I’ve been kicking myself for having missed a number of music events in New York this spring featuring ETHEL, the New York-based amplified string quartet. They don’t do a huge number of gigs—like all working musicians they have packed schedules filled with other musical things, and don’t exclusively devote themselves to ETHEL-ing. So as it turns out, the only performance I actually caught was their world premiere performance—with laptop composer Jay Flower and hyper-accordionist Michael Ward Bergeman—of a new work by Osvaldo Golijov at the April opening of WNYC’s Greene Performance Space.
The latest self-kick came after hearing a stunning new CD called John the Revelator, Phil Kline’s eerie and strangely uplifting modern-day mass, on which ETHEL performs with the all-male a cappella group Lionheart (hear the third movement from John the Revelator after the jump). read more
At long last, this week I headed down to Poisson Rouge—the hip club at the former site of the Village Gate that opened last summer—yes, the spot that has been covered to death in the media, meaning the possibility exists that I am just way too un-cool to even set foot inside the place. Or, to paraphrase Groucho Marx, should I be allowed to visit any club that would have me as a member?
So it took a while, but in the performance that finally brought me to this place turned out to be FLECTION, produced and conducted by Paul Haas and his SymphoNYC ensemble —a chamber orchestra—joined by live electronica artist Paul Fowler. The piece uses Barber’s Adagio for Strings as a departure point and brings in music by Judd Greenstein, Haas, and Fowler at key “points of inflection,” with added instruments like oboe, flute, clarinet, bassoon, trombone, and trumpet (and of course live electronica). The performance was billed as a “continuous visual and sonic experience” and promised “lighting and other visual and spatial elements.” All-capital-letters are apparently part of the Sympho marketing philosophy: you may remember one of the ensemble’s earlier New York concerts, REWIND at the Angel Orensanz Center in 2006, or TRACES in March 2008. read more
It’s kismet that Stephen Petronio’s recent Joyce Theater run, which ended last weekend, coincided with that of Trisha Brown Dance Company’s BAM engagement, but it proved an interesting scheduling twist. Mentor and protégé dancing across the river from one another—in Petronio parlance, recalling his memorable dance City of Twist of a several years back—you might say “twist of boroughs.”
Petronio danced with Brown from 1979-86, and was the first male dancer with her company. Dancing for such an inventor as Brown in the formative years of his career might leave a tangible imprint on Petronio’s vocabulary. But he created a unique language that seemed radical when he began, and 25 years later, still looks remarkably fresh and independent from Brown’s style, apart from flowing, organic phrasing.
Another of Brown’s influences that Petronio might have picked up is the knack for choosing smart collaborators. read more
Attention spans are definitely getting shorter. The whole internet thing, Google, texting, Twitter – how much shorter can the essence of a thought get than 140 characters or an emoticon? And now brevity has ferociously seized the performing arts with 60×60 Dance.
This free event, at the World Financial Center’s Arts>World on November 14 at 12:30pm and 7pm, is perfect for those of us with ADD. Founded by composer Robert Voisey, it pairs 60 choreographers with 60 composers to create 60 works 60 seconds in length. Voisey, director of new music group Vox Novus began the project in the shape of a one hour concert, one composer per minute.
The composers, from far and wide, were paired with choreographers from New York gathered by Jeramy Zimmerman, a contributor as well. The fact that there are 60 choreographers in the city able and willing to participate in this project is pretty remarkable, a testament to the city’s cultural chops. read more
In his new autobiography, Put on a Happy Face, composer Charles Strouse at one point writes, “If you speak of musical failures, to most people, it’s as boring as hearing about ‘the four hours I spent waiting for a plane at the Buffalo airport.’”
Most people—except for musical-theater fans, that is! America is said to be obsessed with success, but Broadway has a singularly obsessive relationship with failure; no wonder one of the most beloved books about theater, Ken Mandelbaum’s Not Since Carrie, is subtitled “Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops.” It’s not surprising, then, that the most interesting parts of Strouse’s books concern his misfires. read more
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