at 8 PM
Tickets $15 advance, $17 day of show
(Le) Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY
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Neue Vocalsolisten: American Premieres | MATA Festival

The 2014 MATA Festival concludes with an evening that pairs MIVOS Quartet with Mantra Percussion in an evening of circles, seasons, and revolutions. Lisa Streich of Sweden begins the night with Play Time, her tribute to Jacques Tati in which three percussionists explore the resonant properties of a bicycle by beating, scraping and plucking it. Ansgar Beste’s Pelerinage Fantastique is a journey to the center of the prepared string quartet. MATA’s own outgoing Artistic Director Yotam Haber’s Torus, inspired by the sculpture of Richard Serra, is a study in the monumentality of forms; while Daniel Wohl’s Progression puts its faith in mechanics. From China, comes Ke Xu’s Tai Chi a gestural study in stillness, motion and entropy. Paula Matthusen’s The Days are Nouns, a setting of the Norwegian Table Prayer, sung by Jamie Jordan, channels our focus to the passage of time and the succoring power of each day.
Monday, April 21 at 8 PM
Tickets $20, $15 students
The Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street, New York, NY
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Miako Klein

Contemporary recorder music with works by Giorgio Tedde, Oscar Bianchi, Maki Ishii, Luciano Berio.
Monday, April 21 at 9 PM
Tickets $15, $10 students
Spectrum, 121 Ludlow Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY
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collected stories: hero

This inventive program, curated by composer-in-residence David Lang, examines the use of music to prop up a heroic character or underscore an anti-hero. Vocalist, harpist, and scholar Benjamin Bagby performs scenes from his dramatic interpretation of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, followed by the Harry Partch Institute Ensemble’s performance of The Wayward, Partch’s collection of musical compositions based on the spoken and written words of hobos riding trains, hitchhiking, and searching for nourishment during the Great Depression in the Western United States.
Tuesday, April 22 at 6 PM
Tickets $34-$40
Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall, 881 7th Ave, New York, NY
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American Opera Projects and American Modern Ensemble – Two New Operas | Ear Heart Music

What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be chosen? In this unlikely pairing of two new chamber operas, disparate storylines separated by millennia are juxtaposed to fascinating effect, showcasing a myriad of angles by which to examine these themes. The Wanton Sublime, from composer Tarik O’Regan and librettist Anna Rabinowitz, features mezzo-soprano Hai-Ting Chinn under the direction of Mallory Catlett. The Companion, by composer Robert Paterson and librettist David Cote, features soprano Nancy Allen Lundy, tenor Brandon Snook and baritone Kyle Guglielmo under the direction of Walker Lewis.
Tuesday, April 22 at 8 PM
Tickets $20, $15 members/students/seniors, Free for All Access Members
Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
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collected stories: spirit

From the rugged terrain of Siberia to the grand cathedrals of Europe, this program examines how different cultures approach a sacred subject. The otherworldly throat singing group Huun-Huur-Tu creates overtones, hymns, and chants that defy conceived limitations of the human voice, while offering audiences a glimpse into the remote region. Their astonishing exploration of spiritualism is juxtaposed with Arvo Pärt’s meditative and mystic Passio, a contemporary setting of the gospel according to St. John.
Wednesday, April 23 at 6 PM
Tickets $34-$40
Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall, 881 7th Ave, New York, NY
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Nicholas Mariscal

Music of the Americas presents cellist Nicholas Mariscal, winner of the third Latin American Music Recording Competition at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music’s Latin American Music Center (LAMC), in a concert at Americas Society. Mr. Mariscal will be performing works from his release Nubes bajas, A Collection of Solo Cello Music from Latin America.
Wednesday, April 23 at 7 PM
Free for Americas Society members, $20 for nonmembers, $10 for students with ID
Americas Society, 680 Park Avenue, New York, NY
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Talea Ensemble

Talea Ensemble performs the US premiere of Georges Aperghis’s Happy End for animated film, electronics, and ensemble.
Wednesday, April 23 at 8 PM
Free (reservation required here)
Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
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Music of Alex Mincek

The composer performs his work with special guests.
Wednesday, April 23 at 9 PM
Tickets $15, $10 students
Spectrum, 121 Ludlow Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY
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collected stories: love/loss

Signal explores the duality of love and lost love in narrative music making in a concert that also features The Uncluded (Aesop Rock and Kimya Dawson), Nico Muhly, Sam Amidon, Iarla Ó Lionáird, and Nadia Sirota. Curated by David Lang—this season’s holder of the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair—as part of his collected stories series, the program includes works by Julia Wolfe and Nico Muhly that musically examine the emotional impact and intensity of intoxicating love, envy, betrayal, and devastating loss.
Thursday, April 24 at 6 PM
Tickets $34-$40
Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall, 881 7th Ave, New York, NY
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Sounds of Serendipity

Part 3 of concert series curated by NY-based conductor and composer Peter Breiner, great grandson of Antonin Dvorak.
Friday, April 25 at 7 PM
Free
Czech Center, 321 East 73rd Street, New York, NY
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Face the Music

Teenage new music sensations Face the Music return to the Neighborhood Classics concert series to perform music by three of the ensemble’s own members — Sam Mellins’ Sax Quartet; Jonah Murphy’s Allegro for mixed ensemble and Owen Carter’s Sequester for chamber orchestra — plus Vijay Iyer’s Three Fragments.
Friday, April 25 at 7:30 PM
Tickets $15
P.S. 142, 100 Attorney Street, New York, NY
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FLUX Quartet

FLUX Quartet plays Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No. 2, a six-hour feat of endurance and transcendence for both performers and audience alike.
Saturday, April 26 at 3 PM
Tickets $40
Park Avenue Armory, Board of Officers Room, 643 Park Avenue, New York, NY
..:: Website

Lubomyr Melnyk / Antti Tolvi

As part of Ultima Festival NY, ISSUE presents an afternoon concert at the First Unitarian Church in Brooklyn Heights pairing solo piano performances by the young Finnish musician Antti Tolvi and acclaimed composer/performer Lubomyr Melnyk, architect of the “Continuous Music” method. Both pianists venture far outside the classical tradition, sharing a special emphasis on the instrument’s capacity for extended harmony and overtone, and explorations of non-linear duration.
Saturday, April 26 at 3 PM
Tickets $15, $12 members/students
First Unitarian Congregational Society, 116 Pierrepont St, New York, NY
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collected stories: travel

The Années de pèlerinage is a massive undertaking for any pianist, clocking in at more than 180 minutes and requiring extreme ranges of virtuosic fireworks and emotional commitment. This musical diary is a travelogue of the composer’s years of pilgrimage, summing up memories and visions inspired by his physical and psychic journey. Dynamic pianist Louis Lortie brings performs the marathon concert of this spellbinding masterwork in its entirety.
Saturday, April 26 at 6 PM
Tickets $34-$40
Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall, 881 7th Ave, New York, NY
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Mari Kimura

Featuring works and world premieres by Hannah Lash, Eric Moe and Mari Kimura. Mari will perform her own multi-lingual, interactive audio/visual mini-opera entitled ONE, joined by multi-lingual vocalist Jin-Xiang Yu and Cassatt String Quartet.
Saturday, April 26 at 7:30 PM
Tickets $20
Spectrum, 121 Ludlow Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY
..:: Website

Concert 2 | Dynamic Music Festival

The Dynamic Music Festival is a two-day concert series dedicated to premiering works by composers attending universities in the New York City area. The 16 composers participating in the Dynamic Music Festival’s inaugural year are students at NYU, Juilliard, the Manhattan School of Music, Mannes, Columbia, Sarah Lawrence, and Bard. The Dynamic Music Festival has also assembled an ensemble of 30 young and talented musicians to premiere the works under the direction of distinguished conductor David Bloom of Contemporaneous. Composers on this evenings program include Robert Karpay, Max Yassky, Molly Joyce, Dominick Boyle, Michael Kropf, Solomon Hoffman, Alex Porter, and Jon Cziner.
Saturday, April 26 at 8 PM
Free
Provincetown Playhouse, 133 MacDougal Street, New York, NY
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collected stories: (post)folk

Alarm Will Sound and its fearless Artistic Director Alan Pierson uncover how composers utilize musical language to underscore factual and fictional history. The group performs Donnacha Dennehy’s Grá agus Bás, which weaves traditional Irish music into contemporary forms to address the ebb of ancient morphing into the present. The program also includes the US premiere of Richard Ayres’ No. 42 In the Alps, incorporating yodeling and other folk idioms to articulate the tale of a young plane crash survivor, portrayed by the haunting Jennifer Zetlan, as well as the world premieres of commissions by Australian composer Kate Moore and avant-garde virtuoso guitarist Kaki King.
Sunday, April 27 at 6 PM
Tickets $34-$40
Carnegie Hall, Zankel Hall, 881 7th Ave, New York, NY
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Double Helix | Metropolis Ensemble

The concert features world premieres of works commissioned by violinist Kristin Lee for pairings of violin with another instrument. Five award-winning composers bring the distinct sounds, styles and backgrounds of their native countries to the pieces they’ve written. In addition to Fung’s Twist written for Jason Vieaux, composer/performers include Andy Akiho, steelpan; Jakob Ciupinski, theramin; Shobana Raghavan, South Indian singing; Bridget Kibbey, harp; and Patrick Castillo, spoken word.
Sunday, April 27 at 7 PM
Tickets $15-$75
(Le) Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY
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New Sounds Africa | Kathy Tagg

Pianist Kathy Tagg presents her New Sounds Africa series on contemporary African music.
Sunday, April 27 at 7 PM
Tickets $15, $10 students
Spectrum, 121 Ludlow Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY
..:: Website