NY Phil performs Adams's The Wound-Dresser ... Laurie Anderson previews new piece at MASS MoCA ... Carolina Chocolate Drops bring "electrifying show" to Dartmouth, Birchmere ... Richard Goode gives free concert in Florida ... Kronos Quartet gives West Coast premiere of A Chinese Home at Stanford ... The Low Anthem joins Dave Douglas for NY's Festival of New Trumpet Music ... Punch Brothers play three shows in Colorado ... Joshua Redman's new quartet plays Paris ... and more ...
John Adams is in New York City to attend performances of The Wound-Dresser, his 1988-89 piece for baritone and chamber orchestra based on a Walt Whitman text from Leaves of Grass, at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. Baritone Thomas Hampson joins the New York Philharmonic, led by Music Director Alan Gilbert, for three performances of the piece on a program that also includes Haydn's Symphony No. 49, Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, and Berg's Three Orchestral Pieces. The program premiered last night, with encore performances scheduled for this afternoon and Saturday night. Both concerts will be preceded by pre-concert talks with musicologist James M. Keller. For more information, including a video clip in which Hampson discusses The Wound-Dresser, visit nyphil.org.
Not far from the city, violinist Midori will join pianist Charles Abramovic for performances of Adams's Road Movies at Princeton University's Institute for Advanced Study, with post-concert talks in Wolfensohn Hall, tonight and Saturday night. Both concerts are sold-out.
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As mentioned early today in the Nonesuch Journal, Laurie Anderson is at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, this weekend as part of a weeklong residency to develop her new work, Delusion. On Saturday afternoon, she will be at MASS MoCA's Hunter Center to speak about her creative process and discuss the piece, which will premiere on February 16 and run for a week at the Vancouver Playhouse as part of that city's Cultural Olympiad.
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Carolina Chocolate Drops got its tour under way with three stops last weekend. On Saturday, the group returns to Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, to bring what the nearby Barre Montpelier Times Argus is calling the trio's "unique sound and electrifying live show" to Spaulding Auditorium. The band will also participate in a post-concert discussion and will give a free concert geared to children aged three to nine at the school's Alumni Hall earlier that day.
Times Argus correspondent Tom Huntington says the Drops' forthcoming Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig, shows "the trio to be in its finest form yet, delivering an excellent set of mostly traditional tunes that ranges from barn-burning kickers to more nuanced tunes that find the trio exploring some new sonic territory with stellar results." Read more at timesargus.com.
On Monday, the Carolina Chocolate Drops perform a set at The Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC, with Red Molly opening. The Drops spoke with DCist for a preview of Monday's concert. "First and foremost," says the band's Don Flemons, "we want the audience to walk away knowing that they saw a very entertaining show. After that, if they learn something about the music or the history, that's good too." Read the article at dcist.com.
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Richard Goode performs a free concert at St. Paul’s By-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, this evening. Earlier in the week, Goode performed a recital in Palm Beach, in which, said the South Florida Classical Review, the pianist was "blissfully lost in the joy of making music." Read that in-depth concert review at southfloridaclassicalreview.com.
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Kronos Quartet joins pipa virtuoso Wu Man for the West Coast premiere of A Chinese Home, along with a performance of Tan Dun's Ghost Opera, at Stanford University's Memorial Auditorium on Saturday. The multimedia piece was created by David Harrington, Kronos's artistic director and violinist, and Wu Man, and premiered at Carnegie Hall late last year. It was inspired by the story of Yin Yu Tang, a 300-year-old house from a southeastern Chinese village that was dismantled piece-by-piece at the turn of the millennium and rebuilt at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.
In a preview of the concert, the Palo Alto Daily News's Paul Freeman calls A Chinese Home "a most ambitious project" and talks with Harrington about the creation of the new work. You can read about it at mercurynews.com. The San Francisco Classical Voice offers insight as well at sfcv.org. Harrington and the other members of the Quartet will be on hand after the concert for a post-performance discussion of the piece.
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The Low Anthem, fresh of a stellar US television debut on the Late Show with David Letterman last night, remains in New York City tonight to join trumpeter Dave Douglas in a performance at the Henry Street Settlement's Abrons Art Center as part of the Festival of New Trumpet Music.
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Punch Brothers perform each of the weekend nights at cities throughout Colorado. The shows begin in Boulder at the Fox Theatre tonight; head next to Aspen for a Saturday set at the Wheeler Opera House; and finally to Beaver Creek's Vilar Center on Sunday.
Chris Thile gave the Denver Post a preview of this weekend's shows, saying of his fellow Punch Brothers: "It's a fun band to be in because it takes care of all sides of my musical wish list—all of the things I want to experience in a band." Read more at denverpost.com.
Thile spoke with the Aspen Times as well, both about what to expect in the live set and on the band's forthcoming follow-up album to its 2008 Nonesuch debut, Punch. "I think this band is taking a more visceral angle," he explains, "without losing cerebral integrity.” That article can be found at aspentimes.com.
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Joshua Redman performs with his new quartet, James Farm, featuring Aaron Parks on piano, Matt Penman on bass, and Eric Harland on drums, at Salle Pleyel in Paris on Saturday.
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