Rhiannon Giddens guest curates and performs at North Carolina Folk Festival … David Byrne brings American Utopia to Northeast … Jeremy Denk joins Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for Beethoven … Tigran Hamasyan performs in Japan … Gabriel Kahane launches Book of Travelers tour … The Gospel at Colonus is in NYC's Central Park … Kronos Quartet is in Italy, Latvia … Lake Street Dive is out West … k.d. lang takes Ingénue to Florida … Robert Plant plays St. Louis … Punch Brothers are All Ashore in Midwest ...
Rhiannon Giddens is the guest curator of and a performer at the 2018 North Carolina Folk Festival in her hometown of Greensboro this weekend. Her program includes a performance and discussion with public school students; an evening of jazz, spoken word, and tap dance; a symposium on Banjo Cultures and Community, Transformations Through Time; a banjo traditions workshop; a performance titled Roots of American Dance: From Flat Footing to Tap with Giddens and others; a Saturday night concert by Giddens featuring songs from her Nonesuch solo albums Freedom Highway and Tomorrow Is My Turn; a Sunday afternoon event titled Historic Dance Offs: An Improv Interplay Between Banjo and Dance; plus additional performances by invited artists throughout the weekend.
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David Byrne begins the next US leg of his American Utopia world tour in the Northeast this weekend, performing at Monmouth University’s OceanFirst Bank Center in West Long Branch, New Jersey, tonight, Oakdale Theater in Wallingford, Connecticut, on Saturday, and Palace Theater in Albany on Sunday. Tune-Yards opens for Byrne throughout this leg of the tour. (You can watch Tune-Yards’ Merrill Garbus perform with Chris Thile in a new video here.)
“The American Utopia show is, quite simply, a wonder of imagination, ambition and execution,” exclaims the Los Angeles Times, “a frequently breathtaking celebration of the miracle of life, even with all of humanity’s trials and tribulations. Byrne remains an absolute master of the theater of live music, and his latest is no exception: American Utopia is a joy to behold.”
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Jeremy Denk joins the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra for the opening weekend of its 2018–19 season, leading the ensemble in a performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor, at Ordway Concert Hall tonight, Saturday, and Sunday afternoon. The program also includes Terry Riley’s In C and Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915.
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Pianist Tigran Hamasyan concludes his four-city tour of Japan with a solo performance at Advance Hall in Saga tonight, playing selections from his recently released EP, For Gyumri, and 2017 album, An Ancient Observer. He heads to the States for a two-week run of dates next month.
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Gabriel Kahane, whose Nonesuch debut album, Book of Travelers, is out now, begins an international tour with a concert at Bourbon & Branch in Philadelphia tonight. He continues with performances at Jammin’ Java in Vienna, Virginia, on Saturday, and Creative Alliance in Baltimore on Sunday.
Kahane discussed Book of Travelers with NPR's All Things Considered, and performed songs from it on New Sounds' Soundcheck last week. The new album is “a generous, beautiful snapshot of America,” says San Francisco Chronicle’s Joshua Kosman. “Extraordinary ... vivid and wholly original ... A stirring, subtly delineated dispatch from a nation in turmoil.”
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The Gospel at Colonus, Bob Telson and Lee Breuer's groundbreaking retelling of Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, concludes its limited engagement at the Delacorte Theater in New York City this weekend, presented by The Public Theater and the Onassis Foundation USA. Tickets are distributed at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park beginning at noon on the day of the show.
Nonesuch Records released the original cast recording of The Gospel at Colonus, made in a 1985 live performance in Philadelphia. The Washington Post called it “dramatically audacious” and praised the Nonesuch recording's “powerhouse performances” and “sheer massed strength of the various gospel choirs.” The New York Times calls it “an exhilarating musical celebration.”
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Kronos Quartet performs at Piccolo Teatro Grassi in Milan on Friday, as part of MITO SettembreMusica, and at Teātra nams “Jūras vārti” in Ventspils, Latvia, on Sunday. The programs include works by Laurie Anderson, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, John Coltrane, Pete Townshend, George Gershwin, and more, including the world premiere of a new take on W.C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues,” arranged for Kronos by Jacob Garchik, as well as several works written and composed for the quartet’s Fifty for the Future commissioning project.
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Lake Street Dive continues its North American Free Yourself Up tour with a sold-out show at Belly Up Aspen in Colorado tonight, followed by a show at Eccles Theater in Salt Lake City on Sunday. The Lexington-Herald Leader, previewing last weekend’s performance at Manchester Music Hall, praises the band for its “songs abounding with melodic hooks, harmonies that revert to the soul and rock sounds of a past generation and an earth-rattling voice at the helm.”
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k.d. lang begins the nine-city Southern US leg of her Ingénue Redux Tour in Florida this weekend, with concerts at Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Ft. Lauderdale tonight and Walt Disney Theater in Orlando on Saturday. The tour follows the release of a re-mastered Anniversary Edition of Ingénue on Nonesuch last year.
“The music has really surprised me in terms of the band and the songs and the communication and where we’ve taken it,” lang tells the Miami New-Times in an interview ahead of tonight’s show. “It was an important record for me personally. I think it was an important time in society because I came out and ... the LGBTQ community—we were making an announcement, really, that we were coming out.” You can read what else she had to say here.
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Robert Plant and his band the Sensational Space Shifters kick off a fall US tour, featuring music from Plant's latest album, Carry Fire, and favorites from throughout his career, at The Pageant in St. Louis on Sunday. The shows continue throughout the month in Kansas City, Santa Fe, Tucson, Louisville, Dallas, and more, culminating at Austin City Limits Live at Moody Theater on October 1.
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Punch Brothers take their All Ashore summer tour to Symphony Center in Chicago tonight, before heading to Missouri for shows at Touhill Performing Arts Center in St. Louis on Saturday and Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City on Sunday.
Punch Brothers played “It's All Part of the Plan” from the new album on Conan last week; you can watch the performance here.
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